Aspen Live: A Family Affair

Aspen Live celebrates 20 years next Dec.Aspen Live, a preeminent music and live entertainment industry think tank and networking conference celebrated it's 19th year this past weekend.  Jim Lewi once again brought together "the Aspen Family"  an eclectic group of agents, managers,  ticket-sellers, venue owners, marketers and live entertainment veterans from all over America, and one guy from Scotland.

Click 4 pix:  Aspen Live, A Family Affair.

As an industry outsider...AspenSpin was again given carte blance access to the inner circles of the music and live entertainment businesses.  Aspen Live has a extensive history of professional collaborations and mutually beneficial relationships built over years of skiing and partying in Aspen.   For many of the attendees #AspenLive is clearly one of the highlights of their year.  They get to break out of their molds, blow out of L.A. or NYC or Nashville or Seattle or Albuquerque or even Denver and let their hair down in Aspen.   Every year a few "newbies" try to crack the code and get taken in by the Aspen Live Family.  It was amazing how well the 5 young, vivacious, pretty and professional women from United Interests / W.A.R. Records of Boulder fit into the Aspen Family...which is composed mostly of grizzled music veterans.

Bob Lefsetz trading barbs with Peter Mensch.The infamous Bob Lefsetz of the influential music  industry rag, The Lefsetz Letter led off with a "sit down" with Peter Mensch founding partner of Q Prime Management.   Mensch, quite the racanteur,  has an interesting story to tell.   His long career in music has been colorful & successful, but he started as a nerdy, friendless, social outcast who's claim to fame was that he had more albums than anyone else in the dorm at University of Chicago.  He managed to score a job as tour accountant on Aerosmith's 1977-78 Draw the Line tour...which Mensch affectionately called the "snort the line tour" where he bonded with opening act AC / DC just as they were hitting America for the first time.  Despite being "the worst tour accountant in history" AC/ DC became his first major management client.  His firm Q Prime is one of the most powerful independent managers in the business.  Suffice to say...he has a good rap.  His motto..."don't get mad, get even."

Ticketing ScienceJim McCarthy, CEO of Goldstar Events had to follow Mensch to the podium.   It was not an easy task. Goldstar has sold over 15 million tickets for more than 10,000 venues since its inception in 2002.  You can sign up for discounted tickets in your market at GOLDSTAR    While e-ticketing and big data are fascinating topics...hearing about the time Keith Richards told Peter Mensch to tell Mick that "he looks like a pooftah" was a tough act to follow. 

Day 2 led off with a meaningful story about how Aspen Live creates opportunities.  Felice Mancini, President and CEO of Mr. Holland's Opus Foundation, a non-profit that provides instruments to schools for their music programs and Emma Leggat, Head of Corporate Social Responsibility at Stub Hub presented their case study.    Inspired by the acclaimed motion picture about music educator Mr. Holland...the foundation provides instruments and other support for about 4000 students every year.   Ms. Mancini is a tireless networker and clearly passionate about music education. Ms Leggat's goal...to humanize the e-commerce giant.   Last year in Aspen Mancini connected with an influential exec. from Stub Hub to get the ball rolling. Owned by E-Bay, Stub Hub is the 800 pound gorilla in the e-ticket space and the secondary market for tickets.  One year later...Stub Hub has agreed to sponsor The Next Stage Concert Series that produced 5 concerts across the country to benefit Mr. Holland's Opus Foundation.  Click here to watch a very compelling 2 minute film about the collaboration between Mr. Holland's Opus Foundation and Stub Hub and how they are helping 1 kid at a time.

Seth Goldstein on raising capital for the music space.Seth Goldstein, venture capitalist, entrepreneur, angel investor and DJ led a round table discussion about financing options in the music space.  It's safe to say...that while sexy...investments in music are usually a high risk ...rarely rewarded asset class.   I'm not saying it can't be done...but making money in the music world is always difficult.  One  peanut gallery comment that seemed to hold some truth " Silicon Valley hates music because it's in L.A. and Silicon Valley hates L.A.   Another weizenheimer shouted that the music business is "full of flakes".  No one denied it.   Check out Seth's DJ app.  CROSSFADER

Day three rolled out the gargantuan players.  Ashley Bradbury from Facebook gave a very nice presentation about the best way to use Facebook.  It became clear that Facebook wants to control everything you see and that the best way to maximize the utility of the social network is to pay them for placement.   Ashley who seems like a great lady also shared many ways by which you can give your data to Facebook.  My take home... big bro is watching...and  everybody calls him Zuck.

Who wants merch? Rockandrolltshirts.comVivien Lewit, director of Content Partnerships at You Tube (owned by google) led a discussion about monetizing content on You Tube.  You Tube is one of the primary vehicles for music consumption today and many artists are making bank on You Tube.  To provide some perspective on You Tube, 300 hours of video are uploded every minute. That's 12.5 days of vid...every 60 seconds.   50% of those views are watched on mobile devices.  The salient point...if you're a musician...control your publishing rights, partner up with You Tube...write, perform and record a hit vid...and start cashing checks. 

Another year of Aspen Live is a wrap. Next year will be the 20th edition, so expect some BIG, BIG things according to Jim Lewi.  It was a weekend packed with information flow, humongous dinners, late night rap sessions, inside jokes, gossip and brand building and of course all the merch you can handle courtesy of Dean Gelfand at RockandRollTshirts.com   The skiing, the hiking the cooking classes etc etc make Aspen Live a unique and powerful event. As always,  there was an extreme amount of hugging it out at Aspen Live.  If you are crazy enough to want to pursue a career in music and live entertainment...get your a$$ out here next year for Aspen Live.  Join the fam, because as always it was another great jam sesh with the Aspen Live Family.

Click 4 pix:  Aspen Live, A Family Affair.

Best wishes to veteran AspenLive Family member Andy Summers who suffered a terrible injury while skiing Spar Gulch for the "last run".  A concussion, a few cracked ribs and a collapsed lung never killed anyone ( i don't think)  Word has it Andy will be fine after some serious rest and recovery time.  But no crowd surfing for a while.  Positive vibes go out to Andy.    

Just as everyone was packing up to head to the airport...a major POW storm hit Aspen, hense the delay in the publishing of this article.  

Rob Gordon brought some new blood to Aspen Live. The ladies of United Interests / W.A.R. Records

Backstage pass. Getting it done after hours at Aspen Live.  

Aspen Live: For the Love of Music

Aspen Live 2013: Click 4 Pix.Aspen Live, the entertainment think tank,  in it's 18th incarnation, took place this past weekend in Aspen.  Music industry veterans from all over North America made their annual pilgrimage to A-Town for Aspen Live.  The Aspen Live "family" is comprised of  managers, agents, promoters, ticket-ers, venue owners, marketers and really anyone interested in the business aspects of the music biz.  Aspen Live is the brain-child of Jim Lewi, a music industry vet who spent 14 years living in Aspen.  This year, A. Party of AspenSpin, a music biz outsider, was able to get inside Aspen Live and learn the real meaning of " it's all about the hang". Interesting seminars as well as parties sponsored by Voice Media, Access Pass & Design and Belly Up Aspen contributed to the experience.

Click 4 Pix:  For the LOVE of MUSIC

Dan Steinberg and industry icon Alex Hodges. Click 4 pix.Thursday's highlight was Steinymania as Dan Steinberg of Square Peg Concerts hosted cocktails with industry icon, Alex Hodges.   Mr. Hodges, currently the CEO of Nederlander Concerts has used his Southern charm to navigate the music world for more than 5 decades. The first concert he attended was Elvis at the Fox in Atlanta in 1956.  Alex wove stories about promoting frat parties in the 50's and eventually  "breaking" Otis Redding, Sam & Dave and others in and around Macon, Georgia.  He briefly took a real job in Atlanta after college...but when his partner Phil Walden passed him an acetate recording of The Allman Brothers first album... before it was released...he bolted back into the music biz without a second thought.  He told a great story about the rivalry between The Allman's and Lynyrd Skynyrd and how he signed Skynyrd by telling them they would never be billed 2nd to ABB. That deal was eventually renegotiated.   Hodges worked with Atlanta Rhythm Section, Charlie Daniels Band, Stevie Ray Vaughn and many others.   Steiny asked the provocative questions to get the real stories from Hodges.  It's clear why he is one of the most widly loved guys in Music.  A true gentleman.

Day one included an interesting discussion of "Content" led by David Rubin of Rabbi Where and Jeff White from Ticketfly.   The word content was used "317 times"during their slide deck...which did not seem to bother anybody in the room except industry poobah Bob Lefsetz.   Goldstar Events CEO Jim McCarty spoke about mobile.  His presentation entitled "how not to suck at mobile" made several salient observations for the mostly old school crowd.   For me...the take home points were obvious, the incredible rise in the use of smart phones and tablets will continue and that 50% of Goldstar's ticket sales are via mobile.

Day 2 was all about business.  Many Aspen family members skied or rode our mountains.  Several people went on a snowmobile excursion to the Maroon Bells and others took a gourmet cooking class.

Anita Ellberse & Vince Bannon debated Blockbuster Theory.at Aspen Live 2013. Click 4 pix.At 4pm, the school bell rang.   Harvard Business School  Professor,  Anita Elberse presented her findings on the blockbuster theory.  Ms. Elberse has the distinction of being the youngest tenured prof. in the history of HBS.  Her book, Blockbusters...hit-making, risk-taking and the big business of entertainment served as a template for her discussion.  Anita is an empirical modelist who does academic research using vast pools of data in an effort to predict future results.  Her theory in a nutshell...bet most heavily on the most likely winners.  She suggested that our world is quickly moving towards a "winner take all" marketplace.  She put this into perspective for the music people...by sharing her research.  Using a sample size of 8 million songs... 94% of them sold fewer than 10 copies.  A full 1/3 of the songs sold only one and the top 102 songs accounted for 50% of the market.   Basically the odds of an unknown making a huge hit record are very low.  The winners are almost always controlled by the major record companies.  It's a "grab for scale" she added.  "So you're pissing on their dreams"? asked Vince Bannon referring to the huge number of aspiring musicians.  To paraphrase Anita...basically...yes.   Her book sold very well at the merch table.

Jay Sider from Band Page spoke about monetization and engagement.  The concept of "moment of intent" has a 25X greater chance of a conversion on-line.  Band Page is a company that gathers content, commerce and data all in one place for Performers. Nic Adler owner of The Roxy in L.A. and a social-media jaugernaught  shared his thoughts on Curation vs Content and gave an up-to-date overview about what's hot in social media.  

By Saturday everyone was in the chill zone.  The entire vibe of the conference had changed.  It appeared as if a special bonding had occurred.  Maybe it was the altitude?   The Old guard has finally realized that technology has taken over the music business.  Some of the "young guns" of the Aspen Live family found their voices.   The rules of passion for their livelihood, which has thrived for decades on relationships and mutually beneficial goals, has changed drastically in the past several years.  There was a flash bomb toast when the poobah of music, (Bob) interrupted the main speaker to prickly opine. It resulted in an unexpected belly laugh on stage-right.  Everyone seemed more relaxed...or maybe it was just me who was more relaxed.  Plenty of good natured burning was going on throughout the meeting room.  When Jim Lewi suggested that the group have "1 meeting instead of 100" attention was turned to Kristina Wallender.

Founder Jim Lewi calming Kristin Wallender 10 seconds before her presentation at Aspen Live. Click 4 pix.Introduced as "the marketing lady from Ticketfly"  Kristina is a music industry neophyte and she seemed a little nervous, but she actually killed.   Her previous position with an extremely large on-line reseller who is attempting to rule the world.  Hint: it starts with A and ends with mazon allowed her to drill deep into e-commerce.  She shared 5 simple points that everyone can learn from A-Zon.

* Obsess about customers

* Create a loyalty program

* Invest for the long term

* Never stop experimenting

* Use technology (and data) to your advantage.

Kristina compared the statement "I think"  to the concept of "the data says".  Think about that for a second.  The data is usually pretty reliable...right?   She said companies should identify, encourage and do anything in their power to engage "super customers".   The top 5% of customers at Ticketfly account for 20% of sales.

The final presentation raised a few eye-brows.  Stubhub the ticket re-seller owned by E-Bay gave their spiel.  By this point the crowd was chomping at the bit to get to the open bar.  StubHub has "legitimized the ticket scalping business" but you will never hear that come out of the mouths of the Stubhub guys. To summarize...one comment from the peanut gallery..."we are just ahead of the Amish when it comes to adopting technology".

The Aspen Live Family Dinner and a late night after party closed out the weekend.  Old friendships were renewed and new ones formed.  The older generation struggled to find an app for that...while the young guns geeked up.   This year it seemed like the generations were closer to a merger...with the old guys listening a little bit more and the young guys speaking up.

It's still a relationship business.  In Aspen...it's clear that everyone had a blast, made a few new contacts, learned a couple of things...but in Aspen, really...it's all about the hang.

Thanks to Jim Lewi and everyone who participated in Aspen Live 2013, the entertainment think tank.

Click 4 Pix:  For the LOVE of MUSIC

Going social...off-line is a big part of Aspen Live. "It's all about the hang. Click 4 pix.Nic Adler from The Roxy, The Goldberg Bros from Belly Up and Rob Bordan a local real estate pro joining forces at Aspen Live. The Kids Table at the Aspen Live Family Dinner. Click 4 pix.Late Night party sesh with the crew from Aspen Live 2013. Click 4 pix.