In this episode of Backstage Money, Jason K Powers sits down with Danny Zelisko, a veteran concert promoter whose career spans back to 1974 and includes working with some of the biggest artists in live music history.

Danny shares his origin story and how he got into concert promotion, from discovering music as a teenager to booking his first shows and learning the business through real-world trial and error. He breaks down what concert promoters actually do, how booking decisions are made, and why understanding the market matters more than ego.

The conversation dives into guarantees, ticket pricing, and the hard realities of live music economics. Danny explains why some bands keep getting booked while others don’t, how pricing mistakes can stall careers, and why promoters have to balance risk, audience trust, and long-term relationships.

This is Part 1 of a two-part conversation. Part 2 goes deeper into touring risk, selling tickets, market realities, and what it really takes to survive in live music over the long haul.

Backstage Money is real-world finance for musicians, where music and money collide through honest conversations with artists and industry professionals who are living it.

Connect with Danny Zelisko

Website: https://dzplive.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dannyzeliskopresents

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dzpresents/

X: https://x.com/dzpresents

Backstage Money

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/backstagemoney

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/backstagemoney

Free Financial Resource for Musicians

Get the free ebook A Musician’s Guide to Infinite Banking

https://1024wealth.com/music

Welcome to Backstage Money, real World Finance for Musicians.

I'm your host, Jason K. Powers, and this is where music and money

collide honest stories and practical lessons from people who make it work.

Today I am joined by Danny Zelisko, concert promoter since 1974, founder of

the legendary Evening Star Productions and longtime regional exec for SFX Back

in the day, now Live Nation and now head of Danny Zelisko Presents producing some

150 concerts a year, especially in the classic rock and vintage artist area.

He has spent a lifetime working with legends and still does.

Danny, welcome to the show.

Hey, thanks for having me.

I appreciate you being on.

It's it's funny, I had to laugh last time when I, you know, we

crossed paths again 'cause we were both at the LA Guns Show in Denver.

And I'm up there, I was chit-chatting with the guys and I think you came up

behind me or something, and they all saw you and they're all like, Hey, da da da.

And, and so you went up there and we're chatting with them and then

I think Olga, I think was her name.

And she turned around and handed me her phone, was like, take

our picture or your phone.

And so I took your all's picture, but I hadn't put two and two together.

I didn't even know who you were standing there in front, I think.

'cause I never had seen you in person.

You know, I had seen you in a box.

See you in a box somewhere.

And so, and then I didn't realize until I saw you post that picture

that I took on your social media.

And I was like, wait a minute.

I was like, oh, that's who that was.

Yeah.

Yeah.

All, Olga is special.

Like I can't wait to see her again.

She's

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That was a fun show.

Well, so Danny, tell me, I always like to start with an origin story.

How did you get into this, this thing you do this promotion business for so long?

Many years ago in the land far away Chicago they had a radio

station called WLS and there's another one called WCFL in Chicago.

Their A stations, so it was before FM radio.

So this goes back several steps in terms of devices of how to get your music

and but back then, when you look back at what the top 40 was in the early

sixties and then into the mid sixties, it almost turned into like a progressive

rock kind of format which I love, but.

Prior to the Beatles happening, you had all the great old bands,

all the old singers and all those terrific songs, the Doo Wop.

And before you heard the Blues, you heard Elvis and you heard the Four Seasons

and Bobby Ride El and all those guys.

We really liked listening to what was on the radio, my brothers and I, and

we would sit with our little transistor radios when we're supposed to be going

to sleep, and we'd have those under our pillows so our dad couldn't hear 'em.

And we would call out the songs or then we'd say, okay, name the group.

And at a very early age, without being instructed, we

identifying the group or the song.

'cause if you, we figured, if you could do both.

This was a famous song.

This was the mark of a great tune and we'd argue about whether or not it should be

number one or number 10, or number 20.

And we had no idea that people did this for a living.

Mm-hmm.

as time went on a few years of doing that the we started going to the record

store a couple miles away, that was near our school, we drive over on there

on Fridays and pick up the top 40.

They called it the Silver Dollar Survey, came out every

Friday with the top 40 songs.

And we'd match 'em up against what we were listening to and making sure that

we, we heard all these songs, was too early for us to be buying records.

And then one day, the, the guy in the record store, who by then knew us, told

me that I would really like this song.

And he hands me a copy on VJ Records of The Beatles playing.

Please, please.

Okay.

Which came out long before, I wanna Hold Your Hand, or She Loves You,

which I still in my head still think of those as later songs.

Interesting.

Yeah.

And I love this song and I bought it.

It was one of the first records I ever bought.

The first one was Puff The Magic Dragon.

And album wise, the first one I had was The Four Seasons with, uh, big Girls.

Don't Cry on It.

And when I heard this Beatles song, I flipped out.

I played it for everybody that I knew, hardly anybody cared.

And I mean, and that song got all of the great marks of great Beatles songs in it.

although it wasn't their greatest song, it was one of my favorite 'cause

it was the first one that I heard.

And, and, and I started noticing how weird it was that.

Love Me Do was on a different record label and She Loves You, was on a

different record label, and I Wanna Hold Your Hand was on it's four

different record labels within a year.

The Beatles had singles out on, prior to, to, I wanna Hold Your

Hand and, and the Ed Sullivan thing,

you know, I, I just fell in love with this group, which was like eight or

nine months at least before, the Ed Sullivan show happened in February of 64.

And when Ed Sullivan finally did come around I was blown away by how

taken and smitten everybody became

Yeah.

The Beatles.

And I'm sitting there kind of going, I told you so, you know,

and they go, you did not, you

Yeah.

us, but, and I, oh, that song, that doesn't count

Mm-hmm.

It doesn't count.

It counts to them.

And so, without knowing it, without hearing the term.

learned about a group being a baby band.

I mean, the Beatles were the definition of a new group, a baby

band, which is what, you know.

I, I later ended up being told were what these groups were to be called.

and then when they came over and did their touring and, and the movies,

and it showed the bedlam and the fun of the concerts and people screaming.

It's, it was like I was a big baseball and football hockey fan being in

Chicago, but seeing this as a completely different form, of spectator sport

going to concerts, I, I love the whole gathering of the tribe, so to speak.

Uh, when you go to a baseball game or we started going to football games a

little later where you're gathering with strangers to enjoy the same

Yeah.

Yeah.

was never explained to me.

You know, I'm, what's a concert?

Well, you go to a show and you enjoy your favorite band, the, the depth of the

sociology of it never really, it still isn't really talked about that much.

But that's the fun of it.

The fun of going to a live event is people who like the same thing, that

don't know each other in the same room, enjoying it at the same time.

And, and I've always enjoyed that.

I, I've lived at Wrigley Field for years, uh, Comiskey Park and the

Bears used to play in Wrigley Field.

The Wrigley Wrigley Field is like the shrine of all,

Yeah.

they have great concerts there all the time, but I'm long gone.

I've only seen one show there in my life.

But anyway, that's, that's kind of how it started.

I was a baseball player.

I was a catcher.

I loved doing that.

I was going to be in the major leagues, and then all this music crap happened.

And, and the, the sixties developed into more English groups, American groups, the

San Francisco groups and, and all these bands that released Woodstock happened.

yeah.

in high school.

I love that Woodstock thing.

I wish I could have gone, but I'm glad I didn't.

I wouldn't have been prepared for it at all.

Now I would've been, uh, 14 when that happened.

but shortly after that, 1970, late 70, 71, 72 in high school, I started

going to a lot of shows, uh, downtown at the Auditorium Theater and saw

Emerson Lake and Palmer and Pink Floyd and Bowie and T-Rex and Proco

Harem and King Crimson and Humble Pie.

All these fabulous groups, moody Blues when they were all in their prime,

when they were still all climbing up.

Mm-hmm.

they, I mean, to us they were huge.

And, and, and we love so much different music.

Miles and Pharaoh, Sanders and Coltrane and Eric Dolphy.

We, we loved jazz.

There was a group of us who were real total musical snobs and, and we truly

loved all these different genres of music.

There was nothing that was too deep for us.

And, and going to the concerts, you know, was, was spiritual at that time.

And, one thing led to another, and by the time I was getting outta high school,

I was really thinking about doing this.

Mm-hmm.

So then,

But that's kind of how it, that's kind of how it all, it all began.

They actually, they did a concert at my high school that I didn't attend.

Still kick myself for, it was Stevie Wonder and the James gang.

It was

uh

three or four bucks.

they, they must have been, you know, back then groups weren't paid that

much to do, you know, shows just like baseball players weren't paid very much

mm-hmm.

Um, tickets weren't that much, so it wasn't like anybody

was getting rich off of it.

but, you know, obviously things escalated and turned into what it's

turned into, which is a mindblower.

But the, the fun part about the sixties was this is when all the groups and

society was coming into its own.

And the music influenced so much.

It dictated so much of the way that people behaved and what they thought.

There were people who were into this group and not into that group, and

that was the difference in classes.

The classes wasn't white or black or male or female or young or old.

It was just, is it good?

Do,

Uh,

it

sure.

and a lot of us self-appointed experts were the first ones

to give our opinions to it.

We, the shows we went to in, in Chicago there, it was a Prague Rock Heaven for us.

There was a couple of great little venues that we love going to the Aragon Ballroom

was one and the Auditorium Theater.

Those were our two main ones for me.

I missed the Kinetic Playground, which had the shows like that Bill

Graham did at Fillmore East and West.

So I didn't get to be a part of that scene, but again, I was a

little bit on the young side it.

Although, you know, by the late sixties and early seventies, all the

older kid influences took over, if you

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

the preparation we went through for those concerts was pretty amazing.

So did you launch into, you were in Chicago right when you,

when you first got into it.

So did you, did um, was evening Star productions the first thing you start,

or did you kind of phase into that?

Well, right after high school of 72 I went to Berkeley with a couple friends

of mine from Chicago and fully intended on moving there and staying there.

I wanted outta Chicago.

I just, other than the weather, I didn't care.

I didn't think I could have any opportunity to get into this business.

I could play drums, but not a good, not good enough to be in a, in a big group.

I could sing and carry a tune, but not good enough to be that front guy.

I should have stayed with baseball.

I should have done it.

I really should have.

I'm, I'm really sad about that, but I, I wouldn't trade what happened for

anything because it all worked out.

but the, the, real kicker was when I did go to to Berkeley and I got

to involved as a nobody, you know, runner or helper on, on a few shows.

And one thing led to another, a little security job here, a runner

job there loading in equipment there.

Um, by 73 I was convinced I could do this, my dad and a friend of

mine and his dad together $11,000 to stake me, which doesn't sound like a

lot of money these days, but at the time it was a fortune for me anyway.

Well in that time, yeah.

and I booked my first show.

it was either at the end of 73 or early 74.

It was

Herbie

Hancock and Weather Report the Celebrity Theater, which is a dynamite show.

both Herbie and Weather report were getting the shit played

out of 'em on KDKB, which.

Was a great radio station in the seventies in Phoenix, and I remember it was

April 8th 74 I'm about to go on sale.

It was gonna do great.

It was at the Celebrity theater, which I book to this day.

And Saal Safian was the agent from ATI, New York calls me up one

day and kind of not a good mood.

And he goes, look, we gotta postpone this show.

I go, what?

For?

I mean, it was all set.

It was $5,500 for both groups, 3,500 for Herbie, two grand for weather report.

And I, and, and, and Headhunters was just released.

And I think if I'm not mistaken, it was Sweet nighter that was Weather

Report and I loved both bands.

was already a legend to me and I was 19 at the time.

And, uh, the reason he was postponing was because his agency also booked

Deep Purple and they had Deep Purple already booked that night to a place

across town called Big Surf, which is an outdoor fake wave surf park.

Okay.

And, and groups used to play there before I moved there.

And for a little while afterwards they were there for a few years.

Pink Floyd played there.

Rod Stewart played there.

I remember Tesla played there later.

But Deep Purple had played there.

He said, what's, what's the big deal?

I mean, nobody I know is gonna go to both shows.

I mean, it's not competition really wrong about that because I would've gone

to either one of those shows if I had money to go to concerts at the time.

I really didn't.

But he says, who plays Deep Purple?

I said, KDKB.

Who plays Herbie Hancock, KDKB He goes, case closed.

We moved the show to June.

theater wasn't open, neither was Weather Report.

had half the show.

And what I didn't know, April was school time and everybody's still around.

And in June, either had summer jobs or they went on vacation with

Uh, yeah.

or whatever, but it was distraction time.

Plus I wasn't in the right hall.

I ended up going to Symphony Hall, which is a beautiful place.

and that's where I did my first show in Phoenix with Herbie Hancock.

But I, instead of weather report, I had Charles Lloyd, who's a

great sax player, great jazz guy, but he doesn't mean any tickets.

And, and at that first show which I remember as clear as can be.

Herbie said when he first met me, he didn't know that

Charles Lloyd was on the show.

He goes, oh yeah, I like Charles Lloyd.

He's great.

He goes, but he doesn't sell any tickets.

he goes, you should have just said to me why don't you do 45 minutes of acoustic

piano and, and that, and advertise that.

He goes, people would've gone crazy to see me do that by myself and then play with

the head headhunters And you know, I go, Jesus, I'm finding out about this now.

And he would've done it for the same price, 3,500, but I didn't know that.

And interesting thing, I tried to get Keith Jarrett to open

and he didn't have an agent.

I called him myself.

I dunno how he got his number and he wanted to kill me because I wanted

to mix him with Herbie, who he felt had sold out by going into funk.

And what, and, and I, I think Herbie proved him wrong with history because

he's still as big as he ever was

Yeah.

day, playing the music that made him famous with Miles to begin with.

but anyway, that was a, a great eyeopener and I had a so much fun.

We didn't make any money, didn't really lose any money, but it was my

entrée uh, into doing shows in Phoenix.

And although that wasn't the very first show a few weeks earlier, I had the

Mahavishnu Orchestra in Tucson and uh, only did about a thousand or 1100 people,

about half a house lost money on that show, and I knew it when I booked them,

but I should have paid more attention to.

It was weren't ready for the new Mahavishnu, they were old one

with, with the, John Hammer and.

McLaughlin and Billy Coum.

you know, that was the group and, and unfortunately that wasn't what I got.

Had I gotten them, it would've sold out and it was really a

completely different group.

The greatest thing about that show and, and still haunts me, but it's

still funny, to this day, I thought I could go and book an opening act

without, you know, saying anything.

So

go out and.

so I booked this new group called Journey to Open for Mahavishnu, and

the, the manager, his name is Elliot Sears, I think he's still around,

calls me up, he goes, Hey Danny, uh, Elliot's here as I manage Mahavishnu.

Um, this your first show?

I go, yeah.

Why?

How about, how do you know?

He goes, did you really book Journey without asking anybody

or mentioning to anybody, like, I'm gonna have an opening act.

He goes.

too early to play Bill Graham.

You can't do that with this group.

I go, why not?

23 people on stage.

It's a real orchestra, which I knew I knew was gonna be what was on that album.

and I knew it wasn't the original Mahavishnu , but I booked it

anyway and thinking that it would and it really didn't.

But then I had to call Journey Back and fire them over $500,

which is what I was paying them.

that was their first show outside of California.

Was it really

And I, I got the wrath of Herbie Herbert

is this?

Is this what?

74? 70. 74? Yeah.

four.

So it was an evening with Mahavishnu . And, and also again, it was in right at

the beginning of June, June 2nd, in fact.

And, again, it was hotter than hell and pe and you and I realized that with my

first year of living in Arizona full-time I learned quickly about school and

about the heat and about the summer.

and you know, although I do book shows in the summer, I don't book so many anymore.

Because most of the amphitheaters get everything and, and, and all

the groups that tour in the summer, I'm, I'm not in that category

Yeah, yeah, yeah,

anyway, but that's, that's how I started doing shows and it, it really bo in both

those cases, definite trial and error,

yeah, yeah,

know, and, and I didn't have the money for trial and error.

yeah,

don't have it, I don't have it now for trial and error, but I can afford it

better now than I did then because just the slightest mistake, the, the, the wrong

move, you know, it'll cost you tickets.

yeah, yeah.

Well, and you've got a few years under your belt now.

me tickets.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And you've got a few years under your belt.

You've been doing this for a minute.

And so you've been doing this for a minute.

You got any good?

Stories for us.

I know there's a Frank Zappa story in there somewhere.

There's,

Yeah,

I could probably look at a list of shows and tell you something about any of 'em.

Who do you wanna hear about?

yeah, yeah, yeah.

I think you had a Frank Zappa, um, hall Halloween story.

the, the Frank story was, is, was a funny one.

I was doing shows in a lot of different places with Frank, with Fred Auer

from Jam Productions in Chicago.

And we, we became affiliated and, and jam and I worked together for over 20 years.

They were like a silent partner.

at the very beginning helped fund me, with some deposits and things

like that and some connections.

And I, I was already on my way when I met up with them.

I was already booking shows and doing stuff, but their help and

their credibility, credibility definitely helped me out.

Anyway, I'm doing some shows with Zappa, with and we had one at the Old Lady of

Brady in Tulsa, and it was on Halloween night and I'm, as I remember it, I

believe we had two sellouts that night.

And we had masks made up that I had somebody draw Frank Zappa face.

And the hardest thing was getting rubber thing, the rubber band around

the back so he could hold it on.

And our idea was Frank would come out on stage for the first show.

And we turned the lights up before the show started,

right when he was gonna start.

you know, you really don't wanna mess with Frank especially.

And this was right after well not right after.

It was probably late seventies, early eighties.

this was after Flo and Eddie after Overnight Sensation.

Frank was a big star.

We we're selling out two shows at 8,000 tickets.

He is a big star and he goes out and the lights are about to blow

up with the stage and everything.

And we have the house lights go on.

Everybody's sitting there their frank mask on and he's just about

to start and he just lost it.

And he looks at the side of the stage, he's like, And because we

are rolling, laughing, crying, his crew, us and everything.

And he goes to the microphone and pure Frank's style and goes well.

I needless to say, I'm very surprised, but you are the best

looking audience I've ever seen.

And, and he never forgot that.

I, I thought that was great.

Um,

That's funny.

the greatest thing about Frank way earlier on 1973, before I did any shows, they

played and I was a huge Zappa fan the time Lumpy Gravy came out and absolutely

free, and we're only in it for the money.

I loved those records.

As a kid in, in grade school, me and a friend of mine to them nonstop.

We just, you know, and, and all the good music we listened to is 10 year olds.

11 year olds,

Yeah.

really great music.

My parents hated it.

My mom especially, oh my God, he is so ugly.

You know, she hated Frank because just to the way he looked, the hair

and everything, and I knew every word to every song on those records.

He was playing at the Celebrity Theater, which I frequented

prior to doing shows there.

And I got backstage and I met Ruth Underwood and I met Ian

Underwood and who were my idols.

I just loved them from those Zap albums.

They were big stars to me.

I was very impressed with them.

introduced me to Frank and one thing led to another, and I talked

my way into an audition with Frank Zappa to sing with him.

And he goes, well, we're gonna be recording an Ike, uh, Ike Turner's

Secret Sound Studios and Studio City.

don't you come down?

I'll give you a whirl.

Let's see if you got it.

Okay.

So I actually made my way there.

I had no money, but I managed to get there.

right on time.

I go there and he comes out of the studio, comes out to get me in the lobby.

He's wearing his sg and he goes, come on, we'll do it right now.

As we're walking in, he puts his arm on.

He goes, you can read music right.

No, not so much.

He go, he stops.

He goes, before we go in, I'm not gonna let you do this.

I'm not gonna let you audition until you learn how to read music.

I've had this problem with my band for years.

They get mad at me when I go back and redo their parts 'cause they don't

know how to play it until I show 'em.

So I figure save the time, I'll show 'em later, I'll record it my way.

he goes, I don't wanna do that anymore.

Yeah, tell that to Joe Satriani and Adrian Ballou, which, you know,

didn't know how to read music either.

oh, we got right in Steve Vai.

You know, and I wasn't playing guitar though.

I was just gonna sing.

He goes, I'm not gonna do this.

So that was one of the things also that pushed me out the door

of, I knew baseball was gone.

Mm-hmm.

I knew music was gone

Mm-hmm.

have to read music.

in my head would not allow me to go out and learn how to read it.

And I should have, I mean, you should know how to read music anyway.

but I didn't pay attention in class well enough 'cause they tried to teach me.

And but that was another reason why I, I moved on.

Well, so Danny, in plain English, you know, what does a concert

promoter actually do from first phone call to final settlement?

Give us kind of the, the bridge, you know, here's, here's how from a band's

perspective, you know, what do you do from, from start to finish for them?

the, the thing that a promoter supplies and what, I, I try to do

is, I mean, you gotta be the expert.

It, it, it helps if you love the music to begin

Yeah.

but you, you gotta be aware of what the group means in the marketplace.

gotta have the right places to do the shows.

You have to be welcomed by those people.

You have to know at the time, not so much anymore, but you had to know

the people at the radio stations.

I mean, it was crucial to me.

It still is crucial, it's very sad that radio has turned the way it is.

I mean, they're like seven elevens as opposed to personally owned delicatessens.

Um,

Yeah,

does it the same way.

They play the same crap over and over and over again.

No disrespect to the groups that they play because many of 'em have

had a, some part in their careers or we've done shows together

sure.

but not nothing against that.

Good for them.

But how many more times does Led Zeppelin need to be played?

Yeah.

know, do I need to hear more than a feeling by Boston?

One more time?

Mm-hmm.

You know, and it's like all the airplay, these guys give all those stars.

Great songs, great music, but we're tired of it fellas

Mm-hmm.

us just continue to feed us new music along with music that's a little obscure

that maybe we missed and mix that

Mm-hmm.

I'm a happy

Mm-hmm.

when people come to town play their music and, and they don't,

I mean, I had to beg people to play Jeff Beck when he is sold out

Yeah.

doesn't it matter to you what?

It's research to acknowledge success and

Yep.

sells out a concert on any given night of the week, in any given

month, there's something very special about them to get people to drop

whatever they're doing in their lives

Mm-hmm.

go to a show.

So, you know, that's, that was, that's one of the things that you

have to do a promoter is you, you gotta have all those things together.

Then you gotta have some money or connections so that you can rent the hall.

And so you can start promoting the show, which costs money, and you have

to set up everything from the beginning.

You have to order what stage hands they're gonna need the day of the show.

The hall typically provides all the in-house features like security and ticket

selling and ticket taking, and ushers.

You gotta learn about all that and, and know it.

So you sell the tickets, you promote the show, the group comes in.

Now you gotta put on the show.

Mm-hmm.

And, and pretty much all of it's done in advance your phone calls and

your advance work and everything.

You gotta feed the band backstage.

You gotta feed the crew in most cases.

'Cause it's easier to feed 'em there than have 'em break for

an hour and leave the facility.

You wanna keep 'em close.

You've gotta open the doors up and you gotta, you gotta put on a

show and you gotta pay the band.

You gotta pay all those people that I just talked about sooner

or later, usually sooner.

If they don't know you beforehand.

Yeah.

once they know you, you can pretty much do normal business type of stuff.

but until they know you, you know, you've gotta work your way through it.

Again, more trial and error,

Mm-hmm.

and try to do things as professionally as possible, as economically as possible,

and always with a little bit of flare, they're gonna remember you for hopefully

the show works out and the next time they tour, you get 'em back again.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

and when you don't get 'em back, it usually means you did something bad.

Yeah.

you screwed up somewhere.

the promoter is the local representative for any band, touring or local band.

And, and the idea is you, you push them out in front of every other show and, and

try to make it important enough for people to you know, to buy a ticket and attend.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

So do you handle.

So, who approaches you the most?

Maybe the artist directly, uh, in your case or the, the managers or,

I mean, the, you know, who's, who's,

most national artists, which is who I work with, I mean, I work with local

bands, not as much as I used to.

Because for the most part, either do evening with anymore

or they bring somebody with them.

Um, you know, but I hate it when somebody says they're gonna do 75

minutes and they wanna do an evening with, I go, that's not an evening with,

that's an hour and 15 minutes with,

yeah.

and I don't like charging people $5, much less a hundred dollars a 75 minute show.

I think they deserve to see somebody else.

Maybe they like somebody else and they learn about a new group.

Mm-hmm.

what happened with me when I went to my early shows, is I loved it when

a great opening act would appear, especially if I already liked them.

Like Emerson, Lake & Palmer was sold out and then they added Yes.

After it was sold out and it was the first time Yes.

Played in Chicago.

It was mind blowing to get those two on the same bill.

I mean, and this is when they were young and hungry and so into making it groups.

Um, anyway, where were we?

Yeah, so when you get approached first.

usually it's a booking agent who will call you and, and the, the booking

agent the one who calls on or seeks promoters from, like, say a group

says, I wanna tour in April next year, and I wanna do the West Coast.

So they'll go through all the states and they'll go and get their offers from

people typically that they know, promoters they've already done business with.

in some cases you'll have a young guy come up who isn't well known, and he'll

raise his hand and he'll reach out and they'll say, I wanna book so and so.

And they'll say, well, we already got a promoter for that, or make an offer.

you, you go through the ritual of making the offer.

Okay.

Um, the bands have managers, which the booking agent's gonna clear

the date with the manager speaks on behalf of the group, but the agent.

Basically speaks on behalf of the group, but through the manager.

Okay.

So it, it's a mixture of stuff.

Sometimes I wanna book a group, so I'll find out who books 'em I'll call 'em up or

write 'em a note and talk to 'em about it.

but in most cases, a booking agent will call you up 'cause he knows you're in

the area from doing other shows and they know they can trust you and you're

gonna pay the group and not screw it up.

and you're past all that.

So they're calling you whenever they know they've got the show

that you may or may not wanna book.

then it comes down to does the group mean something in the market?

And this is, this is where the crystal ball comes in.

There you go.

You need the crystal ball

Yeah.

you need to know enough about your market and that band and

the fans in your marketplace to determine is this worth the risk?

How many people do I've got?

Do I gotta sell tickets to, not just to break even, but to make money.

'cause that's our goal, is to make money.

The band wants to make money, I wanna make money.

But first and number one on top of the list for doing concerts,

it's about the music and having an audience with fans that love them.

And you're gonna reach those people and you're gonna get 'em to come to the show.

Yeah.

that's why you get to be a successful or in demand concert promoter.

Yeah.

you start doing that, as I did, you make a name for yourself and,

and you become the guy in that area that people are calling on.

And it's, it's very similar, you know, to what a band would be

following of following promoters become known for putting on.

Quality events, bringing great bands, and the word gets around to who you've

worked with and what you're up to.

And, and they go out, you know, they, they see it from afar and

they go, I wanna work with that guy.

Now remember back in the seventies and the eighties and the nineties,

this is all before computers.

So,

Yeah, yeah,

you know, I mean, when I look back and think, what, what do

we have logs out there and, and

yeah,

we're playing to each other.

What we had was we had telephones.

We

yeah.

had to talk to people.

Pick up the phone to somebody.

Yep.

you actually have to communicate with somebody directly.

We didn't have this set up with the zooms and all that, but I, and

you would, when you were booking an act, you'd have to call that agent

up, in New York or Los Angeles.

You'd have to go through every expense with them and tell them, you know,

'cause that's what they wanted.

They wanted to know how much was the show gonna cost to put on.

Then you add the artist fee, total it up, you've got X amount of tickets.

You gotta figure out what the right ticket prices taking into

consideration at that time.

How much people are typically getting for shows and oftentimes the manager

or the agent will say to you, well, how much is so-and-so charging?

That's what I wanna charge.

Or guys like Bob Seger or The Grateful Dead would always go, how

much of the other guy's charging?

We're gonna charge less?

Garth Brooks was like that.

There wasn't a lot of groups that did it that way.

But it's funny that all those groups remained popular

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

they looked out for their fans.

Many people back then, just like now, it's like, how much can I make?

I wanna make as much as I possibly can.

The problem with that is it gets passed on to the customer.

Mm-hmm.

And the customer.

Just like a tariff, the customer has to pay that tariff.

That group wants 50 grand instead, but they belong in a 20 to 30,000

range so that you can chart There's that certain point in your career.

Second time in, maybe even the third time in third or fourth time in,

if you're gonna be anything, you better be selling out the halls that

you're in or going into bigger halls.

Yeah.

if you stay in the same size hall for a while, doesn't mean you're a loser.

It just means you have, maybe you're an eclectic artist and you're not gonna

appeal to as many people as the eagles,

Right, right.

may, maybe you're gentle, giant.

You're only gonna draw a thousand people,

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

is a thousand amazing people that love an amazing group.

That's, you know, that's how the, the circle kind of works.

You know, you, you've gotta be there the point where you, I find that, that

over the years there were people who knew me before I knew them because of

having worked the market for so long.

and I'm the guy that they wanted to work with, which is terribly

flattering, but they're right.

I'm the mo both best equipped to work with that artist in the market at that time.

Yeah, there's a lot of discussion going on in general.

You know, some of the artists we have on, we talk about

whether they should charge, how much they should charge, you know,

if, if the newer guys should be out there doing whatever, give away

stuff they can do, if they should.

You know, there's a big, there's almost a polarity in that discussion on

doing anything for free or very cheap versus leveling the, the marketing

price point, if you will, you know.

You know, one of the, one of the most important things that I ask when I'm

booking groups nowadays, everybody's all over the road with how much they want.

And, and most ca in most cases, like somebody says, so-and-so's

gonna tour for a second.

I get excited, I wanna do that.

And I'm going, oh, what are they gonna ask for?

Mm-hmm.

Uh, the other day there, there was a, a, a good package, uh, run by my run by

me, and I'm going 75 to a hundred grand.

They quoted me two 50,

Mm-hmm.

but I'm not gonna say who it was 'cause I don't wanna embarrass 'em.

Yeah.

wanna do the show

Yeah,

come down on their price.

But everybody, and, and especially in the older demo.

They're not in this for their jolly anymore.

They're

yeah.

in here to go out and meet girls or get high or get out of the house and go tour.

They're there to make money.

Yeah.

and the thing is though, is you wanna make money continuously.

You never wanna quit making money.

You never want to quit touring When you're a popular touring group.

One of the best surefire ways to do it is to give bad shows and charge too much.

If you give great shows, you can keep your, your ticket price up there, but

you wanna leave people something so they can buy some drinks at the show,

have dinner before the show, pay for the babysitter, and not bankrupt them

after all these expenses that go in for the normal person to buy a show ticket.

And, and I don't think a lot of people really take that into consideration

anymore because it's really, and it typically always is a seller's market

from the booking agent side, because there's competitors that I'll have, I'm

not the biggest promoter in town anymore.

And, and always somebody else willing to pay more.

They can absorb it loses to them, it's about market position and, and, and

owning everything for their, you know, in the case of Live Nation and their stock

play, they wanna look good to everybody out there because people buy stock.

It's a different business than what I'm in,

Yeah.

um, because I don't, I don't have that stock play.

And I, I'm not saying I wouldn't mind being in that position myself, but the

fact is nobody else is quite like them.

And they've done a hell of a job as far as all that goes, but

in doing so, they've squashed.

lot of people

Yeah.

uh, and, and, and, and it's kind of a monopoly in the sense that really,

people aren't really able to make choices when they go into various markets.

When you've got one, one promoter that's so big, they have

every room from small to big.