Female performers are required to cover up in the country, which has various rules for performances, including no foul language, or kissing or hugging audience members of fellow performers.

Cultural norms and expectations are an important consideration for artists performing overseas. This is a high profile case, and somewhat humorous, but artists must be aware of language, hand signals, and dress styles that could all be considered extremely offensive in the wrong context.

In the same manner as doing business in a foreign country, it would be wise for artists to study up on a culture before a concert. It could also be a way to involve the local crowd. For instance, if the country of the concert has a unique musical instrument associated with their culture, it would be a neat option to have a local artists play that instrument on a song or two of yours.

Beyonce could be viewing these restrictions in a negative way, but she could also flip that around and look at the bright side of the culture and try to involve her audience in better ways.

Stay tuned,
Erik
erikrostad.com
Follow me on Twitter

The int’l bands in this year’s lineup include Linkin Park, Flaming Lips, and Nine Inch Nails. Past artists to the festival have included Green Day, the Beastie Boys, Cyndi Lauper, Coldplay, and Alicia Keys.

The festival draws more than 50,000 fans to the two locations. It is a great way for US bands to make an entrance into Japan, and in fact, for many of the bands in this year’s line up, it will be their first trip to Japan.

Stay tuned,
Erik
erikrostad.com

Madonna is set to finish out her tour in Latin America, completing the entire tour on December 21st in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Including the European part of the tour, Madonna has grossed $207.5 million and when including the final Latin American dates, she is expected to gross an astounding $282 million. That would be the top-grossing tour ever for a female solo artist.

In total, there were 17 European tour dates, 5 Canadian, and there will be 13 Latin American dates. So 35 International shows and 28 USA shows in total.

The financial implications for international music tours are pretty amazing. The $91.5 million from North America constitutes just 32% of her total, meaning that a substantial majority of the $282 came from other countries. And some of these foreign countries are avoided by many US-based artists for fear of not generating enough income. I think this tour has shown that a very well known artist will generate the necessary ticket sales to make a tour lucrative.

One thing I failed to write about in previous blogs was the source of where this $4 million per show would come from. I assumed that all $4 million would come from ticket sales. But a more likely scenario would be that $1 to $2 of gross revenue would come from sponsorship money. Therefore, the ticket price for some of these venues would not need to be as high in order to reach the $4 million necessary gross.

I will continue to keep an eye on similar international tours to see where the money is being made.

Stay tuned,
Erik
erikrostad.com

In the past, Academy had partnered with the Carling beer brand for concert promotion. Although beer companies are always good partners, this new partnership with O2 will really offer some tangible benefits to concert-goers. For instance, O2 customers will now have early access to concert tickets as well as the ability to purchase the tickets over select phones.

This is also strategic on Academy & Live Nation’s part. O2′s parent company is Telefonica O2, which has a presence in a number of other countries.

For Academy’s side of things, the venues that they own are both small and large venues. They include venues that house only establish acts as well as those that encourage up and coming artists. This will allow Live Nation/Academy/O2 to keep an eye on things at all levels of the industry. The 11 O2 Academy venues put on over 4,000 Live Nation concerts a year, where over 3.5 million people attend.

We continue to see Live Nation partner with technology companies that help their ticket sales options as well as partnering with companies overseas for quick expansion.

Stay tuned,
Erik
erikrostad.com

What is funny about all of this is that the Beatles had been banned from giving concerts in Israel beginning in 1965 because their music was deemed to have a negative influence on the youth. Well, Israel got it together and finally dropped the ban just last year, and Paul McCartney took advantage of it. I think the 40,000 fans made it clear that his music had been a powerful influence in their lives, performance ban or no.

Stay tuned,
Erik
erikrostad.com

Madonna also has 3 shows in Sao Paolo, 2 in Rio, and 2 in Santiago, Chile. As mentioned in my previous blog, Madonna reportedly requires $4 million to make a show financially viable for her. I wonder if the additional shows require a $4 million price tag. I would assume there are some fixed costs in that $4 million that multiple shows in one city would cover.

Good for Madonna for staying around a little longer than perhaps was originally planned in order to reach her fans.

Stay tuned,
Erik
erikrostad.com

• Event co-produced by WizCraft Entertainment, a Mumbai-based event-planning company, and by producer Kevin Wall who co-organized the Live Earth events with Al Gore last year.
• Event’s creative director will be filmmaker Shekhar Kapur.
• Star India to broadcast the event live online.
• Star Plus to broadcast internationally.
• MSN will be the official global broadband partner for Live Earth India.
• The event will raise awareness for a charity event called “Light a Billion Lives” which seeks to put a solar lantern in 1 billion homes. This project is being led by the India-based Energy and Resources Institute (TERI).
• Promotion for the event will be handled by Rajendra Pachauri who shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Price with Al Gore.

Stay tuned,
Erik
erikrostad.com

The Cape Town, South Africa promoter for this event is Big Concerts and they expect over 60,000 people to attend the event across two different cities – Johannesburg & Cape Town. The Johannesburg concert will be this year on Dec. 13th and the Cape Town concert on Dec. 16th.

This is a great fit for Virgin. They will receive a ton of publicity for their 8 different businesses in South Africa, some of which include Virgin Active, Virgin Atlantic, Virgin Mobile and Virgin Money. They will also be a part of a great event to encourage cultural exchange between the USA and South African bands.

I will be interested to find out how much the tickets will cost.

Stay tuned,
Erik
erikrostad.com

Apparently, Madonna has covered her $4 million and then some for her upcoming December 6th date in Buenos Aires, Argentina. In fact, ticket sales have been so overwhelming that a second date, Dec. 7th, has been added to the lineup. The concert on the 6th sold out in 3 hours.

So why is Madonna going to Argentina but skipping out on Peru? I think there are 4 main reasons for this:

1. Basic population and financial considerations. 40 million people live in Argentina. 29 million people live in Peru. Within the metro areas of Buenos Aires and Lima, there are 13 million and 9 million people, respectively. Average wages per person in US$ equivalents, per year, across the board are $13,300 in Argentina and $7,800 in Peru. For some perspective, they are $45,800 in the USA.
2. The size of the stadium where Madonna will perform. In Peru, the largest stadium where Madonna could have performed would have been the Estadio Nacional (National Stadium) with a mere 45,574 seats. Argentina on the other hand has the River Plate Stadium that seats 70,000 people. For Madonna to make her $4 million, tickets in Peru would have needed to average $88 a pop, but just $57 a pop in Argentina.
3. The Live Nation & Time For Fun Argentina partnership. Recently, Live Nation secured a strategic partnership with Time for Fun for concert promotion. Time for Fun also operates in Lima, but it appears that the partnership is stronger in countries such as Brazil and Argentina. Live Nation has signed Madonna exclusively to a large 360 deal where they capture revenues from a number of different streams. Live Nation’s CEO has stated he expects to bank $240 million just from this tour alone. Live Nation is paying Madonna $120 million over 10 years for the privilege.
4. Evita. Honestly. Madonna starred in a movie about an iconic figure in Argentinian history. I’m sure a large part of the fan connection is due to that movie.

There are other factors as well. It was reported that Peru lacked the necessary equipment for such a major production. There are also a number of considerations with managers, promoters, venue availability, etc that are never seen by the public as well. This will be Madonna’s first Argentinian tour since 1993. When tickets went on sale for this Dec. 6th date, they reportedly sold for between 110 – 700 Argentinian Pesos (US$ equivalency of $33 – $230). The best seats are now selling on Argentina’s version of ebay for US$1500!

The economics and outlying reasons an artist chooses one location over another are fascinating to me. In Madonna’s case, she will be beloved anywhere she goes, except perhaps for a concert at the Vatican. So for her and Live Nation, it comes down to simple economics. I would venture to say that 45,000 people would turn out for her concert in Peru, but Madonna might not leave the country with the type of money she needs to support her tour.

Stay tuned,
Erik
erikrostad.com