High-level “disruptors” Mark Cavell (Sony Music Masterworks) and Mariano Otero (Fever) were the focal point of yesterday’s Touring Entertainment Live (TEL) finale at the International Live Music Conference (ILMC).

The two industry game-changers were interviewed by ILMC’s James Drury in the Making Waves keynote at London’s Royal Lancaster Hotel.

As president of Sony Music Masterworks, Cavell has overseen the expansion of his company from a classical and Broadway music label to a power player in live entertainment, while Otero is SVP of business development at online global discovery platform Fever, which has used data-driven insights to recommend personalised activities since its creation in 2014.

Having laid out his vision to enlarge Sony Music Masterworks’ live division (which now encompasses 14 creative companies including RG Live, Proactiv, Luna Entertainment Group, and Terrapin Station Entertainment, among others), Cavell aims to bring in more niche markets in an industry whose tastes continue to diversify — especially for an increasingly open-minded younger audience.

“Alongside the family entertainment space, we’re also leaning heavily towards including anime and gaming in our repertoire,” he said, noting how genres such as K-pop and J-pop have seamlessly entered today’s Western cultural landscape.

“While certainly a niche phenomenon, we’ve continued to see a major growth in anime’s popularity but there isn’t a lot to offer out there from an experiential or live concert standpoint,” Cavell added. “We saw what Fever have done with Candlelight and how they’ve made classical music appeal to the younger generation, and we firmly believe that we can do the same for anime.

“We’ve been approached by Japanese artists’ labels and managers to potentially promote and offer live anime concerts”

“We’ve been approached by Japanese artists’ labels and managers to potentially promote and offer live anime concerts, which have proven popular in Japan, to a Western audience. While there is a question over whether anime fans are willing to see the artists on stage, there is massive potential for them to be hugely successful.”

Fever has grown into a marketing and entertainment behemoth now valued at $2 billion. According to Otero, data is a key component in its success with its online marketing tool Secret Media, which acts as a viral city guide at 120 locations around the world.

“We have around 300 million monthly interactions between Secret Media and our visitors, which gives us plenty of data to test out a hundred different concepts every week,” he said. “We use Secret Media to scope out what’s going on in a particular city, identify what types of entertainment have a higher potential demand, and explore other areas of the business.”

As mentioned by Cavell, one of Fever’s major success stories has been its Candlelight concerts, which offer intimate live performances by local musicians in a candlelit setting.

Originally focused on classical music, the series has expanded to include jazz, pop, and film scores and is now featured in over 200 cities, attracting five million attendees.

“To no surprise, the 25-35 demographic wasn’t buying live classical music concert tickets, so we started experimenting with different assets and combined the idea of hosting those concerts inside these intimate, candle-lit settings,” said Otero. “All of a sudden, we’re seeing younger people take their dates to Candlelight. The concept created an entirely brand new market for us.”

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Sony Music Masterworks (SMM) president Mark Cavell and Fever SVP Mariano Otero are set to give a joint keynote interview at ILMC’s Touring Entertainment LIVE.

The leading executives will star in TEL 2025’s closing session Making Waves at 5.15pm on Wednesday 26 February at London’s Royal Lancaster Hotel.

Chaired by ILMC’s James Drury, the pair will share insights into their game-changing strategies, their growth stories and explain why they’re so bullish about the potential for touring entertainment.

Cavell has transformed record label SMM into a significant player in the touring entertainment sector through the expansion of its live division. Following an acquisition spree, it now encompasses 14 leading companies including Backyard Cinema, Black Ink Presents, Black Sky Creative, Culture Creative, GEA Live, The Luna Entertainment Group, MAC Global, Proactiv Entertainment, RG Live, RoadCo Entertainment, Roast Productions, Seaview, Senbla, and Terrapin Station Entertainment.

Otero, meanwhile, joined Fever in 2020 to lead the company’s expansion in the Americas, just as the business saw a 10x growth. He now oversees global expansion, strategy, and leads the business development team.

Otero, who has also held strategic roles at Bain & Co, Google, Goldman Sachs and Uber, will chart the firm’s growth to becoming a billion dollar business, and share insights into its data-led strategy.

The keynote will be the culmination of an event packed with business insights, networking opportunities and more

Passes are still available for TEL, which runs alongside the core ILMC programme and gathers the world’s top show and exhibition producers, rights holders, venue operators and promoters for a dedicated day on the multibillion-dollar sector.

The keynote will be the culmination of the specialist event, which will be packed with business insights, unrivalled networking opportunities and more.

Other panels include Lands of Opportunity, in which CTS Eventim’s Susan Gloy-Kruse looks at the hottest touring products; Find the Gems examines changing tastes and where to find the next big show; while Marketing Masterclass will see FKP Scorpio Entertainment’s James Cassidy discuss ways to maintain interest in a product and maximise marketing effort. The full programme can be viewed here.

In addition, there are just a few slots remaining for TEL’s Quickfire Session – your chance to present your touring shows to a room full of promoters and venues. Led by Manon Delaury of TEO, the whistlestop tour through the best of touring entertainment is a hop-on, hop-off format, ensuring a fast-paced and entertaining session. To take part, email [email protected] with the subject header: I want to present at the Quickfire Session.

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Sony Music Masterworks, a division of Sony Music Entertainment, has acquired a majority stake in UK concert promotion and production company, Senbla.

Senbla founder and chief executive Ollie Rosenblatt will continue to run the company, working alongside Sony Masterworks’ chief operating officer Mark Cavell and UK label head Sarah Thwaites.

“The combination of Senbla with Sony Music Masterworks gives us a broader platform to grow opportunities in live performance,” comments the Senbla boss, who says he is “delighted” with the new partnership.

Cavell says the deal is “exactly the right move” for Masterworks, as the Sony Music division continues to build on a “very successful live business”.

“The combination of Senbla with Sony Music Masterworks gives us a broader platform to grow opportunities in live performance”

Sony Music took full control of UK-based show producer Raymond Gubbay Live (RBL) last year, in a deal with Germany’s Deutsche Entertainment AG (DEAG).

According to Cavell, the acquisitions “provide the perfect platform to grow the business in the UK and overseas.”

Founded in 2011, Senbla puts on more than 200 concerts and shows annually across the UK. The promoter has worked with artists such as Joss Stone, Burt Bacharach, Sophie Ellis-Bextor, Soft Cell and Beverley Knight.

Last year, Senbla teamed up with content creation company Wisebuddah to put on Quincy Jones: A Life in Song at the AEG-owned O2 Arena. Senbla has led productions including Star Wars in Concert, the Apollo Nights Summer Series and Electric Soul Festival.

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