The New Bosses: Remembering the class of 2021
The 14th edition of IQ Magazine‘s New Bosses celebrated the brightest talent aged 30 and under in the international live music business.
The New Bosses 2021 honoured no fewer than a dozen young executives, as voted by their colleagues around the world.
The 14th edition of the annual list inspired the most engaged voting process to date, with hundreds of people taking the time to submit nominations.
The year’s distinguished dozen comprises promoters, bookers, agents, entrepreneurs and more, all involved in the international business and each of whom is making a real difference in their respective sector.
In alphabetical order, the New Bosses 2021 are:
- Talissa Buhl, festival booker, FKP Scorpio (DE). Full profile here.
- Jenna Dooling, agent, WME (UK). Full profile here.
- Emma Greco, promoter, AEG Presents (FR). Full profile here.
- Paris Harding, promoter, SJM (UK). Full profile here.
- Tessie Lammle, agent, UTA (US). Full profile here.
- Will Marshall, agent, Primary Talent/ICM Partners (UK). Full profile here.
- Arjun Mehta, founder & CEO, Moment House (US). Full profile here.
- Flo Noseda-Littler, agency assistant, Paradigm (UK). Full profile here.
- Anna Parry, programming manager, the O2 (UK). Full profile here.
- Theo Quiblier, head of concerts, Two Gentlemen (CH). Full profile here.
- Dan Roberts, promoter, Live Nation (UK). Full profile here.
- Age Versluis, promoter, Friendly Fire (NL). Full profile here.
Subscribers can read full interviews with each of the 2021 New Bosses in issue 103 of IQ Magazine.
Click here to subscribe to IQ for just £5.99 a month – or check out what you’re missing out on with the limited preview below:
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Moment House launches in Japan with ticketer Zaiko
Moment House has launched in Japan through a partnership with digital ticketing platform Zaiko, which invested in the company in September.
The LA-based live media platform, which powers ticketed livestreamed ‘Moments’ for leading musicians and entertainers, has processed more than one million tickets across 168 countries since its launch in 2019.
Tame Impala, KSI, Halsey, St Vincent, Kygo, Kaytranada, Brockhampton, Grouplove, Yungblud and Justin Bieber are among the artists that have worked with the platform.
Moment House Japan has now announced its first virtual shows showcasing talent from across Asia. LA-based Japanese artist Jin Akanishi will be showcasing his first “online digital experience” on 25 December.
Tame Impala, KSI, Halsey, St Vincent, Kygo, Kaytranada, Brockhampton and Justin Bieber have worked with the platform
In January, the platform will present a performance from Korean-American rapper Jessi as well as a virtual gig from Thai singers Billkin and PP Krit.
Moment House’s expansion comes after the platform received US$12 million in new funding from investors including UTA Ventures, the investment arm of United Talent Agency, artists Halsey and Kaytranada, and Max Cutler, founder of podcast studio Parcast and head of new content for Spotify.
The new investors joined existing backers including high-profile artist managers Troy Carter, Scooter Braun, Myles Shear (Kygo), Austin Rosen (Post Malone), as well as actor Jared Leto, UnitedMasters’ Steve Stoute, Patreon CEO Jack Conte and ex-TikTok CEO Kevin Mayer.
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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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UTA invests in livestreaming service Moment House
Moment House has received US$12 million in new funding from investors including UTA Ventures, the investment arm of United Talent Agency, artists Halsey and Kaytranada, and Max Cutler, founder of podcast studio Parcast and head of new content for Spotify.
The series-A funding round, led by venture-capital firm Forerunner Ventures, also includes design firm Ideo, actors Whitney Cummings and Tom Felton, artist manager William Robillard-Cole, and YouTuber and comedian Noel Miller.
LA-based Moment House, which powers ticketed livestreamed ‘Moments’ for leading musicians and entertainers, has processed more than million tickets across 168 countries since its launch in 2019. It has worked with artists including Tame Impala, KSI, Halsey, St Vincent, Kygo, Kaytranada, Brockhampton, Grouplove, Yungblud and Justin Bieber.
The new investors join existing backers including high-profile artist managers Troy Carter, Scooter Braun, Myles Shear (Kygo), Austin Rosen (Post Malone), as well as actor Jared Leto, UnitedMasters’ Steve Stoute, Patreon CEO Jack Conte and ex-TikTok CEO Kevin Mayer.
“This fundraising round allows us to execute on our ambitious product roadmap”
“We’re excited to welcome more top tech and entertainment leaders to Moment House as we continue empowering creators to deliver special live experiences to their worldwide communities digitally,” says Moment House co-founder and CEO Arjun Mehta.
“This fundraising round allows us to execute on our ambitious product roadmap, which involves deepening the consumer social experience, and on the supply side, opening up the platform so that any creator in the world can easily make a Moment.
“Everything we have done so far is just step one of a much bigger plan to help build the ‘metaverse’.”
Upcoming shows for Moment House, which recent made a string of senior hires, include Halsey, Tinashe, Michelle Branch, Louis the Child, the Tiny Meat Gang Podcast, the Small Town Murder podcast and more.
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Moment House hires Michele Bernstein, Georgie Donnelly
Moment House, the Los Angeles-based livestreaming platform backed by the likes of Scooter Braun, Troy Carter and Jared Leto, has made seven new hires.
Former WME partner Michele Bernstein, who left the agency last year to start her own consultancy, Michi B, has been named marketing strategist, with UK comedy specialist Georgie Donnelly, most recently an agent at UTA, has been appointed head of comedy.
Casey McCabe, who formerly worked in AEG Presents’ global touring team, is Moment House’s new head of live music and strategy, with Dionte Goodlett (ex-Apple Music) hired as director of hip hop. Red Light Management alum Randy Nichols, meanwhile, has been named director of rock and metal strategy and partnership, with Spotify’s Sam Berger the overall head of music.
“We’re thrilled to welcome Sam, Michele, Casey, Dionte, Randy, Bart and Georgie to the Moment House team as we work to propel the company to new heights”
“We’re thrilled to welcome Sam, Michele, Casey, Dionte, Randy, Bart and Georgie to the Moment House team as we work to propel the company to new heights,” says Moment House CEO and co-founder Arjun Mehta.
“Their deep expertise and unique specialisations working with talent of all kinds will massively aid Moment House’s continued growth and evolution.”
Founded in 2019 out of the Jimmy Iovine and Dr Dre Academy for Innovation at the University of Southern California, Moment House has since hosted ticketed virtual shows by the likes of Halsey, Tame Impala, Kygo (pictured), Kaytranada, Yungblud, Grouplove, Bryson Tiller, Brockhampton, Flux Pavillion, Omar Apollo.
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