Festival season is here—and so is Alex Mac, our go-to live music and event strategist. In this high-energy episode of Tickets to Travel, we dive deep into the travel trends, ticketing behaviors, and cultural moments shaping the global music festival scene in 2025. From Ultra’s surprise Sia set in Miami to Lollapalooza's genre-bending lineups and the Backstreet Boys invading the Sphere in Vegas, Alex unpacks how streaming, Gen Z culture, and city infrastructure are redefining how (and why) we travel for live events.
We break down:
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Why Lollapalooza sold out in hours (and what it means for hotel and flight pricing)
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Coachella’s strategy for staying genre-agnostic and culturally iconic
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What makes a “hard ticket” vs. “soft ticket” act—and why it matters to travel pros
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How the Sphere in Las Vegas is challenging traditional touring economics
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The rise of festival flight pricing, soft ticket strategies, and the Spotify effect on live lineups
Whether you're a travel professional, festival producer, or music-loving jetsetter—this episode gives you the backstage pass to summer 2025’s festival frenzy.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome back to Tickets to Travel, the Business of Travel Experiences. I'm your host, Mario Bwin, and today's episode is a special one, guys. Because we're bringing back a favorite voice on the pod, someone who's got the inside track on the intersection of music, live events, and the global travel economy.
(00:01):
That's right. Alex Mack is back with us, our go-to live music and event strategist. If you caught our previous conversation, Alex brings unmatched insights, some bold takes, and yes, including that Drake versus Kendrick debate, which we'd never really resolved on his side, and a deep understanding of how music festivals shape and are shaped by travel trends.
I. Alex, we are thrilled to have you back. Last time you were here, you're a little under the weather, but still drop some gems this time around. You're coming in hot and just in time. We're kicking off festival season here in 2025, and there is so much to unpack from the return of Ultra Music Fest in Miami to Lollapalooza selling out in just hours.
The live music scene is booming and the travel patterns around all these events are even more telling. In this episode, we're diving into how streaming has reshaped lineups, how Gen Z is curating its own festival culture, and what it really takes to build an experience worth flying across the country for, or the world from Coachella to the sphere in Las Vegas.
We're breaking it all down with Alex, so buckle up. Whether you're a music super fan, a travel strategist, or just looking for the next can't miss event. This is an episode for you, Alex Mack is back and as always, follow us on all the socials at Ticks two. That's the number two travel pod, and obviously subscribe wherever you get your podcast because.
Tickets to Travel starts now.
Welcome to Tickets to Travel, the Business of Travel Experiences. I'm your host, Mario Wyne, and we are back. We are back with Alex McLean, our good friend, and also live music strategist. Alex, welcome back to Tickets to Travel.
Thank you for having me back. Mario. Really excited to be here and get a second chance.
Last time I was feeling a little sick.
You were probably sick because I, I opened up with the Drake versus Kendrick conversation and you pulled back a little bit. I think you really wanted to go hard 'cause I did call you out. You were this like big Drake fan and then all of a sudden you're Kendra.
Anyway, we don't need each other.
I'm gonna, I'm gonna be provocative here just to start the episode. Drake might be back. Nokia is slapping, to be honest, he's done like 150 million plays on Spotify in six weeks. Pretty good.
I mean if UMG lets him do it, yeah, you're right. He is doing pretty well.
Yeah.
Bosses
is never the buyable strategy about, and it's like your brother that goes to rehab and you just want him to get healthy. 'cause you remember all the time playing blocks with him as a kid. Just, that's what I want. I want him to win. That's an in,
that's an interesting analogy that Drake is here.
Little brother and you're playing. Anyway, I see where you're going with this. I do. But welcome back. We're happy to have you. As I start to look at travel in general and we start to look at the summer, people think about music festivals, obviously, and we're here, what is it? We're the first week of April.
It's amazing. Oh, we have not great weather here, but an amazing lineup coming up of summer festivals. But we started out with this first quarter of the year. Just some amazing shows at the sphere in Las Vegas, obviously. And as we start to talk about festivals, we had Rolling Loud, we had Ultra Music Fest, Miami Music Week last week.
What are some just initial thoughts of these first couple of festivals that have come up here in 2025 season?
First off, I think talking with Ultra really incredible celebration for them, it's 25 years in Bayfront Park. Huge accomplishment for any festival to make it that far. It's quite difficult to do.
I think overall they did an excellent job this year of having, I. Strong headliners at the main program, but then they flushed out Miami Music League probably to a degree, which they never had. It felt like they were activating, of course, all the main places, the big clubs and the group hospitality venues.
(00:22):
But they also were doing a ton of popups and using a lot of Miami's new creative spaces that have emerged off the back of like kind of the Bitcoin boom up the early part of this decade. I thought they were really successful in curating a very desirable experience. They managed the rain this year very well, and they put together two of the coolest moments I have personally ever seen a festival.
One was Relic's Big Return, of course, for a decade, was the last time the headline. And the other one was a very fun surprise where Afrojack and David Getta joined Stage together and they brought out Sia. Wow. And they played titanium together for the first time live ever in history. I couldn't believe it.
I just was watching it and I was like, wow. Imagine you're there with your best friends, having the prime of your life, and all of a sudden you get to see a live performance of one of the most iconic GM tracks ever with all the people you love, couldn't be more exciting. That's, that's the stuff that you as a promoter or a fan just dream about.
I
didn't even know that happened, and I think. The hairs on my arms stood up a little bit because what was, what year was that? Because I couldn't imagine. You're like, you're grooving, you're having a good time, maybe you've had a couple fluids, whatever. And then they roll Sia out with David gta and, and afr.
Come on man.
That's ridiculous. One of the greatest songs of all time. And it's probably like 10 or 12 years old. Yeah, 18 years old.
15 years old. That's around the time when I think EDM became more pop as well, so that that really had some stigma. I'm gonna actually go bump that in the car when we leave,
but that's one of, one of the things I've been observing, actually we were just talking about it at the office this week is almost feels like that music is having a little bit of a resurgence again.
It was huge for the early part of the last decade, and then that progressive house, big room is what a lot of the EDM people will call it. That swish house mafia anchored, broad love crowd music went away. I think part of it was maybe preference or definitely got oversaturated. So I think there was a lot of people that got away from the art and were more anchored on the culture around producing music like that.
I also think Covid was really bad for them. Right. That's music that you wanna be outside for with your friends at a club, and it feels like we're feeling like a little rebound now. You have a lot of DJs coming up on absolute fire. You look at John Summit, you look at Don Dala all fit into that of music.
Fred again. Right, exactly. It almost feels like younger generation, gen Z that's isn't so young anymore is starting to. Rediscover some of these things, but curate their own act. So that's another observation I have and just some of the success that Ultra has had. Specifically the last couple of years and getting some of those humongous big room acts of yesteryear and tomorrow to play together,
I think, and its impact to travel is the music, the gathering, the communities more than ever.
People are starting to become more aware of event travel associated to this. And I've just seen it over the course of maybe the span of this podcast where people are like, wow, I didn't really think about that impact. But the music itself brings people together, which in turn has these live events, and people want to share that experience.
They wanna make it happen. And so as we start to look at the summer, one of the things I noticed on social media in particular was that Lollapalooza sold out in a day or something like that. Like all three days. Something crazy. It was,
I think it was only a couple hours part. Yeah, it, I saw some of our friends posting on Instagram about how successful they were, which you love to see.
That was awesome. Yeah, no.
Just absolutely amazing. And one of the travel trends that I had seen, especially for Chicago in general, it was actually up to 95 to 98% in terms of occupancy over that time period. And that's something that was reported last year, and that was already up by two to 3%. And so you're gonna see these, they're classifying them as festival zones, right?
They're able to. Track over these particular dates, the impact that it has on at least hotel occupancies and short-term rentals. And so I think the indication of a few hours of Lollapalooza selling out is just obviously tremendous. So I. What do you think? Is that indicative of Lollapalooza or does it typically take a little while for them
to sell out la?
They do. Which we used to talk about a lot at.
(00:43):
Oh, by the way, you're from Chicago. You've been going there since you were in diapers, right? Right. It was my first
one. Yeah. Calvin Harris Corn 11, maybe. That was like one of my first. Yeah, I think there is a couple of things. One specific to WA Palooza, which is.
It feels like every four years they put out like three fire lineups and one that's like a clunker, and then everyone's like they're over and then the next year they come back with something and insane is how it was the last couple of years for them. I think the frameworks that I would encourage people to think about that are a music travel spaces have two ways that you could design a music travel event.
The first way is using existing infrastructure in the backbone of a major metropolitan area. And so you look at some of the most successful festivals that would be ultra in Miami, let's say Wild Palouse in Chicago, outside lands in San Francisco, they have the benefit of being smack in the middle of the city.
What that means is you have a much easier time with transportation, public transit options that are really good, that make it easy to get people in and out, occupancy to Mario's point where you have a tremendous amount of supply of hotels, Airbnbs, whatever else is Permittable in that region of the world.
That makes it very easy for people to travel in. You also have a, like a supply of activities where people could structure and build a true vacation around. This Wild Palooza is in the middle of August. It's generally very beautiful in Chicago. At that time of year, less than one day. It invariably has to rain.
Humidity is a factor, I think. And you could spend a whole weekend doing a ton of great activities in the city of Chicago and go to the festival at 3, 4, 5 o'clock every day, still five hours, six hours in East maybe, and feel like you took a proper vacation. And I think one of the advantages of those places where they build out in the Miamis and San Franciscos and Chicagos to continue our example, is that they can lean on a lot of that existing infrastructure to make for a so travel destination.
Now, the converse at that point is. Working with any of those beautiful cities requires a lot of tact for the promoters. You look at all the teams behind those productions I just mentioned, they have decades long relationships with municipalities. A mutual tremendous amount of work to make sure that it's gonna be successful.
Model A is lean on existing infrastructure to build out your experience, which then is gonna facilit increase the wheels of airfare and lodging and many other
things in including flights, by the way. 'cause that's another piece. Yeah, in preparation for those, taking a look at this, uh, being someone who's worked with hotels for a number of years, I never really dove into flights, but even the 2024 numbers are saying that all live event inventory is being booked 15% more than previous years around these particular events, they're also classifying them as festival flights, which has also created new packages from a transportation perspective.
I think the other thing that's really interesting outside of maybe Lalu, which booked up so fa or what sold out so fast is that last minute flights to major events are showing 30 to 40% higher prices in 2025 rather than, it's definitely a shift. This is a strong. A segment of travel that is now because of the way that these concerts, festivals, various events, create demand, it does through the entire travel ecosystem, increase everything you you can think of around it.
So I feel like you got the transportation piece, you have the backbone, you have the infrastructure for where these festivals are gonna happen. One of the things that obviously draw people, Alex, are the lineups. What was the thing about Lollapalooza that just made the difference? I think this year,
I think one of the coolest things about the streaming generation is that has given everybody the ability to own a lot of music and furious things that maybe wouldn't have otherwise experienced.
Let's rewind the clock to CD era, which is when I grew up, or maybe vinyl era when other people grew up. Is that a jab? Really? I'm more of a cassette CD guy. Last year he was cleaning out the basement. He was, Hey, I have my vinyl collection. I'm gonna throw it away. And I was like, dude, first off, what's wrong with you?
Yeah. Second off, I started going through this crazy stuff in there Journey. We had the Tom Cruise Top Gun original song, Greg, and the one that I was like, dude, you cannot throw away. He had Diamond Life by Sade and he was just gonna put it in the bin. I was like, dad, no,
he can't do that. First of all, an original pressing will get you about 50 bucks, 60 bucks, right?
Like, come on man, you gotta talk to him. Put that on eBay real quick and just test out. I, man.
Yeah. Your question about the lineups, because now Spotify has enabled everybody to experience things. You don't have to go to the record store to buy a record. It costs 10, 20, 30 bucks, whatever it is. Once you pay that amount, you feel so obligated to listen to that record and because you bought that record, you can't purchase a bunch of other records.
And so I think that Spotify has disintermediate that. It's one of the best effects of that and the downstream impact of that. It is now being seen at festivals. You look at LA Pal's lineup, I've been joking with everybody, them in outside lands this year. Just something for everyone. Yeah, there's something for everyone.
You have Tyler creator and Luke Combs is the first day, which is. Hip Hop. Tyler's on the top of his game right now doing a massive tour. Chromo Copia, I think it's down like 95 to 97% sellouts in arenas. Mostly two to three per city across the us. Awesome show, by the way, saw a few weeks ago, one of my favorite shows I've seen in the last three or four years.
That's Friday and Luke obviously is selling out stadiums, football stadiums last year, so he's a humongous act. Then Friday you have Olivia, Arrigo and Korn. Which could not be further edge of the spectrum apart. Olivia's kind of punk rock. I mean, she's trying to be. For sure. Olivia is, is of all the sort of young pop girls, most likely I think to Chase Taylor and the Bell guys.
(01:04):
Chase Brady, all the pop stars of the chase. Yeah. Yeah. She's like alternative Taylor Charlie and her career is just Blossom. She's doing amazing with Gen Z, has really strong penetration with millennials as well. They got corn, which is like this cool legacy acts well that were like alternative internet hits like Mo bro.
And I think that's a really unique experience where a lot of people at Lalu probably would've never seen that kind of music. That's one A. Then Saturday you go to Rufuss to Soul, and twice again, like two totally obstinate of the Spectrum. Acts Rufuss, one of my favorite acts, they're probably gonna be by number one on Spotify this year.
If they can unseat Abel or Kendrick Lamar with very intellectual, like upper class dance music and gotta know somebody to understand why they're so popping. But they can do stadium tour on their own, which they're out right now, and I think they sold out pretty much all their dates in their 20. Stadiums and then you have twice, which is a humongous K-pop act.
Right. That's like doing their thing. And Lala has been pretty steadfast the last three years. They've had a K-Pop anchor, which I think is really significant. When I was at the Fest last year, I can't remember who they had. Was it Black Dink? No. Sspa.
Stray Kids. Stray Kids last year. Yep. We got it. Yeah. I mean, I just did a K-Pop Super fan.
Episode and I just learned so much, man. And also, I don't think I've mentioned this to you, but I went to South by Southwest and there was a very strong Korean tech community there. Very strong K-pop. So it's clear that from a media sort of zeitgeist, right, like it is right in there. So it makes a lot of sense if Lollapalooza is gonna at least have one sort of standard anchor because.
As you're describing it, man, that is three days of bangers. Oh, I know. And I
get it now. And I think the thing about K-Pop, it's so fascinating, is they look at it like a national export. It's not. It is creative arts of course, but it's also business. Yeah. And they ize it through all the camps and people that have seen the rise of some of the K-pop acts, most namely BTS and Black would be very familiar with that journey.
And so I was appalled last year at Straight, but I think it was straight Kids and scissor were the same night. And I was obviously like S Cs SSA is incredible. It was probably really a lot of people's like. In Stray Kids emerged, they'd gone straight in. They waited at the second stage for them all night and they were, that was the primary reason they went to the festival.
So that's moving a lot of tickets. If you're seats read your Lollapalooza, that's like maybe 10% of your inventory sos on one app, which is incredible. And then it rounds out with Sabrina Carpenter and ASAP Rock will feel very different. But if, well, you actually know those facts are
rocky. Headline of rolling loud.
Right. Came in on a helicopter and killed it.
That's pretty cool. And Rihanna was in public, which we did all that often, so, so yeah, I think really well-rounded there. Gen Z, millennial, good crossover. You get every single genre. So any person is gonna look at that and be like, okay, there's two or three things here for, so I think they, they took a really smart strategy.
I think outside Lands did something very similar as well. Right? They have a John Summit and Doja Cat. Tylers doing that one. Yep. Er you gotta remember, like you're in San Francisco, so you have a lot of granola people that like a humongous gift for them. Yep. And he's doing a tour Harrison Pack. They have our weekend.
Big Legacy X Glass Animals is out. Jamie xx, Gracie Abrams. So I think that one of the reasons these festivals are able to succeed. It is because they're not shackled by the rolling loud problem or the ultra problem, which is you have to give the same acts every year. 'cause there's only so many acts.
Right. It's very difficult to create differentiation. Right. You do like Rolling Loud was able to, this year with Playboy Cardi, you have a real cultural moment where he brings out a weekend and everyone's talking about rolling.
Yeah. So you're saying that these are killing it mainly because it's not genre specific and the to the initial statement is that.
Streaming has opened up the doors for any time. You're right, man. Like I'm bumping K-Pop Now that who would've known? Because it's so accessible. Before I had to go and make a conscious decision that I was gonna go buy this track or go buy this CD or whatever it is, and now you can test it out and you can sit in your car and or sit in your AirPods and listen to whatever you want.
No one has to hear it through this whole entire commentary. There's something missing. Coachella, are you going? And what are your initial thoughts of those lineups? And of course we're gonna talk about if you are going or people are going, how you're getting there and where you're staying.
I am going, I was ing this morning and it started to set in.
I was like, this time next week at Coachella, it's my favorite weekend of the year. I think in terms of thinking about that genre agnostic festival, Coachella was the pioneer of that and for years. Mr. Tla, we talked about this I think a little bit last time, is just so unbelievably incredible in the way that he has evolved himself.
(01:25):
The festival has been going for 30 years now or something like that, and it started as a rock festival. Very kind of cultural change's, addiction and these types of bands, and now it's every music, everything. And of course, they don't always, every single year they have bad years, good years, like any other festival.
But I think they have generally pioneered this concept that's taken many other festivals a long time. I think one interesting trend I have of Baja the last couple of years is that for a long time, at least for a decade, Coachella was getting acts that were impossible to get, and like the only place in the world that you could go see them was Coach L.
Right? They have the guns and roses, really, they have the outcasting, uh, fiance, right? They have Drake who never does festivals. They have all of these just incredible Frank Ocean that you're like, holy shit. How did they convince those people to play together? Been on stage? I haven't been on stage in many years.
Rick did his damn debut there, and I almost think in many ways that was a little bit of like a shackle for them because people have built up this expectation, right? The last three or four years we've all been chasing and they've been chasing two acts in particular. One named Taylor Swift, the other name named Robin Fenty, a k Rihanna.
So it's almost like when they don't deliver that people are like, what the fuck's going on? And I think the last couple of years they have alleviated themselves with some pressure because every act that could possibly want to play shows has been playing shows in the last few years, especially post Covid one, because they want the money, but two, because there is so much money in music and touring and festivals now.
That it would be unwise for any ad to sit out and not do a tour. And so I think now Coachella has the ability to not feel like they have to go get somebody that hasn't played the career, because that's a really, it's tough, right? It's, well, Kate Bush come play, well, Adele come play. It's like that's hard pressure to have as a team.
And this year I think they did it the same, very much the same thing that Lalapalooza did. Just maybe for a little bit of an older audience. Anchor, lady Gaga. Saturday, green Day, Sunday Post Malone, who could do a hip hop or country set. Probably gonna do a mix of both, I assume. Right. And then you got Travis Scott doing like the special guest thing that they have to get last few years.
So if you're between the ages of 20 and 35, you are in love with at least one of those artists. And if you have a lot of common sense, you're probably should be in love with all of that.
Absolutely. Yeah. The, the strategy's working for them and I feel like. What this came up in a, in an earlier conversation as well, it's really tough to keep things fresh, right?
Like you, what you're pointing out is. It is gotta appeal to a Gen Xer all the way down to a generation alpha. Is that what they're calling them now? These are like my kids, right, who are preteens and teens. And so that's another place where the K-Pop thing comes in as well, right? They have this swath of fandom.
How do you think they balance that? What do you, because I, I feel like there isn't enough new. Artists that could carry the stage at this point, at least, I don't know if it's a cycle of maybe every five years or every 10 years, where you have someone who can pack a stadium eventually, but there's this buildup to, Hey, I'm, you're gonna do small venues, you're gonna do a go to a certain cap number, and then you get to amphitheaters and stadiums and so on and so forth.
And the festival. Route allows them to have a little bit of flexibility. You have separate stages, different the EDM room, that kind of thing. And so how do you think just the music industry in general are able to create the pipeline for these festivals and live events to make it happen? Because maybe it's back to the streaming thing again, but like how do you break new artists now to where they have enough fans to support them?
In a, maybe a Coachella or any of these kind of side stages to eventually make the bet that they're gonna get to the main stage and be able to carry them a good five years down the line. Thoughts? I have me
thoughts
on
this. Maybe four or five
parts. Megan, that's why I asked a question because I sincerely was like, it's when, like I said, it came up earlier.
People are, can we keep sustain? When are you gonna get the other Taylor Swift? When are you gonna get the other Beyonce? Because. They're gonna cycle out here in a second. And especially if you start looking at the headlines, I think Billy Joel's not doing well. There's all these things where, you know, some of these legacy rock stars or just music legends are now starting to cycle out.
They're not gonna be able to tour anymore. Wanna take that last point you made and then I've written down four or five things. I'm gonna dig here in a second. We're in a really new era where a long time, especially pop stars, a really vicious business for young women to really have a lot of empathy for all of them to have to go through it.
'cause they burn very bright, but usually, typically not for very long. So what Beyonce and Taylor are doing is transcendence, to be honest. We never really see anything like that. Madonna, I suppose, would be gone. Kate, I think the digital age has given them new life where they're able to have a career 20 years into making music.
Beyonce or Taylor Swift Drops. People know and they care. And it's really remarkable because the way that record labels used to work back when they were printing CDs and vinyls is that there was a very constrained supply resource and they had to fight for studio time and marketing budgets. But now inside Spotify and other big tech companies have dis that it made it a lot easier for people to DIY or build their own brands, Taylor and Beyonce, in using the sort of most far into the spectrum examples.
(01:46):
Don't really need to do a lot of like outbound marketing. They have humongous channels that they own primarily and can continue to drop. And so as long as they're making high quality music or at least music that their fans love. They can continue probably to go on tour as long as they want. It's really unprecedented territory.
We were maybe six or eight acts right now. Those two Dre Kendrick, I'm sure I'm forgetting some too. They're like a decade and a half into their career and still lay Daga the weekend. Very much gr Mars on top of the charts you so to be seen. C, the rock stars have always figured this out. The rock bands have been known for both at the Grateful Dead, their old granddad, and they're selling out the spear every night, which is pretty badass.
Yep. But we haven't really seen as much in pop and hip hop. So it's one interesting one ing development of the last few years. Blast Music
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I think rewinding to your question though about the festivals, I wanted to outline a couple of concepts for folks that maybe aren't quite as familiar with festival ticketing. So the way that people think about tickets in the music business is through a lens called hard tickets and soft tickets. And the way that you can think about that is an act is good at song hard tickets if they have a show by themselves and they are able to sell it out.
For example, Beyonce's playing four nights in SoFi Stadium in a few weeks. I'm very excited. I will be at two of the nights watch Cowboy Car Act two, Beyonce's a Hard Ticket Act. You could put Beyonce on a boat by herself. You could put her in the middle of the desert on a mobile in the ocean. The BI would go, people would buy one Taylor Swift Hard Ticket Act there.
Then there's something called a Soft Ticket Act, and so these are acts. They're really popular that people like, but they probably wouldn't go out of their way to buy a ticket to this act. They certainly wouldn't travel to see this act, but if this act appeared on a bill or a festival that they were at gallery, very excited.
So an example, one of my favorite acts that is probably more of a Soft Ticket Act is Matt named Fisher Big dj. You're on the DJ scene. Of course, Phish actually has never done a tour, believe it or not. He does one-offs, right? He did. One of my favorite shows of all time was his Cow Palace set in San Francisco last year.
Bagger and how cool at the iconic Cow Palace and Bay area for folks based in the Bay, and he's able to sell that out. But he's never done a 25 City Phish tour and most of the big DJs have not done that. They don't really typically do that. Even DJ Snake, who's probably my favorite DJ life or usually does a festival run, ol come play shows and he's very good about feeding the fans.
It's awesome. One of my things about him. But he's not gonna do whatever Rita want running the way to, or at a grinding bike. So that's like a soft ticket act. Another example is a guy named Alex Warren, who this week I just learned about, a lot of the listeners probably don't know who he is. I encourage you to go check his Spotify.
I was like, who is this man that I listen to his music? I was like, oh, I know this guy. And then you realize that there's a whole subculture of his music on a place like TikTok. Ah, and so Alex Paul is another act that if you're his manager, you're his label. You would never put on a tour because he probably would flock it.
But if he's on every festival, everyone's gonna be like, oh shit. That was an awesome set. Yeah. And so when you're thinking about how you grow your act, you have to make the decision as a manager, as a and r, as an advisor, as a promoter, to say, Hey, we don't think you're gonna have the demand there in terms of selling venues on your own, but we think you'll have an incredible festival run.
You do the festival run, you expose yourself to a lot of people that maybe haven't heard your music. You also make a ton of money. Right. You build the foundation to then do your own tour in the future. And so really if you're like sort of artist manager, then Nirvana is getting to a place where you have the dexterity to be able to do your own tour hard tickets, or do a festival run soft ticket and you're able to do the profit maximizing thing.
Yeah. And the by maximizing thing and the artistically maximizing thing, by picking the mix of those two things that you want it.
Amazing. No, that's a great, that's a great explanation of how they would approach that and how they could effectively create the Farm League of artists who are, they get millions and millions of views on TikTok, but could they carry, uh, that's another thing you can talk about, like they are influencers, but they're artists.
But can they really sell out a stadium? Probably not. You don't really put one or two minutes of their best stuff and then. Can it really sustain an entire ERA'S tour where there's multiple albums that are coming out? Okay. That's an incredible insight. I feel like there's probably a really good mix of that.
At this particular Coachella or at outside Lands are, is there anything in particular other than, what was his name? Alex Warren. Alex. Alex Warren. Is he a dj?
No, he is a singer, singer. Music's very popular right now, man. People really like very, yeah, like a Benson Boone kind of vibe. Totally. Yeah. And since we just asked at Coachella this year, yeah, I think the other half's, 'cause I was talking about it from like the artist side, right?
Yeah. Talking about an agent. Now, let's go to the promoter side. The promoter side is, you need to know those acts, right? Like your job is to know the acts. And the reason that Coachella has succeeded so long is that they know the acts. Mr. Tourette's main job, from what I've heard at Gold Boys, is he just knows the acts and he listens to music all day.
(02:07):
He finds people with 4,000 monthly listeners on Spotify and then they become Doja Cat, I think. What you wanna facilitate as promoters, you wanna be a very artist friendly environment. And the reason Coachella Succeeds is 'cause one, it's the Hangout, right? It's the yearly annual sort of pilgrimage for all the agents, all the managers, and all the ars, which are the bosses of the artist, right?
Which feels weird that like Beyonce has boss, but he does. And at least the person that influences how much money she makes and all the acts wanna go because they wanna see each other, see their friends that make music, but they also wanna catch up with all these people. And it's Coachella's responsibility to know what the pipeline is.
And so of course they have a really strong relationship. When you're up and running, you don't have cold start problem, so the managers and the ARS and agents are sending you the people that they think are about to pop. Your job is to create the space for them. To help them grow. And there's many acts, sometimes I get a lineup hoodie every year at, at Coachella of course.
Sometimes I look at the acts and I'm like, how did they get this person? So a great example was my first year I went, we, we saw little Lucy Vert and he was at the old Sahara 10 before they moved. It was much smaller, probably like half the capacity it is now. So our 10 for people that are listening is like the party DJ 10.
Mm-hmm. Coach Ella has transformed this stage over the last like eight years into this unbelievable spectacle. The video wall and there is massive, it's the most overstimulating concert environment ever possibly have. So they typically put like the big DJs and that rap acts in there and it's just the big party all week.
And so we saw Lil Uzi Ver on the old Sahara stage at three o'clock in the afternoon. He actually brought out Playboy Cardi. Which this is back in 2017, so nobody has ever heard playbook party just put out Magnolia and Uzi had just done Exo tour light. And so then last year, you know we are back again. So this is 2024 and Uzi is now playing the outdoor stage and he's much bigger and he's the last, I think, on the outdoor stage.
And he's got just on a rock and he's a humongous international superstar Now. And that's a really good example of Mr. Toad and the Golden Voice team knowing an act that was about to get big and seeing that eight years ago, almost a decade ago, and giving him the space to grow. So when he invites them back to the festival, they have a much better space.
And if you're an artist, you're thinking, uh, yeah. Last time they had me put me at this Whack 3:00 PM spot, but they gave me a big stage 'cause they knew that song I did was really hot. All right, I'm gonna go play it again. I'm gonna say yes to their offer. I'm willing to negotiate with them a little bit, get the money right for them, get the money right for me, and I'll get to see all the homies when I come.
And I think that's the experience they curate. So all the promoters at another planet and with outside LAN's case C3 and Lawless case, and most certainly, coach Hesterberg are part of the two goats at this. Nurture those relationships for decades and they send everyone holiday gifts and they know an act like Peggy Gu back in 2017 or Stormy back in 27 year, Kanye back in 2011 before he got canceled, increased when it's like always giving space to the pool to then grow into something much bigger and ultimately, hopefully evolve into a headliner.
Yeah, that's amazing
insight. Then you fast forward to you, you said, I don't remember which year, but you've got Lil Uzi Vert and you got Playboy Cardi this week. Both those guys can take the main stage, right, and kill it. Of course, yeah. All day, boy. Just if you just say rolling loud and crazy, you know?
Yeah. Amazing. As we start to to look at that, I think that's a pretty good roundup. Uh, some of the bigger festivals this, this summer season, and just some ideas of how the inner workings or the planning goes in terms of building those lineups and then understanding how that's gonna impact the overall experience.
When I start to think about, obviously, when we talked about this before, is travel and live entertainment. You gotta talk about Las Vegas being here, our baby. You have to talk about Las Vegas and you gotta talk about the spear and. We know you and I, how amazing it is to put together a travel experience.
But when you go to a destination that is an entire travel experience where the venue is this iconic ball of light, they've had a quite the run in Q1, right? You had anima, you've had obviously dead and company. You've had. I think, wasn't there a K-Pop group or somebody else was in there? Maybe better, but let's talk about that and what they're doing over the course of the summer that that might kinda rival some of these summer festivals.
Yep. You bring up a
really good concept that we should get into before we start talking about the spear, Mario? Yeah. I think one of the things that's always top of mind for me is gonna be incredibly poignant this year where we have a number of humongous doing stadium runs like Beyonce, the weekend, Kendrick and SZA Post Malone.
I'm sure I'm forgetting a few as well. I think Ken Cheney's doing some I. He is always doing them. Always. That guy's a grinder. Well, the thing about the rock in the country ads, man, they just take it so seriously. Totally, man. It's really awesome. It's like totally what the whole partnership of artists and fan is about.
But I think one of the things that I think about a lot is the trade off between festivals and individual city events. And so if you're a live nation, you have a very gigantic market share. If you're a fan, you have discretionary income and you wanna go see some concerts, you wanna see your favorite acts, and you have a pool of money that you could distribute to see your favorite acts, and there's a lot of ways that you could go about doing that.
You could go about doing that by hitting a bunch of music festivals, which is what I did when I was younger and my wife. And the reason that I like music festivals is they're very fun. Yeah. Variety. An insane amount of variety. That's right. You actually get really good value for money in terms of.
Individual tickets to see all the acts that I'm gonna see next week. In that Coachella, it would cost me probably $10,000 easily. You're being very good guy from money. You're getting the highlight reel. You squeeze it all into one thing. I think it's also very communal, so if you have a large group, you get to spend time.
You're breaking off in the small segments. It's a great way to catch up with your friends, maybe a once a year, twice a year type of thing. The downsides of a festival are, they're very physically demanding, which. When I was 20 care about so much. Now my friends saw I'm in their thirties and they're like, yo, man, I can't do it anymore.
(02:28):
It's just too dusty out here. That's right. A lot. A lot of people see they got back paid. It's late nights. And so then you look at the other end of the pendulum, which is individual city show. And for me, my favorite acts, the thing I get most energized about in music is the stadium acts. I think it's like the pinnacle of music in business, which is two of my favorite things.
And they have an. Uncanny ability to bring together so many people. It's very difficult to get 60,000 people to come to one place at one time and celebrate the same. Everyone's playing for the same team. That's like a pretty remarkable concept. It's different than sports in that way. Even where it's like you go to Chargers game, half the people there, maybe not a good re car Chargers fans with a routine.
We happen to be hosting that week, right? And so many people are now looking at these individual shows. As almost like a substitute for the festival. So if you're a person that has maybe a budget 2000, 3000, 5,000 or more to spend on concerts, you are gonna allocate some to festivals maybe and then some to these individual city shows.
And the way that I see that product for me personally, is it's all less communal, right? You're like not walking around. You're maybe not spending as much time catching up with all your friends, but it can be very like deep and special, right? You go to the A store, it was, I was in there with one of my best friends in the whole world.
And I was just moved. I'm, I'm feeling goosebumps right now just thinking about the loudness of it and the tense of it and the brass of it. 'cause you knew you were at so, so special and that was a really unique experience I got to share with my friend that makes our friendship better. And so I think as a fan, I.
You're thinking about, okay, what's my split of festivals and live concerts and how do I balance those two things? How do I book my travel around those two things? Because maybe I would rather go see Beyonce and Glendale than go to Coachella for the weekend because really love Beyonce and I think Glendale's a Phoenix is obviously a really cool place to be right now, and I think that's one of the challenges that Live Nation and a EG have to fight.
Because they almost have cannibals products here. They have to balance how much do we wanna push And now they have this, almost this third thing in Live Nation's case in the sphere, which is like a one-off show has some flavor of festival. 'cause it's definitely like a travel weekend 'cause you're gonna Vegas.
And it's a literally unique about like how they're trying to direct traffic to each of the products, which maybe at a surface level feel I'm going to see a concert, but are actually very different sort of emotional. And financial experiences.
Sure. Not to dumb down the term, but there's the experience factor where there's more of a repeatable, enhanced experience at the sphere versus if you, I don't know, like Michael Rapinoe always says there's nothing like lives, because that's why there's a premium on that ticket price because you can never duplicate what happens at live.
So. I think sphere is one, like I said, a repeatable. They'll have the same type of show, same visuals to a certain degree, but you never know if the artist is going to pull someone outta the crowd and do something very unique and special. Versus if you're in the stadium event concert, you don't know who's gonna show up on stage.
You don't know who's gonna go a little bit longer on the guitar solo tho, those type of things. Yeah. And so I, I don't think as a fan, what do you spend your money on the experience in Las Vegas? Or do you wait it out to see what's gonna play at MGM and see what's happening there? Because that's one market where all of this stuff competes.
Yeah, everything
competes. So, yeah. Example of that, Mario is on Beyonce's store. I think every, all the listeners probably know, I'm like honorary beehive. I didn't notice at all. I had heard that they were trying to figure out a, your situation for Beyonce. Oh, I thought that was pretty well corroborated by the fact when she put her tour on sale at the end of last beginning of this year.
She didn't have any Vegas dates. Okay. And then two weeks ago they finally posted the Vegas dates, which means I guess they probably hadn't been able to figure out the terms of the Sphere show just yet. And I think it's a prime example of Beyonce on, in her case, didn't wanna do a Las Vegas show. Mm-hmm.
If she knew she was gonna do three or five shows at the sphere. Then she has the friction with her team, where I know the Cowboy Carter tour is gonna be perfect because Renaissance was, in my opinion, the most academically impressive tour I'd ever seen in terms of the production of it. And her team's not gonna do anything less than a plus work.
It's very difficult to manage that experience of you're doing a whole stadium run at the Beyonce level. And also you have this project in the sphere, which she would be the first act like that. In this state, 'cause she's gonna do some country stuff on work, but also like her r and b, she got some pop music.
She's also pop act. It's untested waters and I think it's one of the challenges the sphere is happening right now as a team. At first they were just booking the bands and I think some of that was, it's just Mr. Rapino and the people around him. With what they like. It's what they grew up with and like, oh cool.
If I ran a gigantic music promoter, I'd probably book the ax that I like too. Mm-hmm. To start out and venue like that. But then I think they kept it so sticky because they realized, one, the ticket to sphere need to be pretty expensive for a little while for them to justify the investment that they made, which is smart.
That's just business. And the demographics of the people that are accustomed to coming to Vegas for this type of thing. Still skew older, right? Yeah. Vegas has done a tremendous job of making the residency thing younger, right, in the last decade. It talks about that for a little bit in our last combo, but the concept of coming to Vegas for a show and the show being the anchor and then doing some other stuff around it is like a very.
Midwestern mom sort of mentalities. Well, parents on that many times. Yeah.
Speaking of I, not for nothing. It's still new venue, right? They're still trying to test things out. I think it's gonna be really telling to see what happens when the Backstreet Boys are in full, full mode. At the sphere, because then again, like again, they're hitting another demographic, mainly Gen X Gen older millennials who are big fans of that particular group.
(02:49):
And just to understand what that experience is going to look like from inside the ball, I. Is, I think I would actually like to see that. And then that sort of opens up a new set of genre. 'cause they've done, like the old school, you got U2, you've got a dead end company, you've got a Phish do it, you've got EDM people who've done it.
And so I think this, the first kind of boy band straight up pop group that will do, that will span mainly Gen X jet millennial fans. And so I think, yeah, I think they're still trying to find what that secret sauce is. Because it can't be cheap to run these visuals.
Yeah. They carved out sphere from MSG last year because it was just such a liability on the balance sheet 'cause of all the investment that they made dragging down the performance of the overall company.
But they were like, no, we just bought this really expensive thing. And I'm glad you brought the point about the Backstreet Boys mark. It makes, it makes so much sense. So if we think that the person that's gonna go to Vegas residency sale is a little older on average. That means they can probably stomach the tickets.
I always joke when Bruce Springsteen goes on sale, my friend's, not always, oh, we should go see Bruce Springsteen shit, man, it's so pricey. 'cause we're competing against our dads. Our dads are always gonna be able to out buy us at least. At least for the next decade or two in my case. Yeah, and so I think what's cool about the Backstreet Boys is they've been in this like total rock band phase for a while, which is great.
Give the Legacy acts their shine. I. Make people hopefully exposed to something that they didn't know. I'm sure a lot of younger generations are getting tear into the dead in their subsequent counterculture subculture that they've created over the last four decades, which is pretty remarkable. So I think that's cool.
And you also are sure you're gonna solve for tickets. You have a pretty sure hard ticket act in this case. I think with the Backstreet Boys, it's like they haven't been out in a while. Everyone knows them. Everyone likes 'em. Feels like pretty, I'd say probably leans women. If your girl asks you to go to see the Backstreet
Boys, you probably like that.
Oh yeah. They got hits, man. Not to mention they've sold out several cruises. Yeah, which is effectively the very smart.
That's right. Same concept. Little less sexy probably. And I think it gives the sphere and live nation MSG, the opportunity. To figure out what it looks like to have a non rock in there.
Nima was so specific, Nima as a DJ, for folks that maybe doesn't listen to tiny dj, those visuals, man, I'm just like, very cool. Yeah. And so I think he had a very clear vision of how they were gonna do that. But with the pop acts, it's a little less clear. 'cause a lot of the pop acts, it's about creating energy and being proximal and a little less on the visuals historically.
So I think that the Backstreet Boys is a great opportunity for them to do something that it probably would have otherwise never happened. And it's great Larry, opportunity for the sphere. 'cause I heard what their big project is for the flaw is they're trying to get styles in there for dates or something like that.
Mm-hmm. And I think that voice is a really good strong test run of, okay, here's what worked well for the bands. Here's what worked well for the pop acts. Okay, now we're gonna have this. Massive pop star, do his kind of comeback run after he's been away for a couple years. He also ran the London Marathon a couple weeks ago.
Ran like three 30. So just one of those people that's good at everything. Yeah, he's annoying. Yeah. That, yeah. Yeah, for sure. Gives him the opportunity to learn a little bit and gives some shine to some max. I deserve it. This has been
really interesting for a kickoff to the 2025 summer festival concert season with a bit of strategy and a bit of background.
On how all the sausage is made. No pun for Chicago people. But I'm just curious with your, a last statement here. If for the most bang for your buck plus travel, which festival slash concert this summer would you tell someone to go to? Ah, this is tough. It was meant to be. It's a hard question. They're all great.
What would be the budget? You're like, you know what? I worked really hard. Maybe I'm just outta college. I. I've got some, a 40 hour a week corporate kind of job. I probably make, I don't know, 50, 60 KA year. I can feel good about taking one really good trip. What's the best bang for the buck?
I guess if you're under 30, it's still gotta be Coachella.
I think I watched Bill one time to see it and know what the hype is about. If you're over 30, probably at either the Bay Area Festivals. Mm at Lands or the other one that we didn't get a chance to talk about today, but they do an incredible job of bringing together all the travel elements is bottle rock in Napa.
Right. So I think that's another really unique way of Spain experience where it's like food and wine. You have some there. In the same way that SSXW or Soccer by Southwest is, or Burning Man, where it's like a celebration and you just happen to have musical acts there playing incredible shows. So that's my answer Under 30.
Gotta go to Coachella over 30. Go check out Bottle Rock. Love it. As you wrap up here. Yeah, I just, you just say seven Hail Marys for me this weekend. That. When Gaga is gonna bring out Beyonce and they're gonna do telephone, because that's what the crazy Oh my gosh. Talking about on Reddit and the way I would ascend into the next dimension would be just magical.
(03:10):
It would just be just magical.
So pray for me. Yeah, you no, you'd definitely get to the sixth dimension after that win. 'cause that's, yeah. What other kind of possible features could show up? In this lineup, do you think? The
thing with Coachella, man, it's, you never know. Oh, it's always something you don't expect.
So last year, no doubt did Olivia Rodrigo, which makes sense. Oh, that. But it like now, which is a couple years ago, bad Bunny did Post Malone. It's always, 'cause in your head you think it's the intuitive thing, but then it's someone totally agree. Like Travis Scott's doing the anchor on Saturday. Everyone's like, oh, it's gonna be the weekend, it's gonna be right.
Cardi, it seems obvious. Yeah. Cheering might come up. Yeah. She just came out for James Alvin I saw at MSG last week. I didn't see that. Wow. Pretty cool. It's like you wouldn't go, but yeah, it makes sense. They're homies. That's just boys. I'm really excited. Always something good. Treat you. Always miss a couple too that you feel jealous about, but that's the nature of the game and one of the beautiful parts.
Uh, my favorite spring rite of
passing. Thank you for sharing that with us, Alex. We'll see you on the next one. Okay? Yes, sir. Thanks for having me. Mark attention travel and ticketing innovators. Whether you're a startup disrupting the industry, or an established company ready to take your distribution strategy to the next level.
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Welcome back to Tickets to Travel, the Business of Travel Experiences. I'm your host, Mario Bwin, and today's episode is a special one, guys. Because we're bringing back a favorite voice on the pod, someone who's got the inside track on the intersection of music, live events, and the global travel economy.
(00:01):
That's right. Alex Mack is back with us, our go-to live music and event strategist. If you caught our previous conversation, Alex brings unmatched insights, some bold takes, and yes, including that Drake versus Kendrick debate, which we'd never really resolved on his side, and a deep understanding of how music festivals shape and are shaped by travel trends.
I. Alex, we are thrilled to have you back. Last time you were here, you're a little under the weather, but still drop some gems this time around. You're coming in hot and just in time. We're kicking off festival season here in 2025, and there is so much to unpack from the return of Ultra Music Fest in Miami to Lollapalooza selling out in just hours.
The live music scene is booming and the travel patterns around all these events are even more telling. In this episode, we're diving into how streaming has reshaped lineups, how Gen Z is curating its own festival culture, and what it really takes to build an experience worth flying across the country for, or the world from Coachella to the sphere in Las Vegas.
We're breaking it all down with Alex, so buckle up. Whether you're a music super fan, a travel strategist, or just looking for the next can't miss event. This is an episode for you, Alex Mack is back and as always, follow us on all the socials at Ticks two. That's the number two travel pod, and obviously subscribe wherever you get your podcast because.
Tickets to Travel starts now.
Welcome to Tickets to Travel, the Business of Travel Experiences. I'm your host, Mario Wyne, and we are back. We are back with Alex McLean, our good friend, and also live music strategist. Alex, welcome back to Tickets to Travel.
Thank you for having me back. Mario. Really excited to be here and get a second chance.
Last time I was feeling a little sick.
You were probably sick because I, I opened up with the Drake versus Kendrick conversation and you pulled back a little bit. I think you really wanted to go hard 'cause I did call you out. You were this like big Drake fan and then all of a sudden you're Kendra.
Anyway, we don't need each other.
I'm gonna, I'm gonna be provocative here just to start the episode. Drake might be back. Nokia is slapping, to be honest, he's done like 150 million plays on Spotify in six weeks. Pretty good.
I mean if UMG lets him do it, yeah, you're right. He is doing pretty well.
Yeah.
Bosses
is never the buyable strategy about, and it's like your brother that goes to rehab and you just want him to get healthy. 'cause you remember all the time playing blocks with him as a kid. Just, that's what I want. I want him to win. That's an in,
that's an interesting analogy that Drake is here.
Little brother and you're playing. Anyway, I see where you're going with this. I do. But welcome back. We're happy to have you. As I start to look at travel in general and we start to look at the summer, people think about music festivals, obviously, and we're here, what is it? We're the first week of April.
It's amazing. Oh, we have not great weather here, but an amazing lineup coming up of summer festivals. But we started out with this first quarter of the year. Just some amazing shows at the sphere in Las Vegas, obviously. And as we start to talk about festivals, we had Rolling Loud, we had Ultra Music Fest, Miami Music Week last week.
What are some just initial thoughts of these first couple of festivals that have come up here in 2025 season?
First off, I think talking with Ultra really incredible celebration for them, it's 25 years in Bayfront Park. Huge accomplishment for any festival to make it that far. It's quite difficult to do.
I think overall they did an excellent job this year of having, I. Strong headliners at the main program, but then they flushed out Miami Music League probably to a degree, which they never had. It felt like they were activating, of course, all the main places, the big clubs and the group hospitality venues.
(00:22):
But they also were doing a ton of popups and using a lot of Miami's new creative spaces that have emerged off the back of like kind of the Bitcoin boom up the early part of this decade. I thought they were really successful in curating a very desirable experience. They managed the rain this year very well, and they put together two of the coolest moments I have personally ever seen a festival.
One was Relic's Big Return, of course, for a decade, was the last time the headline. And the other one was a very fun surprise where Afrojack and David Getta joined Stage together and they brought out Sia. Wow. And they played titanium together for the first time live ever in history. I couldn't believe it.
I just was watching it and I was like, wow. Imagine you're there with your best friends, having the prime of your life, and all of a sudden you get to see a live performance of one of the most iconic GM tracks ever with all the people you love, couldn't be more exciting. That's, that's the stuff that you as a promoter or a fan just dream about.
I
didn't even know that happened, and I think. The hairs on my arms stood up a little bit because what was, what year was that? Because I couldn't imagine. You're like, you're grooving, you're having a good time, maybe you've had a couple fluids, whatever. And then they roll Sia out with David gta and, and afr.
Come on man.
That's ridiculous. One of the greatest songs of all time. And it's probably like 10 or 12 years old. Yeah, 18 years old.
15 years old. That's around the time when I think EDM became more pop as well, so that that really had some stigma. I'm gonna actually go bump that in the car when we leave,
but that's one of, one of the things I've been observing, actually we were just talking about it at the office this week is almost feels like that music is having a little bit of a resurgence again.
It was huge for the early part of the last decade, and then that progressive house, big room is what a lot of the EDM people will call it. That swish house mafia anchored, broad love crowd music went away. I think part of it was maybe preference or definitely got oversaturated. So I think there was a lot of people that got away from the art and were more anchored on the culture around producing music like that.
I also think Covid was really bad for them. Right. That's music that you wanna be outside for with your friends at a club, and it feels like we're feeling like a little rebound now. You have a lot of DJs coming up on absolute fire. You look at John Summit, you look at Don Dala all fit into that of music.
Fred again. Right, exactly. It almost feels like younger generation, gen Z that's isn't so young anymore is starting to. Rediscover some of these things, but curate their own act. So that's another observation I have and just some of the success that Ultra has had. Specifically the last couple of years and getting some of those humongous big room acts of yesteryear and tomorrow to play together,
I think, and its impact to travel is the music, the gathering, the communities more than ever.
People are starting to become more aware of event travel associated to this. And I've just seen it over the course of maybe the span of this podcast where people are like, wow, I didn't really think about that impact. But the music itself brings people together, which in turn has these live events, and people want to share that experience.
They wanna make it happen. And so as we start to look at the summer, one of the things I noticed on social media in particular was that Lollapalooza sold out in a day or something like that. Like all three days. Something crazy. It was,
I think it was only a couple hours part. Yeah, it, I saw some of our friends posting on Instagram about how successful they were, which you love to see.
That was awesome. Yeah, no.
Just absolutely amazing. And one of the travel trends that I had seen, especially for Chicago in general, it was actually up to 95 to 98% in terms of occupancy over that time period. And that's something that was reported last year, and that was already up by two to 3%. And so you're gonna see these, they're classifying them as festival zones, right?
They're able to. Track over these particular dates, the impact that it has on at least hotel occupancies and short-term rentals. And so I think the indication of a few hours of Lollapalooza selling out is just obviously tremendous. So I. What do you think? Is that indicative of Lollapalooza or does it typically take a little while for them
to sell out la?
They do. Which we used to talk about a lot at.
(00:43):
Oh, by the way, you're from Chicago. You've been going there since you were in diapers, right? Right. It was my first
one. Yeah. Calvin Harris Corn 11, maybe. That was like one of my first. Yeah, I think there is a couple of things. One specific to WA Palooza, which is.
It feels like every four years they put out like three fire lineups and one that's like a clunker, and then everyone's like they're over and then the next year they come back with something and insane is how it was the last couple of years for them. I think the frameworks that I would encourage people to think about that are a music travel spaces have two ways that you could design a music travel event.
The first way is using existing infrastructure in the backbone of a major metropolitan area. And so you look at some of the most successful festivals that would be ultra in Miami, let's say Wild Palouse in Chicago, outside lands in San Francisco, they have the benefit of being smack in the middle of the city.
What that means is you have a much easier time with transportation, public transit options that are really good, that make it easy to get people in and out, occupancy to Mario's point where you have a tremendous amount of supply of hotels, Airbnbs, whatever else is Permittable in that region of the world.
That makes it very easy for people to travel in. You also have a, like a supply of activities where people could structure and build a true vacation around. This Wild Palooza is in the middle of August. It's generally very beautiful in Chicago. At that time of year, less than one day. It invariably has to rain.
Humidity is a factor, I think. And you could spend a whole weekend doing a ton of great activities in the city of Chicago and go to the festival at 3, 4, 5 o'clock every day, still five hours, six hours in East maybe, and feel like you took a proper vacation. And I think one of the advantages of those places where they build out in the Miamis and San Franciscos and Chicagos to continue our example, is that they can lean on a lot of that existing infrastructure to make for a so travel destination.
Now, the converse at that point is. Working with any of those beautiful cities requires a lot of tact for the promoters. You look at all the teams behind those productions I just mentioned, they have decades long relationships with municipalities. A mutual tremendous amount of work to make sure that it's gonna be successful.
Model A is lean on existing infrastructure to build out your experience, which then is gonna facilit increase the wheels of airfare and lodging and many other
things in including flights, by the way. 'cause that's another piece. Yeah, in preparation for those, taking a look at this, uh, being someone who's worked with hotels for a number of years, I never really dove into flights, but even the 2024 numbers are saying that all live event inventory is being booked 15% more than previous years around these particular events, they're also classifying them as festival flights, which has also created new packages from a transportation perspective.
I think the other thing that's really interesting outside of maybe Lalu, which booked up so fa or what sold out so fast is that last minute flights to major events are showing 30 to 40% higher prices in 2025 rather than, it's definitely a shift. This is a strong. A segment of travel that is now because of the way that these concerts, festivals, various events, create demand, it does through the entire travel ecosystem, increase everything you you can think of around it.
So I feel like you got the transportation piece, you have the backbone, you have the infrastructure for where these festivals are gonna happen. One of the things that obviously draw people, Alex, are the lineups. What was the thing about Lollapalooza that just made the difference? I think this year,
I think one of the coolest things about the streaming generation is that has given everybody the ability to own a lot of music and furious things that maybe wouldn't have otherwise experienced.
Let's rewind the clock to CD era, which is when I grew up, or maybe vinyl era when other people grew up. Is that a jab? Really? I'm more of a cassette CD guy. Last year he was cleaning out the basement. He was, Hey, I have my vinyl collection. I'm gonna throw it away. And I was like, dude, first off, what's wrong with you?
Yeah. Second off, I started going through this crazy stuff in there Journey. We had the Tom Cruise Top Gun original song, Greg, and the one that I was like, dude, you cannot throw away. He had Diamond Life by Sade and he was just gonna put it in the bin. I was like, dad, no,
he can't do that. First of all, an original pressing will get you about 50 bucks, 60 bucks, right?
Like, come on man, you gotta talk to him. Put that on eBay real quick and just test out. I, man.
Yeah. Your question about the lineups, because now Spotify has enabled everybody to experience things. You don't have to go to the record store to buy a record. It costs 10, 20, 30 bucks, whatever it is. Once you pay that amount, you feel so obligated to listen to that record and because you bought that record, you can't purchase a bunch of other records.
And so I think that Spotify has disintermediate that. It's one of the best effects of that and the downstream impact of that. It is now being seen at festivals. You look at LA Pal's lineup, I've been joking with everybody, them in outside lands this year. Just something for everyone. Yeah, there's something for everyone.
You have Tyler creator and Luke Combs is the first day, which is. Hip Hop. Tyler's on the top of his game right now doing a massive tour. Chromo Copia, I think it's down like 95 to 97% sellouts in arenas. Mostly two to three per city across the us. Awesome show, by the way, saw a few weeks ago, one of my favorite shows I've seen in the last three or four years.
That's Friday and Luke obviously is selling out stadiums, football stadiums last year, so he's a humongous act. Then Friday you have Olivia, Arrigo and Korn. Which could not be further edge of the spectrum apart. Olivia's kind of punk rock. I mean, she's trying to be. For sure. Olivia is, is of all the sort of young pop girls, most likely I think to Chase Taylor and the Bell guys.
(01:04):
Chase Brady, all the pop stars of the chase. Yeah. Yeah. She's like alternative Taylor Charlie and her career is just Blossom. She's doing amazing with Gen Z, has really strong penetration with millennials as well. They got corn, which is like this cool legacy acts well that were like alternative internet hits like Mo bro.
And I think that's a really unique experience where a lot of people at Lalu probably would've never seen that kind of music. That's one A. Then Saturday you go to Rufuss to Soul, and twice again, like two totally obstinate of the Spectrum. Acts Rufuss, one of my favorite acts, they're probably gonna be by number one on Spotify this year.
If they can unseat Abel or Kendrick Lamar with very intellectual, like upper class dance music and gotta know somebody to understand why they're so popping. But they can do stadium tour on their own, which they're out right now, and I think they sold out pretty much all their dates in their 20. Stadiums and then you have twice, which is a humongous K-pop act.
Right. That's like doing their thing. And Lala has been pretty steadfast the last three years. They've had a K-Pop anchor, which I think is really significant. When I was at the Fest last year, I can't remember who they had. Was it Black Dink? No. Sspa.
Stray Kids. Stray Kids last year. Yep. We got it. Yeah. I mean, I just did a K-Pop Super fan.
Episode and I just learned so much, man. And also, I don't think I've mentioned this to you, but I went to South by Southwest and there was a very strong Korean tech community there. Very strong K-pop. So it's clear that from a media sort of zeitgeist, right, like it is right in there. So it makes a lot of sense if Lollapalooza is gonna at least have one sort of standard anchor because.
As you're describing it, man, that is three days of bangers. Oh, I know. And I
get it now. And I think the thing about K-Pop, it's so fascinating, is they look at it like a national export. It's not. It is creative arts of course, but it's also business. Yeah. And they ize it through all the camps and people that have seen the rise of some of the K-pop acts, most namely BTS and Black would be very familiar with that journey.
And so I was appalled last year at Straight, but I think it was straight Kids and scissor were the same night. And I was obviously like S Cs SSA is incredible. It was probably really a lot of people's like. In Stray Kids emerged, they'd gone straight in. They waited at the second stage for them all night and they were, that was the primary reason they went to the festival.
So that's moving a lot of tickets. If you're seats read your Lollapalooza, that's like maybe 10% of your inventory sos on one app, which is incredible. And then it rounds out with Sabrina Carpenter and ASAP Rock will feel very different. But if, well, you actually know those facts are
rocky. Headline of rolling loud.
Right. Came in on a helicopter and killed it.
That's pretty cool. And Rihanna was in public, which we did all that often, so, so yeah, I think really well-rounded there. Gen Z, millennial, good crossover. You get every single genre. So any person is gonna look at that and be like, okay, there's two or three things here for, so I think they, they took a really smart strategy.
I think outside Lands did something very similar as well. Right? They have a John Summit and Doja Cat. Tylers doing that one. Yep. Er you gotta remember, like you're in San Francisco, so you have a lot of granola people that like a humongous gift for them. Yep. And he's doing a tour Harrison Pack. They have our weekend.
Big Legacy X Glass Animals is out. Jamie xx, Gracie Abrams. So I think that one of the reasons these festivals are able to succeed. It is because they're not shackled by the rolling loud problem or the ultra problem, which is you have to give the same acts every year. 'cause there's only so many acts.
Right. It's very difficult to create differentiation. Right. You do like Rolling Loud was able to, this year with Playboy Cardi, you have a real cultural moment where he brings out a weekend and everyone's talking about rolling.
Yeah. So you're saying that these are killing it mainly because it's not genre specific and the to the initial statement is that.
Streaming has opened up the doors for any time. You're right, man. Like I'm bumping K-Pop Now that who would've known? Because it's so accessible. Before I had to go and make a conscious decision that I was gonna go buy this track or go buy this CD or whatever it is, and now you can test it out and you can sit in your car and or sit in your AirPods and listen to whatever you want.
No one has to hear it through this whole entire commentary. There's something missing. Coachella, are you going? And what are your initial thoughts of those lineups? And of course we're gonna talk about if you are going or people are going, how you're getting there and where you're staying.
I am going, I was ing this morning and it started to set in.
I was like, this time next week at Coachella, it's my favorite weekend of the year. I think in terms of thinking about that genre agnostic festival, Coachella was the pioneer of that and for years. Mr. Tla, we talked about this I think a little bit last time, is just so unbelievably incredible in the way that he has evolved himself.
(01:25):
The festival has been going for 30 years now or something like that, and it started as a rock festival. Very kind of cultural change's, addiction and these types of bands, and now it's every music, everything. And of course, they don't always, every single year they have bad years, good years, like any other festival.
But I think they have generally pioneered this concept that's taken many other festivals a long time. I think one interesting trend I have of Baja the last couple of years is that for a long time, at least for a decade, Coachella was getting acts that were impossible to get, and like the only place in the world that you could go see them was Coach L.
Right? They have the guns and roses, really, they have the outcasting, uh, fiance, right? They have Drake who never does festivals. They have all of these just incredible Frank Ocean that you're like, holy shit. How did they convince those people to play together? Been on stage? I haven't been on stage in many years.
Rick did his damn debut there, and I almost think in many ways that was a little bit of like a shackle for them because people have built up this expectation, right? The last three or four years we've all been chasing and they've been chasing two acts in particular. One named Taylor Swift, the other name named Robin Fenty, a k Rihanna.
So it's almost like when they don't deliver that people are like, what the fuck's going on? And I think the last couple of years they have alleviated themselves with some pressure because every act that could possibly want to play shows has been playing shows in the last few years, especially post Covid one, because they want the money, but two, because there is so much money in music and touring and festivals now.
That it would be unwise for any ad to sit out and not do a tour. And so I think now Coachella has the ability to not feel like they have to go get somebody that hasn't played the career, because that's a really, it's tough, right? It's, well, Kate Bush come play, well, Adele come play. It's like that's hard pressure to have as a team.
And this year I think they did it the same, very much the same thing that Lalapalooza did. Just maybe for a little bit of an older audience. Anchor, lady Gaga. Saturday, green Day, Sunday Post Malone, who could do a hip hop or country set. Probably gonna do a mix of both, I assume. Right. And then you got Travis Scott doing like the special guest thing that they have to get last few years.
So if you're between the ages of 20 and 35, you are in love with at least one of those artists. And if you have a lot of common sense, you're probably should be in love with all of that.
Absolutely. Yeah. The, the strategy's working for them and I feel like. What this came up in a, in an earlier conversation as well, it's really tough to keep things fresh, right?
Like you, what you're pointing out is. It is gotta appeal to a Gen Xer all the way down to a generation alpha. Is that what they're calling them now? These are like my kids, right, who are preteens and teens. And so that's another place where the K-Pop thing comes in as well, right? They have this swath of fandom.
How do you think they balance that? What do you, because I, I feel like there isn't enough new. Artists that could carry the stage at this point, at least, I don't know if it's a cycle of maybe every five years or every 10 years, where you have someone who can pack a stadium eventually, but there's this buildup to, Hey, I'm, you're gonna do small venues, you're gonna do a go to a certain cap number, and then you get to amphitheaters and stadiums and so on and so forth.
And the festival. Route allows them to have a little bit of flexibility. You have separate stages, different the EDM room, that kind of thing. And so how do you think just the music industry in general are able to create the pipeline for these festivals and live events to make it happen? Because maybe it's back to the streaming thing again, but like how do you break new artists now to where they have enough fans to support them?
In a, maybe a Coachella or any of these kind of side stages to eventually make the bet that they're gonna get to the main stage and be able to carry them a good five years down the line. Thoughts? I have me
thoughts
on
this. Maybe four or five
parts. Megan, that's why I asked a question because I sincerely was like, it's when, like I said, it came up earlier.
People are, can we keep sustain? When are you gonna get the other Taylor Swift? When are you gonna get the other Beyonce? Because. They're gonna cycle out here in a second. And especially if you start looking at the headlines, I think Billy Joel's not doing well. There's all these things where, you know, some of these legacy rock stars or just music legends are now starting to cycle out.
They're not gonna be able to tour anymore. Wanna take that last point you made and then I've written down four or five things. I'm gonna dig here in a second. We're in a really new era where a long time, especially pop stars, a really vicious business for young women to really have a lot of empathy for all of them to have to go through it.
'cause they burn very bright, but usually, typically not for very long. So what Beyonce and Taylor are doing is transcendence, to be honest. We never really see anything like that. Madonna, I suppose, would be gone. Kate, I think the digital age has given them new life where they're able to have a career 20 years into making music.
Beyonce or Taylor Swift Drops. People know and they care. And it's really remarkable because the way that record labels used to work back when they were printing CDs and vinyls is that there was a very constrained supply resource and they had to fight for studio time and marketing budgets. But now inside Spotify and other big tech companies have dis that it made it a lot easier for people to DIY or build their own brands, Taylor and Beyonce, in using the sort of most far into the spectrum examples.
(01:46):
Don't really need to do a lot of like outbound marketing. They have humongous channels that they own primarily and can continue to drop. And so as long as they're making high quality music or at least music that their fans love. They can continue probably to go on tour as long as they want. It's really unprecedented territory.
We were maybe six or eight acts right now. Those two Dre Kendrick, I'm sure I'm forgetting some too. They're like a decade and a half into their career and still lay Daga the weekend. Very much gr Mars on top of the charts you so to be seen. C, the rock stars have always figured this out. The rock bands have been known for both at the Grateful Dead, their old granddad, and they're selling out the spear every night, which is pretty badass.
Yep. But we haven't really seen as much in pop and hip hop. So it's one interesting one ing development of the last few years. Blast Music
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I think rewinding to your question though about the festivals, I wanted to outline a couple of concepts for folks that maybe aren't quite as familiar with festival ticketing. So the way that people think about tickets in the music business is through a lens called hard tickets and soft tickets. And the way that you can think about that is an act is good at song hard tickets if they have a show by themselves and they are able to sell it out.
For example, Beyonce's playing four nights in SoFi Stadium in a few weeks. I'm very excited. I will be at two of the nights watch Cowboy Car Act two, Beyonce's a Hard Ticket Act. You could put Beyonce on a boat by herself. You could put her in the middle of the desert on a mobile in the ocean. The BI would go, people would buy one Taylor Swift Hard Ticket Act there.
Then there's something called a Soft Ticket Act, and so these are acts. They're really popular that people like, but they probably wouldn't go out of their way to buy a ticket to this act. They certainly wouldn't travel to see this act, but if this act appeared on a bill or a festival that they were at gallery, very excited.
So an example, one of my favorite acts that is probably more of a Soft Ticket Act is Matt named Fisher Big dj. You're on the DJ scene. Of course, Phish actually has never done a tour, believe it or not. He does one-offs, right? He did. One of my favorite shows of all time was his Cow Palace set in San Francisco last year.
Bagger and how cool at the iconic Cow Palace and Bay area for folks based in the Bay, and he's able to sell that out. But he's never done a 25 City Phish tour and most of the big DJs have not done that. They don't really typically do that. Even DJ Snake, who's probably my favorite DJ life or usually does a festival run, ol come play shows and he's very good about feeding the fans.
It's awesome. One of my things about him. But he's not gonna do whatever Rita want running the way to, or at a grinding bike. So that's like a soft ticket act. Another example is a guy named Alex Warren, who this week I just learned about, a lot of the listeners probably don't know who he is. I encourage you to go check his Spotify.
I was like, who is this man that I listen to his music? I was like, oh, I know this guy. And then you realize that there's a whole subculture of his music on a place like TikTok. Ah, and so Alex Paul is another act that if you're his manager, you're his label. You would never put on a tour because he probably would flock it.
But if he's on every festival, everyone's gonna be like, oh shit. That was an awesome set. Yeah. And so when you're thinking about how you grow your act, you have to make the decision as a manager, as a and r, as an advisor, as a promoter, to say, Hey, we don't think you're gonna have the demand there in terms of selling venues on your own, but we think you'll have an incredible festival run.
You do the festival run, you expose yourself to a lot of people that maybe haven't heard your music. You also make a ton of money. Right. You build the foundation to then do your own tour in the future. And so really if you're like sort of artist manager, then Nirvana is getting to a place where you have the dexterity to be able to do your own tour hard tickets, or do a festival run soft ticket and you're able to do the profit maximizing thing.
Yeah. And the by maximizing thing and the artistically maximizing thing, by picking the mix of those two things that you want it.
Amazing. No, that's a great, that's a great explanation of how they would approach that and how they could effectively create the Farm League of artists who are, they get millions and millions of views on TikTok, but could they carry, uh, that's another thing you can talk about, like they are influencers, but they're artists.
But can they really sell out a stadium? Probably not. You don't really put one or two minutes of their best stuff and then. Can it really sustain an entire ERA'S tour where there's multiple albums that are coming out? Okay. That's an incredible insight. I feel like there's probably a really good mix of that.
At this particular Coachella or at outside Lands are, is there anything in particular other than, what was his name? Alex Warren. Alex. Alex Warren. Is he a dj?
No, he is a singer, singer. Music's very popular right now, man. People really like very, yeah, like a Benson Boone kind of vibe. Totally. Yeah. And since we just asked at Coachella this year, yeah, I think the other half's, 'cause I was talking about it from like the artist side, right?
Yeah. Talking about an agent. Now, let's go to the promoter side. The promoter side is, you need to know those acts, right? Like your job is to know the acts. And the reason that Coachella has succeeded so long is that they know the acts. Mr. Tourette's main job, from what I've heard at Gold Boys, is he just knows the acts and he listens to music all day.
(02:07):
He finds people with 4,000 monthly listeners on Spotify and then they become Doja Cat, I think. What you wanna facilitate as promoters, you wanna be a very artist friendly environment. And the reason Coachella Succeeds is 'cause one, it's the Hangout, right? It's the yearly annual sort of pilgrimage for all the agents, all the managers, and all the ars, which are the bosses of the artist, right?
Which feels weird that like Beyonce has boss, but he does. And at least the person that influences how much money she makes and all the acts wanna go because they wanna see each other, see their friends that make music, but they also wanna catch up with all these people. And it's Coachella's responsibility to know what the pipeline is.
And so of course they have a really strong relationship. When you're up and running, you don't have cold start problem, so the managers and the ARS and agents are sending you the people that they think are about to pop. Your job is to create the space for them. To help them grow. And there's many acts, sometimes I get a lineup hoodie every year at, at Coachella of course.
Sometimes I look at the acts and I'm like, how did they get this person? So a great example was my first year I went, we, we saw little Lucy Vert and he was at the old Sahara 10 before they moved. It was much smaller, probably like half the capacity it is now. So our 10 for people that are listening is like the party DJ 10.
Mm-hmm. Coach Ella has transformed this stage over the last like eight years into this unbelievable spectacle. The video wall and there is massive, it's the most overstimulating concert environment ever possibly have. So they typically put like the big DJs and that rap acts in there and it's just the big party all week.
And so we saw Lil Uzi Ver on the old Sahara stage at three o'clock in the afternoon. He actually brought out Playboy Cardi. Which this is back in 2017, so nobody has ever heard playbook party just put out Magnolia and Uzi had just done Exo tour light. And so then last year, you know we are back again. So this is 2024 and Uzi is now playing the outdoor stage and he's much bigger and he's the last, I think, on the outdoor stage.
And he's got just on a rock and he's a humongous international superstar Now. And that's a really good example of Mr. Toad and the Golden Voice team knowing an act that was about to get big and seeing that eight years ago, almost a decade ago, and giving him the space to grow. So when he invites them back to the festival, they have a much better space.
And if you're an artist, you're thinking, uh, yeah. Last time they had me put me at this Whack 3:00 PM spot, but they gave me a big stage 'cause they knew that song I did was really hot. All right, I'm gonna go play it again. I'm gonna say yes to their offer. I'm willing to negotiate with them a little bit, get the money right for them, get the money right for me, and I'll get to see all the homies when I come.
And I think that's the experience they curate. So all the promoters at another planet and with outside LAN's case C3 and Lawless case, and most certainly, coach Hesterberg are part of the two goats at this. Nurture those relationships for decades and they send everyone holiday gifts and they know an act like Peggy Gu back in 2017 or Stormy back in 27 year, Kanye back in 2011 before he got canceled, increased when it's like always giving space to the pool to then grow into something much bigger and ultimately, hopefully evolve into a headliner.
Yeah, that's amazing
insight. Then you fast forward to you, you said, I don't remember which year, but you've got Lil Uzi Vert and you got Playboy Cardi this week. Both those guys can take the main stage, right, and kill it. Of course, yeah. All day, boy. Just if you just say rolling loud and crazy, you know?
Yeah. Amazing. As we start to to look at that, I think that's a pretty good roundup. Uh, some of the bigger festivals this, this summer season, and just some ideas of how the inner workings or the planning goes in terms of building those lineups and then understanding how that's gonna impact the overall experience.
When I start to think about, obviously, when we talked about this before, is travel and live entertainment. You gotta talk about Las Vegas being here, our baby. You have to talk about Las Vegas and you gotta talk about the spear and. We know you and I, how amazing it is to put together a travel experience.
But when you go to a destination that is an entire travel experience where the venue is this iconic ball of light, they've had a quite the run in Q1, right? You had anima, you've had obviously dead and company. You've had. I think, wasn't there a K-Pop group or somebody else was in there? Maybe better, but let's talk about that and what they're doing over the course of the summer that that might kinda rival some of these summer festivals.
Yep. You bring up a
really good concept that we should get into before we start talking about the spear, Mario? Yeah. I think one of the things that's always top of mind for me is gonna be incredibly poignant this year where we have a number of humongous doing stadium runs like Beyonce, the weekend, Kendrick and SZA Post Malone.
I'm sure I'm forgetting a few as well. I think Ken Cheney's doing some I. He is always doing them. Always. That guy's a grinder. Well, the thing about the rock in the country ads, man, they just take it so seriously. Totally, man. It's really awesome. It's like totally what the whole partnership of artists and fan is about.
But I think one of the things that I think about a lot is the trade off between festivals and individual city events. And so if you're a live nation, you have a very gigantic market share. If you're a fan, you have discretionary income and you wanna go see some concerts, you wanna see your favorite acts, and you have a pool of money that you could distribute to see your favorite acts, and there's a lot of ways that you could go about doing that.
You could go about doing that by hitting a bunch of music festivals, which is what I did when I was younger and my wife. And the reason that I like music festivals is they're very fun. Yeah. Variety. An insane amount of variety. That's right. You actually get really good value for money in terms of.
Individual tickets to see all the acts that I'm gonna see next week. In that Coachella, it would cost me probably $10,000 easily. You're being very good guy from money. You're getting the highlight reel. You squeeze it all into one thing. I think it's also very communal, so if you have a large group, you get to spend time.
You're breaking off in the small segments. It's a great way to catch up with your friends, maybe a once a year, twice a year type of thing. The downsides of a festival are, they're very physically demanding, which. When I was 20 care about so much. Now my friends saw I'm in their thirties and they're like, yo, man, I can't do it anymore.
(02:28):
It's just too dusty out here. That's right. A lot. A lot of people see they got back paid. It's late nights. And so then you look at the other end of the pendulum, which is individual city show. And for me, my favorite acts, the thing I get most energized about in music is the stadium acts. I think it's like the pinnacle of music in business, which is two of my favorite things.
And they have an. Uncanny ability to bring together so many people. It's very difficult to get 60,000 people to come to one place at one time and celebrate the same. Everyone's playing for the same team. That's like a pretty remarkable concept. It's different than sports in that way. Even where it's like you go to Chargers game, half the people there, maybe not a good re car Chargers fans with a routine.
We happen to be hosting that week, right? And so many people are now looking at these individual shows. As almost like a substitute for the festival. So if you're a person that has maybe a budget 2000, 3000, 5,000 or more to spend on concerts, you are gonna allocate some to festivals maybe and then some to these individual city shows.
And the way that I see that product for me personally, is it's all less communal, right? You're like not walking around. You're maybe not spending as much time catching up with all your friends, but it can be very like deep and special, right? You go to the A store, it was, I was in there with one of my best friends in the whole world.
And I was just moved. I'm, I'm feeling goosebumps right now just thinking about the loudness of it and the tense of it and the brass of it. 'cause you knew you were at so, so special and that was a really unique experience I got to share with my friend that makes our friendship better. And so I think as a fan, I.
You're thinking about, okay, what's my split of festivals and live concerts and how do I balance those two things? How do I book my travel around those two things? Because maybe I would rather go see Beyonce and Glendale than go to Coachella for the weekend because really love Beyonce and I think Glendale's a Phoenix is obviously a really cool place to be right now, and I think that's one of the challenges that Live Nation and a EG have to fight.
Because they almost have cannibals products here. They have to balance how much do we wanna push And now they have this, almost this third thing in Live Nation's case in the sphere, which is like a one-off show has some flavor of festival. 'cause it's definitely like a travel weekend 'cause you're gonna Vegas.
And it's a literally unique about like how they're trying to direct traffic to each of the products, which maybe at a surface level feel I'm going to see a concert, but are actually very different sort of emotional. And financial experiences.
Sure. Not to dumb down the term, but there's the experience factor where there's more of a repeatable, enhanced experience at the sphere versus if you, I don't know, like Michael Rapinoe always says there's nothing like lives, because that's why there's a premium on that ticket price because you can never duplicate what happens at live.
So. I think sphere is one, like I said, a repeatable. They'll have the same type of show, same visuals to a certain degree, but you never know if the artist is going to pull someone outta the crowd and do something very unique and special. Versus if you're in the stadium event concert, you don't know who's gonna show up on stage.
You don't know who's gonna go a little bit longer on the guitar solo tho, those type of things. Yeah. And so I, I don't think as a fan, what do you spend your money on the experience in Las Vegas? Or do you wait it out to see what's gonna play at MGM and see what's happening there? Because that's one market where all of this stuff competes.
Yeah, everything
competes. So, yeah. Example of that, Mario is on Beyonce's store. I think every, all the listeners probably know, I'm like honorary beehive. I didn't notice at all. I had heard that they were trying to figure out a, your situation for Beyonce. Oh, I thought that was pretty well corroborated by the fact when she put her tour on sale at the end of last beginning of this year.
She didn't have any Vegas dates. Okay. And then two weeks ago they finally posted the Vegas dates, which means I guess they probably hadn't been able to figure out the terms of the Sphere show just yet. And I think it's a prime example of Beyonce on, in her case, didn't wanna do a Las Vegas show. Mm-hmm.
If she knew she was gonna do three or five shows at the sphere. Then she has the friction with her team, where I know the Cowboy Carter tour is gonna be perfect because Renaissance was, in my opinion, the most academically impressive tour I'd ever seen in terms of the production of it. And her team's not gonna do anything less than a plus work.
It's very difficult to manage that experience of you're doing a whole stadium run at the Beyonce level. And also you have this project in the sphere, which she would be the first act like that. In this state, 'cause she's gonna do some country stuff on work, but also like her r and b, she got some pop music.
She's also pop act. It's untested waters and I think it's one of the challenges the sphere is happening right now as a team. At first they were just booking the bands and I think some of that was, it's just Mr. Rapino and the people around him. With what they like. It's what they grew up with and like, oh cool.
If I ran a gigantic music promoter, I'd probably book the ax that I like too. Mm-hmm. To start out and venue like that. But then I think they kept it so sticky because they realized, one, the ticket to sphere need to be pretty expensive for a little while for them to justify the investment that they made, which is smart.
That's just business. And the demographics of the people that are accustomed to coming to Vegas for this type of thing. Still skew older, right? Yeah. Vegas has done a tremendous job of making the residency thing younger, right, in the last decade. It talks about that for a little bit in our last combo, but the concept of coming to Vegas for a show and the show being the anchor and then doing some other stuff around it is like a very.
Midwestern mom sort of mentalities. Well, parents on that many times. Yeah.
Speaking of I, not for nothing. It's still new venue, right? They're still trying to test things out. I think it's gonna be really telling to see what happens when the Backstreet Boys are in full, full mode. At the sphere, because then again, like again, they're hitting another demographic, mainly Gen X Gen older millennials who are big fans of that particular group.
(02:49):
And just to understand what that experience is going to look like from inside the ball, I. Is, I think I would actually like to see that. And then that sort of opens up a new set of genre. 'cause they've done, like the old school, you got U2, you've got a dead end company, you've got a Phish do it, you've got EDM people who've done it.
And so I think this, the first kind of boy band straight up pop group that will do, that will span mainly Gen X jet millennial fans. And so I think, yeah, I think they're still trying to find what that secret sauce is. Because it can't be cheap to run these visuals.
Yeah. They carved out sphere from MSG last year because it was just such a liability on the balance sheet 'cause of all the investment that they made dragging down the performance of the overall company.
But they were like, no, we just bought this really expensive thing. And I'm glad you brought the point about the Backstreet Boys mark. It makes, it makes so much sense. So if we think that the person that's gonna go to Vegas residency sale is a little older on average. That means they can probably stomach the tickets.
I always joke when Bruce Springsteen goes on sale, my friend's, not always, oh, we should go see Bruce Springsteen shit, man, it's so pricey. 'cause we're competing against our dads. Our dads are always gonna be able to out buy us at least. At least for the next decade or two in my case. Yeah, and so I think what's cool about the Backstreet Boys is they've been in this like total rock band phase for a while, which is great.
Give the Legacy acts their shine. I. Make people hopefully exposed to something that they didn't know. I'm sure a lot of younger generations are getting tear into the dead in their subsequent counterculture subculture that they've created over the last four decades, which is pretty remarkable. So I think that's cool.
And you also are sure you're gonna solve for tickets. You have a pretty sure hard ticket act in this case. I think with the Backstreet Boys, it's like they haven't been out in a while. Everyone knows them. Everyone likes 'em. Feels like pretty, I'd say probably leans women. If your girl asks you to go to see the Backstreet
Boys, you probably like that.
Oh yeah. They got hits, man. Not to mention they've sold out several cruises. Yeah, which is effectively the very smart.
That's right. Same concept. Little less sexy probably. And I think it gives the sphere and live nation MSG, the opportunity. To figure out what it looks like to have a non rock in there.
Nima was so specific, Nima as a DJ, for folks that maybe doesn't listen to tiny dj, those visuals, man, I'm just like, very cool. Yeah. And so I think he had a very clear vision of how they were gonna do that. But with the pop acts, it's a little less clear. 'cause a lot of the pop acts, it's about creating energy and being proximal and a little less on the visuals historically.
So I think that the Backstreet Boys is a great opportunity for them to do something that it probably would have otherwise never happened. And it's great Larry, opportunity for the sphere. 'cause I heard what their big project is for the flaw is they're trying to get styles in there for dates or something like that.
Mm-hmm. And I think that voice is a really good strong test run of, okay, here's what worked well for the bands. Here's what worked well for the pop acts. Okay, now we're gonna have this. Massive pop star, do his kind of comeback run after he's been away for a couple years. He also ran the London Marathon a couple weeks ago.
Ran like three 30. So just one of those people that's good at everything. Yeah, he's annoying. Yeah. That, yeah. Yeah, for sure. Gives him the opportunity to learn a little bit and gives some shine to some max. I deserve it. This has been
really interesting for a kickoff to the 2025 summer festival concert season with a bit of strategy and a bit of background.
On how all the sausage is made. No pun for Chicago people. But I'm just curious with your, a last statement here. If for the most bang for your buck plus travel, which festival slash concert this summer would you tell someone to go to? Ah, this is tough. It was meant to be. It's a hard question. They're all great.
What would be the budget? You're like, you know what? I worked really hard. Maybe I'm just outta college. I. I've got some, a 40 hour a week corporate kind of job. I probably make, I don't know, 50, 60 KA year. I can feel good about taking one really good trip. What's the best bang for the buck?
I guess if you're under 30, it's still gotta be Coachella.
I think I watched Bill one time to see it and know what the hype is about. If you're over 30, probably at either the Bay Area Festivals. Mm at Lands or the other one that we didn't get a chance to talk about today, but they do an incredible job of bringing together all the travel elements is bottle rock in Napa.
Right. So I think that's another really unique way of Spain experience where it's like food and wine. You have some there. In the same way that SSXW or Soccer by Southwest is, or Burning Man, where it's like a celebration and you just happen to have musical acts there playing incredible shows. So that's my answer Under 30.
Gotta go to Coachella over 30. Go check out Bottle Rock. Love it. As you wrap up here. Yeah, I just, you just say seven Hail Marys for me this weekend. That. When Gaga is gonna bring out Beyonce and they're gonna do telephone, because that's what the crazy Oh my gosh. Talking about on Reddit and the way I would ascend into the next dimension would be just magical.
(03:10):
It would just be just magical.
So pray for me. Yeah, you no, you'd definitely get to the sixth dimension after that win. 'cause that's, yeah. What other kind of possible features could show up? In this lineup, do you think? The
thing with Coachella, man, it's, you never know. Oh, it's always something you don't expect.
So last year, no doubt did Olivia Rodrigo, which makes sense. Oh, that. But it like now, which is a couple years ago, bad Bunny did Post Malone. It's always, 'cause in your head you think it's the intuitive thing, but then it's someone totally agree. Like Travis Scott's doing the anchor on Saturday. Everyone's like, oh, it's gonna be the weekend, it's gonna be right.
Cardi, it seems obvious. Yeah. Cheering might come up. Yeah. She just came out for James Alvin I saw at MSG last week. I didn't see that. Wow. Pretty cool. It's like you wouldn't go, but yeah, it makes sense. They're homies. That's just boys. I'm really excited. Always something good. Treat you. Always miss a couple too that you feel jealous about, but that's the nature of the game and one of the beautiful parts.
Uh, my favorite spring rite of
passing. Thank you for sharing that with us, Alex. We'll see you on the next one. Okay? Yes, sir. Thanks for having me. Mark attention travel and ticketing innovators. Whether you're a startup disrupting the industry, or an established company ready to take your distribution strategy to the next level.
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