The New Bosses 2021: Arjun Mehta, Moment House

The New Bosses 2021 – the latest edition of IQ’s annual celebration of the brightest young talent in the live business today, as voted for by their peers – was published in IQ 103 this month, revealing the 12 promising promoters, bookers, agents, entrepreneurs that make up this year’s list.

To get to know this year’s cohort a little better, IQ conducted interviews with each one of 2021’s New Bosses, discovering their greatest inspirations and pinpointing the reasons for their success.

Catch up on the previous 2021 New Bosses interview with Emma Greco, promoter at AEG Presents France here.

Born and raised in Fremont, California, Arjun Mehta graduated from USC’s Iovine and Young Academy in Los Angeles. Moment House was his first endeavour coming out of college.

Tell us a bit about Moment House and some of the challenges you’ve experienced in developing it?
Fandom is increasingly globalising. For the artists and creators we love the most, we don’t want to only receive content, we also want to participate in experiences. The problem is that fans are everywhere, while artists and creators can’t regularly go everywhere.

The biggest challenge is that the music industry is filled with people that think short-term. We deal with this by identifying the forward thinkers in the business, partnering with them, and paving the new normal for everyone else.

As someone with no family connections in music, did attending your specific academy at USC open any doors into the industry for you?
I was very fortunate to have Jimmy Iovine as a mentor, which was made possible by attending the school. He made a few key introductions at the start of the Moment House journey that were impactful.

Has music always been your goal, or did you see yourself doing something else when you were younger?
I’m passionate about music, but my goal, in general, has always been to create. What I am doing now is pretty much exactly what I wanted my future self to be doing when I was younger.

“Jimmy Iovine made a few key introductions at the start of the Moment House journey that were impactful”

What advice would you give anyone who wants to get their foot in the door to the music business?
Talk to everyone you possibly can and always think in any situation, how can I add value here? Be persistent without being annoying.

What are the biggest challenges facing you and your colleagues as the live music industry starts to get back on its feet?
Growing the team fast enough. It might seem counterintuitive, but our business is growing faster in a post-Covid world. It’s logistically easier to travel, rehearse, film, etc. and the global fan engagement and digital ticket/merch revenue opportunities are too compelling to ignore.

What are you most looking forward to about the year ahead?
The last date of every tour should be a digital tour stop – a special digital media experience created for an at-home audience. Even if an artist does a 200-city tour, that’s a fraction of their fanbase.

“It might seem counterintuitive, but our business is growing faster in a post-Covid world”

There’s an incredible opportunity to engage with fans in a compelling way no matter where they live, and the team and I are very excited to establish digital tour stops as the new norm in the year ahead.

I am also excited for artists to start to realise that this is a new creative format – another outlet for their genius. This isn’t just a monetisation tool. It’s a new form of art.

Where would you like to see yourself in five years’ time?
A version of me that has 20 years’ worth of personal growth!

What has been the highlight of your career, so far?
Building an incredible team full of genuinely good humans and getting to learn from them every day, particularly on our music growth side.

Hard to name everyone but Nigel Egrari, Sam Berger, Casey McCabe, Michele Bernstein, Michael Schneider, Randy Nichols, Edmund Singer-Kingsmith, Jordyn Orenstein, Clayton Barnes, Jon Rast, and many more. You are in great hands if you decide to work with us!

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