A genuinely interesting piece — the distinction between breaking up a company and fixing a market is the part most of the coverage has skated over, and you're right that the capitalisation reality doesn't move just because the corporate registration does. The successor-entity point is the one that should give everyone pause: same people, same relationships, same structural position, new letterhead.
The line that lands hardest for me is that the levy needed to be the moment the industry proved it could govern itself. Having spent my own years coming up through the sticky-carpeted rooms with a band that never quite made it out of them, the bit that always stings is how invisible that pipeline is to the people at the top of it — not out of malice, just distance. Your framing of it as structural rather than personal feels right, and somehow worse for being right.
Thanks Mark, I always appreciate your viewpoint and attention to detail. What we seem to be facing is a 'computer says no' situation, with all the frustration that entails. Whether or not there are some nice, clued up people working at LN who share your views and want to help, I very much doubt that any of them have put in even a fraction of the work that you have regarding the Levy. I will continue to support MVT/LiveLine in any way that I can, and will no longer be playing at any LN owned/associated events or venues. I recently parted ways with LN in Belgium (who acted as my sub-agent there, where they have even more of a monopoly than they do here in the UK).
This is perfectly articulated. As someone who is guilty of dreaming LN imploding overnight, you've change my perspective with your grounded view on the situation.
An entity like LN needs to exist for shows to happen at the scale fans have come to expect. However, and it may be reductive, I don't think that entity should be an American mega-corp. As you point out, the problem is structural and I doubt even the most scathing outcome of a CMA investigation would change the shape of LN's operations. So the question for me becomes:
"Who should run the UK's biggest music events in the future?"
As a fan who only recently started taking a deeper interest in the industry, I'd be curious how you would answer! Thank you for this piece.
Clear, balanced and pragmatic. An excellent update of important issues that most music lovers won't be aware of, yet which will affect the availability and cost of seeing artists they love and the future supply of talent. Thank you!
Thanks for laying it out so well Mark. I wonder, if LN were dismantled - would it only be their UK side of things which would be dismantled, and if so, how significant would that actually be for LN as a wider organisation - would they actually be bothered?
Also with the voluntary levy, if they turned around and said ok lets 'chip in' like the others, would this lead to other non-uk territories following suit and asking for the same? Might LN see a domino effect as a reason why they haven't bitten the UK bullet yet?
Not that either of the above are valid excuses, quite the opposite. Who are the actual Big stakeholders, the decision makers within LN, cant they be named?
The curious thing is that either voluntary or statutory levies are almost inevitable in every market outside the US, and yet LN act as though they are unaware of this.
Michael Rapino and Joe Berchtold are the people who cannot be named. Whoops, there goes my big mouth again
My God Mark, you are getting very very good at this ;-)
Nuanced, balanced, pragmatic and sensible. Thank you.
Politics - for this is what it is - is successfully executed by brilliant communications and 'bringing' ALL of the sides (and there are many perspectives on this topic) along with you to a position which benefits all as much as is feasible.
In my view the approach you adopt here is realistic to believe can happen and hopefully will result in a market which allows all parties - up and downstream, siloed or individually structured - to benefit that which they are purporting to care about, namely the entire live music ecosystem, and whether 'single gig-goer and his three-legged dog' or 'arena-only, mega-artist, Insta-moment, experiential uber-fan'.
Ultimately if there were to be a substantive number of behavioural and cultural constraints imposed on LN by law and regulation there would have to be continued oversight and monitoring.
Leaving LN to get on with implementing such constraints whilst they simultaneously delay, drag their heels, lobby behind-the-scenes, manipulate and obfuscate in public and private - for they will, they are a bean-counter led corporate - is 'asking' too much of them. They won't want and won't be willing to do it without the pressure of a stick bearing down...see the attitude to the levy for 'evidence'.
That said, my experience of LN employees - certainly at the D2D end of operating venues and marketing + promotion in both UK and Europe - is much different from yours. Many staff are 'following orders' and do so often with precious little humanity or interest in anything other than what is best for their employer and their own 'career'. I often wonder if they even like people let alone music, bands or music-lovers and ticket-buyers. That, as you suggest, is perhaps symptomatic of the power held by and within LN (and in certain venues and locations other businesses).
A genuinely interesting piece — the distinction between breaking up a company and fixing a market is the part most of the coverage has skated over, and you're right that the capitalisation reality doesn't move just because the corporate registration does. The successor-entity point is the one that should give everyone pause: same people, same relationships, same structural position, new letterhead.
The line that lands hardest for me is that the levy needed to be the moment the industry proved it could govern itself. Having spent my own years coming up through the sticky-carpeted rooms with a band that never quite made it out of them, the bit that always stings is how invisible that pipeline is to the people at the top of it — not out of malice, just distance. Your framing of it as structural rather than personal feels right, and somehow worse for being right.
Tick tock indeed...
Thanks Mark, I always appreciate your viewpoint and attention to detail. What we seem to be facing is a 'computer says no' situation, with all the frustration that entails. Whether or not there are some nice, clued up people working at LN who share your views and want to help, I very much doubt that any of them have put in even a fraction of the work that you have regarding the Levy. I will continue to support MVT/LiveLine in any way that I can, and will no longer be playing at any LN owned/associated events or venues. I recently parted ways with LN in Belgium (who acted as my sub-agent there, where they have even more of a monopoly than they do here in the UK).
This is perfectly articulated. As someone who is guilty of dreaming LN imploding overnight, you've change my perspective with your grounded view on the situation.
An entity like LN needs to exist for shows to happen at the scale fans have come to expect. However, and it may be reductive, I don't think that entity should be an American mega-corp. As you point out, the problem is structural and I doubt even the most scathing outcome of a CMA investigation would change the shape of LN's operations. So the question for me becomes:
"Who should run the UK's biggest music events in the future?"
As a fan who only recently started taking a deeper interest in the industry, I'd be curious how you would answer! Thank you for this piece.
Clear, balanced and pragmatic. An excellent update of important issues that most music lovers won't be aware of, yet which will affect the availability and cost of seeing artists they love and the future supply of talent. Thank you!
Thanks for laying it out so well Mark. I wonder, if LN were dismantled - would it only be their UK side of things which would be dismantled, and if so, how significant would that actually be for LN as a wider organisation - would they actually be bothered?
Also with the voluntary levy, if they turned around and said ok lets 'chip in' like the others, would this lead to other non-uk territories following suit and asking for the same? Might LN see a domino effect as a reason why they haven't bitten the UK bullet yet?
Not that either of the above are valid excuses, quite the opposite. Who are the actual Big stakeholders, the decision makers within LN, cant they be named?
The curious thing is that either voluntary or statutory levies are almost inevitable in every market outside the US, and yet LN act as though they are unaware of this.
Michael Rapino and Joe Berchtold are the people who cannot be named. Whoops, there goes my big mouth again
My God Mark, you are getting very very good at this ;-)
Nuanced, balanced, pragmatic and sensible. Thank you.
Politics - for this is what it is - is successfully executed by brilliant communications and 'bringing' ALL of the sides (and there are many perspectives on this topic) along with you to a position which benefits all as much as is feasible.
In my view the approach you adopt here is realistic to believe can happen and hopefully will result in a market which allows all parties - up and downstream, siloed or individually structured - to benefit that which they are purporting to care about, namely the entire live music ecosystem, and whether 'single gig-goer and his three-legged dog' or 'arena-only, mega-artist, Insta-moment, experiential uber-fan'.
Ultimately if there were to be a substantive number of behavioural and cultural constraints imposed on LN by law and regulation there would have to be continued oversight and monitoring.
Leaving LN to get on with implementing such constraints whilst they simultaneously delay, drag their heels, lobby behind-the-scenes, manipulate and obfuscate in public and private - for they will, they are a bean-counter led corporate - is 'asking' too much of them. They won't want and won't be willing to do it without the pressure of a stick bearing down...see the attitude to the levy for 'evidence'.
That said, my experience of LN employees - certainly at the D2D end of operating venues and marketing + promotion in both UK and Europe - is much different from yours. Many staff are 'following orders' and do so often with precious little humanity or interest in anything other than what is best for their employer and their own 'career'. I often wonder if they even like people let alone music, bands or music-lovers and ticket-buyers. That, as you suggest, is perhaps symptomatic of the power held by and within LN (and in certain venues and locations other businesses).
Thanks for all of this. Well said