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Jay Marciano shines at ILMC’s Breakfast Meeting

The respected executive discussed his career with raconteur Ed Bicknell, who was making his swansong as host after 23 years

By Oumar Saleh on 01 Mar 2024


image © Phil Wilson - Parklife Photography

Heavyweight executive Jay Marciano shared stories from his illustrious career in the (Late) Breakfast Meeting to close out the second day of ILMC 36 at the Royal Lancaster Hotel in London.

The AEG Presents chair and CEO sat down with raconteur and former artist manager Ed Bicknell, who was bowing out as host after 23 years on the mic. Bicknell has interviewed some of the biggest names in the music business during his tenure, including Irving Azoff, Roger Daltrey, Nile Rodgers, Emma Banks, Arthur Fogel, Paul McGuinness and Marc Geiger.

Marciano, who is responsible for overseeing AEG’s tour and concert promotion, facilities, and digital divisions, touched upon topics such as AI and the future of the business, backstage tales of Chuck Berry, James Brown and Prince, plus Taylor Swift’s all-conquering Eras Tour…

Here is a selection of highlights from the hour-long conversation…

“We’re spending a lot more time thinking about music from other parts of the world coming to the US, and how best to promote these shows”

The globalisation of live music…
“This business is never-ending. There is no ‘endgame’. But what keeps things interesting is that streaming has created new music fans that are interested in all kinds of genres. We used to be limited by playlists which were driven by radio stations, but that’s no longer the case. Before, we spent most of our careers thinking about taking Western music to other parts of the world, but nowadays we’re spending a lot more time thinking about music from other parts of the world coming to the US, and how best to promote these shows.

“It’s not just artists who are performing in English, either. For example, out of the three Coachella headliners from last year, only Frank Ocean sang in English. Bad Bunny sang in Spanish, and Blackpink in Korean. The fact that we had over 750,000 music fans buy tickets to see them shows that the business has come a long way.”

Measuring rate of growth…
“We’re not growing fast enough [laughs]. Well, there’s the data points… Did we do more shows than last year? Do we have more venues? Are we selling more tickets? Are we selling more tickets at higher ticket prices? Are we paying artists in compensation based upon that? All those are the basic data points that you sort of measure yourself over year after year.

“We have a fully developed footprint in the US — we have 19 offices, nearly 100 music venues, and tens of thousands of shows. As we start to think globally, we’ve opened offices in the UK, our partnership with [independent media agency] Frontier in Australia, our Asian business which is growing, developing our South American market as well as other European countries… all of this takes time, as well as finding the right partners, and we’ve done particularly well with choosing our partners to both our long term benefits. These partnerships we’ve developed span across 15, 20 years.”

“AI is going to change everything, including the creative process. What we see on stage, how it’s presented…”

Where the industry goes from here…
“It’ll continue to be rapidly impacted by technology. There are people here who are more qualified to talk about this topic than I am, but AI is going to change everything, including the creative process. What we see on stage, how it’s presented, its use in the studio, how artists will creatively work with one another…

“Many of the young artists I talk to don’t wanna be limited by just one creative medium. Once upon a time, they simply just wanted to be, say, the best guitar player in the world. I hate to use the words ‘brand extension’, but nowadays they wanna branch out into films and other things. They don’t want to be pigeon-holed into one thing.”

A double bill with James Brown and Chuck Berry…
“I was in my late twenties coming up in the industry. I had this theatre in LA called the Beverly Theater. In those days, there was a 7:30 show and a 10:30 show, and I had a double bill with James Brown and Chuck Berry [laughs]. The William Morris Agency made a mistake on Chuck’s contract and pulled the 7:30 show down, but he finished the set anyway.

“It was a summer show, and the dressing rooms of the Beverly Theater had no air conditioning backstage. It was a hot summer’s night. There was a knock on my door, and I was told that, ‘Mr. Brown would like to see me.’ I was like, oh boy. I then go to his dressing room, knock on his door, and I hear ‘come in.’ James Brown was under one of these hairdryers and is straightening his hair in between shows. I said, ‘James, I heard you wanted to see me,’ and he went, ‘It’s Mr. Brown’ [laughs]. He then said, ‘I understand you have a problem with Mr Berry this evening,’ and I said yes. He replied that he would have to work extra hard, and I asked him, ‘How much?’ To which he said, ‘$5,000 in small bills.’ I race upstairs, pull out as many bills as I could from the cash registers, and it turns out I was $1,500 shy of what he asked. I then run across the street to a pizza place a friend of mine owned, and asked him if I could borrow $1,500. I got the money together, kept him happy, and he did another hour of his show.

“We all have stories like that of cranky artists. Usually over time, we had some laughs about it. In fact, I went on to have a great relationship with James over the years.”

“I just wish we had more artists to work with like Taylor”

Passion vs profession…
“There’s a saying about finding your passion, following your passion, and you’ll be good at it because it’s what you love doing. My slight variation is that your passion is your hobby, and whatever you’re very good at should be your profession, because I was an okay guitar player and that turned out to be my hobby. I think if I got down the road as a guitar player, I probably wouldn’t have gotten far…

“I was never good at geometry or algebra but it turns out you don’t need to use either of those to be a promoter. You just have to be really good at addition and subtraction, because it’s not a complicated business.”

Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour
“I just wish we had more artists to work with like Taylor. She’s on time, she’s reliable, she does three-plus hour shows every night, she’ll do three shows in a row… her work ethic and dedication is something that’s rare. She’s always upbeat, she never complains, and her energy is infectious because everyone around the camp feels the same way. They know they’re making history, and they’re feeling happy about being a part of it. And of course, we’re happy to be the promoter on that tour.”

 


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