Goldenvoice positions itself for new events at Coachella site
Goldenvoice has signed a long-term agreement with the Empire Polo Club in Indio, California, which will enable the promoter to stage additional festivals on the site.
The 642-plus acre desert oasis has been home to Goldenvoice’s Coachella Valley Arts & Music Festival since its inception in 1999, as well as its country music counterpart, Stagecoach, which first took place on the grounds in 2007.
The newly announced deal will see the AEG Presents subsidiary take over year-round operations at the festival site and polo fields, which are estimated to be worth US$80 million, according to local land records.
Additionally, the LA-based promoter and live events company is permitted to host two additional three-day events on the site every year, according to Billboard, prompting speculation that Desert Trip may return to the site after its debut in 2016.
“The new long-term lease will assure that the iconic Coachella and Stagecoach will continue for many years to come”
The deal also provides Goldenvoice oversight of the Empire Grand Oasis, a special event property in Thermal, California.
The Haagen Family, owner of the Empire Polo Club, says: “We are pleased to continue our long-term relationship with Paul Tollett and Goldenvoice. The new long-term lease will assure that the iconic Coachella and Stagecoach Music Festivals will continue for many years to come and allow Goldenvoice to expand their vast catalogue of musical acts on both of Empire’s properties. We wish the very best to AEG, Goldenvoice, and Paul Tollett with their future plans.”
Paul Tollett, president at Goldenvoice, says: “Goldenvoice has had a unique relationship with Empire Polo Club for over twenty-five years. It is a privilege to now take over the operations of the venue and we look forward to continuing to build upon the special history that has been established there. It’s immeasurable how much we’ve learned from Al Haagen.”
In August, Indio City Council extended its development agreement with Goldenvoice, allowing Coachella and Stagecoach to take place in the city until 2050. The promoter generates $3.5m for the city of Indio each year, according to city records.
Goldenvoice is one of the world’s biggest promoters; the company produces several festivals, including recently announced California Vibrations, operates 14 mid-sized venues and promotes over 1,800 shows per year.
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No Desert Trip 2017, says Goldenvoice’s Tollett
Despite grossing in excess of US$150 million and spawning an imitator in the form of Live Nation’s The Classic, Goldenvoice’s Desert Trip megafestival will not return this summer, Goldenvoice’s Paul Tollett has confirmed.
“We’re not doing Desert Trip this year,” Tollett, the CEO of the AEG-owned promoter and co-founder of Coachella, tells Billboard. “We loved [the] 2016 Desert Trip; that was a special moment in time. Maybe someday in the future we’ll do something similar.”
“Maybe someday in the future we’ll do something similar”
There had been widespread speculation Goldenvoice would try to repeat the success of 2016’s inaugural event, which was dubbed ‘Oldchella’ for its heritage line-up of The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, Neil Young, Roger Waters and The Who.
In addition to delivering an estimated $160m for AEG, Desert Trip contributed $250m worth of economic impact to the surrounding area in Indio, California, around the festival.
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Doobies, Dan for Classic East and Classic West
New line-up details have emerged for Classic East and Classic West, the heritage-heavy answer to AEG’s Desert Trip reportedly planned by Live Nation, Oak View Group, Azoff MSG Entertainment and Creative Artists Agency (CAA).
According to Billboard, Steely Dan, The Doobie Brothers, Journey and Earth, Wind & Fire will also play two nights in New York and Los Ageneles this July, joining previously announced headliners Fleetwood Mac and Eagles.
Classic West will take place at Dodger Stadium (56,000-cap.) in LA on 15 and 16 July, with Classic East at Citi Field (41,922-cap.) following two weeks later, on 29 and 30 July.
The inaugural Desert Trip, held on the Coachella site in Indio, California (and dubbed ‘Oldchella’), was a huge success for AEG’s Goldenvoice, with its line-up featuring a sextet of boomer greats – The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, Neil Young, Roger Waters and The Who – delivering record-breaking revenue of US$150m+ for the promoter and contributing to an estimated $250m economic impact on the surrounding area.
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Live Nation, others planning own Desert Trip
Proving once and for all that imitation truly is the sincerest form of flattery, a coalition of non-AEG promoters are reportedly planning their own answer to AEG Live’s US$150 million-grossing Desert Trip festival.
Billboard reports the bi-coastal festival – comprising Classic East at Citi Field (41,922-cap.) in New York and Classic West at Dodger Stadium (56,000-cap.) in Los Angeles – will headlined by Eagles and Fleetwood Mac and organised by Live Nation, Irving Azoff’s companies Oak View Group and Azoff MSG Entertainment and Creative Artists Agency (CAA).
It will the first show by Eagles since the death of founder member Glenn Frey in January 2016. Both Eagles and Fleetwood Mac are represented by CAA Music.
The four companies hope to develop an annual festival franchise around Classics East and West
According to Billboard, the four companies hope to develop an annual festival franchise around Classics East and West.
The inaugural Desert Trip, held on the Coachella site in Indio, California, was a huge success for AEG’s Goldenvoice, with its line-up featuring a sextet of boomer greats – The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, Neil Young, Roger Waters and The Who – delivering record-breaking revenue for the promoter and contributing to an estimated $250m economic impact on the surrounding area.
Goldenvoice has yet to confirm whether Desert Trip will return in 2017, although Rolling Stone speculates Bruce Springsteen, The Police, U2, The Kinks, Elton John and Led Zeppelin could be in the running to perform if it does. (Take those predictions with a healthy spoonful of salt, though: Fleetwood Mac are also on the magazine’s list.)
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16 in 2016: The year in review
With 2016 drawing to a close, in many aspects, it’s been a banner year for the live music business. So in case you miss our regular Index email updates, or recently emerged from a time capsule, here’s 16 key 2016 takeaways (in no particular order) from the year that nearly was…
1. Seconds out, round…?
As IQ wrote last week in our investigation into take-up of dynamic ticket pricing, “if 2016 will be remembered in the live music business for any one thing, it will be as the 12 months in which the pitchforks well and truly came out against secondary ticketing”.
While the UK, as it often tends to, hogged the lion’s share of the headlines, the backlash against what the FanFair Alliance calls “industrial-scale” ticket touting was a truly global phenomenon, with American congressmen, Belgian ministers and promoters in Switzerland, Japan and, most successfully, Italy also all getting in on the action.
Look for continued action in this area in 2017 as the boundaries between primary and secondary continue to blur, calls for greater transparency continue, and more income is driven back to the industry, out of the hands of those who contribute nothing to it.
2. The Ticketing Gold Rush
One of the key topics tackled in this year’s International Ticketing Yearbook was the increasing appetite for ticketing by the world’s biggest online players. After Alibaba Group, the $14bn Chinese ecommerce giant, launched event ticketing operation Tao Piao Piao in May, Amazon caught the industry’s attention with several hires in the UK for the new Amazon Tickets, the start of a bid to become “Earth’s most customer-centric ticketing company”.
“From an artist or sports franchise point of view, any channel that will allow [major ecommerce companies] direct access to the end consumer is powerful and attractive,”
Slightly closer to home, Spotify unveiled a tie-up with Ticketmaster in November, Songkick is settled into its dual role as concert recommendation and ticketing app and Apple Music is dabbling the live space on the current Drake tour. Initial hiccups in some areas aside, 2016 could well be remembered as the moment the ticket started to go where the fans are.
“From an artist or sports franchise point of view, any channel that will allow [major ecommerce companies] direct access to the end consumer is powerful and attractive,” comments ticketing consultant Tim Chambers.
3. Live domi-Nation
The world’s leading live entertainment group showed no signs of bringing its ten-year buying spree to an end in 2016, making no less than eight major acquisitions.
Bonnaroo/AC Entertainment, French promoter Nous Productions, Greek ticketing company TicketHour, Australia’s Secret Sounds (Splendour in the Grass/Falls Festival), Canadian festival promoter Union Events, Sweden Rock festival, Big Concerts in South Africa and YouTube multi-channel network InDMusic were amongst those becoming part of the Live Nation family this year, to the tune of more than US$113 million.
“As we look forward, we see tremendous opportunities to continue global consolidation of our concerts and ticketing businesses, with further growth in advertising and ticketing from the concerts flywheel,” said CEO Michael Rapino in a Q3 statement.
4. Splendid isolation?
On 23 June, in the first major political upset of the year (bet you can’t guess no.2!), the UK voted to leave the European Union (EU), ending more than 40 years of political and economic union with continental Europe.
Thanks to a two-year exit process – which won’t even begin until next March – we’re still no closer to discovering the effect Brexit has on the international live music industry, although a common sentiment in the UK has been to stress the importance of prioritising the creative industries in any future divorce settlement.
“There is a very real risk that skills shortages in the UK will be made worse – at least in the short to medium term”
Industry body Creative Industries Federation called last month for the UK to retain freedom of movement with the rest of bloc – something especially important for touring artists and crew, many of whom have spoken of their opposition to the return of border visas. “There is a very real risk that skills shortages in the UK will be made worse – at least in the short to medium term – by any restriction on freedom of movement that comes with tightening immigration laws and the UK leaving the European Union,” said the federation.
5. Pollsters Trumped
Despite a majority of analysts predicting a victory for Hillary Clinton in last month’s US presidential election, it was not to be: the Republican nominee, Donald Trump, was victorious in 30 of 50 states, and will be inaugurated as president in January.
Like Brexit, the implications for the touring business of a Trump presidency are still unclear, but Nederlander Concerts CEO Alex Hodges seemed to sum up the mood in the Americas when he told IQ the day after the elections: “The show must go on”.
6. Good times
While Q4 and end of year figures are yet to be published, there are few who’d believe that 2016 was a slow year for live music. Billboard puts the value of the US live music business at a staggering $25billion in 2016, with performance show averages up 25% worldwide (43% in the US) and average per-show attendance up 30% globally (29% in the US).
“The top two global tours grossed more than a half-billion dollars in what has been a great year for the concert business.”
Pollstar, which traditionally offers a more accurate barometer of US market health, has yet to reveal annual numbers, but reports: “the top two global tours [Bruce Springsteen and Beyoncé] grossed more than a half-billion dollars in what has been a great year for the concert business.” Pollstar’s Q3 results pegged the top 100 tours up a more modest 3% year-on-year on combined grosses, with average tickets up 7.6%.
7. Rebates under debate
In terms of page views, IQ’s biggest story of 2016 was the revelation that an increasing number of artists are choosing to bypass their local PROs (for example, PRS) in favour of collecting performance royalties directly.
Direct licensing, as it’s known, presents a headache for festival promoters – the vast majority of which have one-stop, blanket licences – with many facing the prospect of paying multiple licensees: the PRO (performance rights organisation) and the artist directly.
Adam Elfin, who runs direct-licensing agency PACE Rights Management, said leaving promoters out of pocket “is not something we want or that should happen”, but added that it’s “beneficial that we’re having this conversation now, because if they weren’t aware of this [direct licensing] and they proceeded with their deals for next year with local PROs, the impact will be massively different.”
No PRO has yet declared they are willing to offer promoters a discount on fees if they have acts directly licensing bands on their line-up, but it’s not a stretch to imagine that might be a possibility for 2017.
8. Beyond music: eSports/YouTube
More than ever before, 2016 saw a raft of new content being introduced to venues, with the likes of eSports events and YouTube stars regularly selling out shows.
The scale of the eSports business was highlighted in October when Reed Midem, the organiser of the Midem music industry conference, announced plans for a similar event for the eSports market, on the back of new data revealing that global revenues in the sector for 2016 are estimated at US$493 million. That news came on the back of the Electronic Sports League (ESL), the world’s largest eSports promoter, agreeing a strategic partnership with AEG, giving it access to 120 AEG-operated venues for qualifying events, tournaments and world championships.
“2016 saw a raft of new content being introduced to venues, with the likes of eSports events and YouTube stars regularly selling out shows.”
Meanwhile, the power of social media continued to grow, posing opportunities for enterprising promoters to take YouTube stars on tour with agencies including WME, CAA and UTA making a big play for online talent. This rapidly growing sector is engaging young fans the world over – underlined by events like Summer in the City, in London’s ExCel centre, where more than 10,000 people bought tickets to meet their favourite YouTubers, watch them live, and listen to panel discussions.
9. Terrorism
The threat of terrorist acts around the world did not diminish during 2016, forcing promoters and venues to increase the amount of investment they are spending to guard their premises, artists, crews and fans from those intent to inflict death and injury.
Atrocities at the likes of the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, as well as attacks on festival sites and, of course the mass murder at Le Bataclan in Paris in late 2015, have brought about stricter security measures, with clubs throughout France now using airport style checks for patrons.
As a so-called soft target, concerts and festivals have found themselves under the microscope, especially in certain countries where terrorist cells are known to operate. At the IFF in September, Rock Werchter promoter Herman Schueremans stated his belief that “We’re more safe now” thanks to some of the efforts that he and fellow promoters around the world have implemented.
Elsewhere, Live Aid promoter Harvey Goldsmith lent his support to a new anti-terror training course, but such measures haven’t appeased everyone, with British peer, Baroness Henig, making moves to force staff at UK music venues to undergo such intensive training.
10. Social media integration
Having a Facebook, Twitter or Snapchat account for your event or venue is hardly rocket science these days, but the past 12 months have seen a number of deals forged to better exploit the audience who uses these and other social media platforms.
In April, Ticketmaster and Eventbrite both agreed deals to sell tickets through Facebook, while later in the year, Live Nation tied up with with Snapchat, initially to create ‘Live Stories’ at V Festival, Way Out West, Creamfields and Reading and Leeds, before taking it to the next level by using links for adverts on Snapchat to sell tickets to their shows.
The past 12 months have seen a number of deals forged to better exploit the audience who uses these and other social media platforms.
Not to be outdone, AEG entered into a multi-year agreement with Snapchat to promote its festivals via the video-sharing app.
Hinting at more deals to come, a survey by Nielsen found that Instagram is used by more US concertgoers than any of its rivals, with an astonishing 83% of those active on social media at shows making use of the photo-sharing app.
11. The SFX/LiveStyle saga
The year ended on a brighter note for those working for beleaguered dance music conglomerate SFX – although a number of creditors might take issue with that statement.
In November, Former Global Group and AEG Live chief, Randy Phillips, was appointed as the company’s new CEO and then, just days later, the SFX reorganisation plan was finally given a green light, following nine months of official administration, but at a cost of nearly US$400million of debt being written off.
The company managed to exit its bankruptcy situation earlier than planned and, moving swiftly to distance the group from its former self, Randy Phillips rebranded the entity as LiveStyle.
Quite whether the saga is truly at an end remains to be seen, with at least one shareholder still asking the courts to look at an alleged undervaluation of the company that accelerated its emergence from debt.
12. Goggle Boxes
The influence of new technology on the live experience continued to break new ground in 2016, with Virtual Reality (VR) a popular talking point. In May, music streaming service Rhapsody launched the Rhapsody VR app which promises, “free, immersive 360-degree videos of great artists from the best seat in the house”. May also saw Live Nation announce a partnership with NextVR to film and stream concerts in the format.
Festival including Wacken Open Air in Germany have begun filming their events for VR headsets, and other players in the space include Warner Music (partnered with MelodyVR and Digital Domain) and Universal Music and iHeartMedia, both recording concerts in VR.
The influence of new technology on the live experience continued to break new ground in 2016, with Virtual Reality a popular talking point.
But is it a genuine source of new revenue streams or a short term fad? Time will tell, but research company Nielsen found that early VR adopters are outspending the average American by 2:1 on live events.
13. Weathering the storm
In Europe, the 2016 festival season was one of the most turbulent in living memory, with FKP Scorpio’s Hurricane and Southside, Marek Lieberberg/CTS Eventim’s Rock am Ring, Ultra Europe, Live Nation’s Rock Werchter and Broadwick Live’s Festival №6 all badly affected by severe weather.
Responses ranged from a government-backed €500k bad-weather fund in the Netherlands to FOLD Festival cheekily giving away tickets to Glastonbury-goers who couldn’t face the mud, while panellists at Reeperbahn Festival’s Epic Production session called for collaboration between festivals and a unified code of conduct for dealing with inclement weather.
Wacken Open Air – which avoided the worst of 2016 – has, meanwhile, embarked on a major overhaul of its festival site for 2017, with a new drainage system and gravel-based ground covering.
14. Bot-tomming Out
The controversial use of bots to harvest primary tickets during an onsale saw inbound legislation in 2016, both in the US and UK. The state of New York made using ticket-buying software on offence in June, while plans for a new anti-both bill were introduced in Ontario, Canada, in October.
By November, the UK’s digital minister, Matt Hancock, had launched his Computer Misuse Act, but the strongest move yet came last week when outbound US President Barrack Obama signed the Better Online Ticket Sales (Bots) Act, which proscribes their use.
15. Desert Trip
Hailed as one of the greatest rock events of all time, Desert Trip, didn’t just smash records – it took dynamite to the entire jukebox.
The concept of putting together three headline acts across three days might not have been rocket science, but when the dream ticket was the Stones, the Beatles and Pink Floyd, the complexities kicked in. But promoters Goldenvoice pulled off the improbable, lining up the Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney and Roger Waters across successive nights and adding in support acts Bob Dylan, Neil Young and The Who for good measure, while using the site of California’s uber cool festival, Coachella, to stage the show – and lending to its popular nickname, Oldchella.
Hailed as one of the greatest rock events of all time, Desert Trip, didn’t just smash records – it took dynamite to the entire jukebox.
Not so fortunate were some of the ticket touts who gambled on scooping up as many of the weekend and day passes as they could get their hands on. Despite issuing a ‘sold out’ notice, Desert Trip organisers held back a number of tickets, which were released a month before the shows, prompting a collapse in the value of the secondary market to the extent that, in the days running up to the concerts, many tickets were listed at lower than original face value.
16. In Memoriam
Already considered an annus horribilis due to the number of fallen musical heroes (with Prince, David Bowie, Leonard Cohen among them), the business lost more than its fair share of heroes in 2016. Dan Panaitescu, head of international booking at Sziget festival was killed in a car crash in July, the same month that veteran concert promoter James Nederlander passed at the age of 94.
July also claimed the life of Baloise Session founder Matthias Müller, when the longtime Swiss festival promoter lost his battle with cancer. Meanwhile, other tragic losses to the business included Brazilian promoter and youth project champion Bianca Freitas, who died in October after contracting the rare Guillain-Barré syndrome.
Trying to squeeze 12 months of news, views and innovation into this short feature is always going to be tricky, so what did we miss? Please feel free to comment below. We may even publish the best bits…
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Celebration 2017 festival set for Paisley Park
Prince’s Paisley Park estate, which IQ last month revealed would be hosting concerts and live events following its reopening as a museum, has announced details of the first such event: Celebration 2017, which will “celebrate the life and legacy” of the late singer with panels, presentations and performances by his former backing musicians.
Performers at the event, which runs from 20 to 23 April, include The Revolution, Morris Day and The Time and members of The New Power Generation and 3rdeyegirl, with tickets starting at an eye-watering US$499 for general admission – $100 more than Desert Trip – or $999 for VIP passes.
Paisley Park – Prince’s 65,000sqft private estate and recording complex in Chanhassen, Minnesota, now operated by PPark Manamagent – recently opened permanently to public tours, just over six months after his death.
Prince, born Prince Rogers Nelson, died from an accidental fentanyl overdose at Paisley Park on 21 April. Read IQ’s tribute here.
Investigations into “dirty” Italian resale market
Two consumer organisations have lodged official complaints with Italian authorities after tickets for Coldplay’s two dates in Milan next July sold out within minutes of going on sale.
Codacons, which says – despite the TicketOne website crashing “at the opening of pre-sales” – many resellers “managed to grab thousands of tickets”, which were listed instantly on secondary ticketing sites, has complained to the Milanese public prosecutor about what it describes as the “dirty and illicit” ticket resale market.
The organisation noted on Friday that on Viagogo the “lowest currently available price is €166.82” – it’s now up to €229 – which rises to the “absurd figure of €1,780.94” for the most expensive tickets, more than 16 times face value (although it’s important to note that just because tickets have been listed for 16 times their original price doesn’t mean they’ll sell for it – cf. Desert Trip).
Secondary sellers have also provoked the ire of Altroconsumo, which has asked the Italian Antitrust Authority, the Autorità Garante della Concorrenza e del Mercato (AGCM), to investigate TicketOne (according to the International Ticketing Yearbook, one of the two main primary ticketing companies in Italy) for alleged unfair business practices.
“We ask the Antitrust Authority to put in place measures to avoid thousands of tickets sold at extortionate prices on the secondary market”
In a statement, the consumer rights group says: “In tests, Altroconsumo verified that within a few minutes of [going on sale], the tickets were available at exorbitant prices on the secondary market, with prices tripled at best.
“The organisation asks the Antitrust Authority to evaluate the behaviour of TicketOne and to put in place tools and measures necessary to avoid thousands of tickets being purchased and then resold at extortionate prices on secondary platforms.”
In May Belgium became the first country to force ISPs to block access to ticket resale sites in response to widespread touting and fraud.
Coldplay will play the San Siro stadium (80,000-cap.) on 3 and 4 July 2017.
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Wish you were here?
Forty years ago, if you’d showed up to a music festival, the coat you were wearing would also have served as your sleeping bag. And your tent.
But times change and the festival experience has had to change too. Forget about glamping – Eamonn Forde takes a tongue-in-cheek look at ten of the most eye-popping VIP package choices on the market…
Name: Secret Solstice
Location: Iceland
Price: US$1 million (€882,000) for six people
Headliners Radiohead may have pioneered the pay-what-you-want model, but the price here is non-negotiable. For that wallet-trembling price you get all manner of things – starting with “business jet transport from anywhere on Earth” (return, luckily) on a Gulfstream G300 “or similar”, two private concerts, and access to ultra-VIP areas, if mixing with the hoi polloi is too much to bear. There’s also access to shows in a glacier (a glacier!) and a volcano (a volcano!) and helicopter trips. You do get a lot for your money and if you’ve ever tried to buy a round of drinks in Reykjavik, suddenly $1m doesn’t seem that expensive.
Name: Desert Trip
Location: Indio, California, US
Price: $10,000 (€8,820) for two people
The line-up is not what you’d call underwhelming (the Rolling Stones, Dylan, The Who, Paul McCartney, Neil Young and Roger Waters), so at a once-in-a-lifetime festival, you can’t be expected to rough it. For your ten grand, you get to sleep in an exclusive area in a Shikar tent that has actual beds and, incredibly, air conditioning. While waiting for the artists to get out of their bath chairs, you can go to cocktail and craft beer tasting sessions and then slump, content, into outdoor chairs to listen to the songs that defined the counterculture, aimed as they were at the freaks and misfits who railed against pernicious mainstream cooption. Oh…
Read the rest of this feature in issue 66 of IQ
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Desert Trip on course to gross $150m
Tickets for both weekends of Goldenvoice’s Desert Trip reportedly sold out in under three hours, netting the AEG Live-owned promoter a box-office gross well in excess of US$100 million – the highest ever for a single festival – and no doubt sparking plenty of frantic boardroom meetings at rivals eager to replicate the success of what is being called the ‘concert of the century’.
The ‘megafestival’, originally scheduled for 7–9 October but expanded to a second weekend, Coachella-style, on the day tickets went on sale (Monday 9 May), features a line-up of just six acts, all of whom are at least 50 years into their career, leading some to dub the event ‘Oldchella’. However, the combined pulling power of its sextet of boomer greats – The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, Neil Young, Roger Waters and The Who – proved irresistible to ticket-buyers, with fans from the Americas, Europe and further afield snapping up every ticket and surely leaving open the prospect of events with a similarly prestigious billing in future.
While Goldenvoice did not respond to IQ’s requests for comment, sources tell Billboard that Desert Trip’s overall box-office gross is expected to top $150 million, and that AEG/Goldenvoice is “ecstatic” about the event’s success. By comparison, Coachella, also promoted by Goldenvoice, made $84.26m over two weekends in 2015.
Wherever Desert Trip’s gross ends up, it’ll be a figure bolstered by packaging hotel stays and VIP experiences with this autumn’s hottest ticket, as well as listing allocation direct on the secondary market.
Goldenvoice will likely be paying between $6m and $9m to each of the six headliners
Each Desert Trip weekend will seat in excess of 70,000 people: around 35,000 on reserved seats, priced at $699, $999 and $1,599, and 35,000 general admission, priced at $399. In addition, there were a number of day tickets available for $199, as well as numerous hotel and travel packages through event partner Valley Music Travel. (The $199 daily passes, says Billboard, were the last to sell out.)
The hotel packages ranged in price from $2,129 – for two general admission tickets and a stay at the three-star Homewood Suites La Quinta – to $6,709, which includes three nights at the Agua Caliente Casino Resort & Spa and a choice of reserved floor or reserved grandstand seating.
Of course, the headliners needed to gross $150m from a single festival don’t come cheap. One source “familiar with the logistics of booking huge acts” tells The Guardian that Goldenvoice will likely be paying between $6m and $9m to each of the six acts.
In a change to AEG’s traditional secondary ticketing arrangements – the company has had a partnership with eBay-owned StubHub to list tickets from the resale site on its AXS ticketing platform since 2012 – Viagogo serves as Desert Trip’s “Official Premium Seating” partner. Viagogo’s site explains that “Official Premium Passes are being sold directly by the event organiser and are not resale tickets… The price of Premium Passes varies with demand.”
Tickets advertised on the platform are now roughly three-times the face value. Prices for weekend one and weekend two tickets listed on Viagogo start at £1004 (roughly US$1,455) for floor seating passes (or £1,454 for the front blocks), £1,454 ($2,105) for grandstand seating and £1,485 ($2,150) for pit standing tickets. While not official secondary partners, at press time StubHub was advertising 3,400 passes across both weekends, while Vivid Seats is selling three-day passes for weekend two for under $1,000.