“The thing I get really excited about is being able to book some of the artists I grew up with, like Del the Funky Homosapien or Peanut Butter Wolf, Blackalicious,” smiles Justin Nordan. “This is amazing. I'm able to book these artists that I really looked up to and love their albums.”
As a talent buyer for Sacramento’s Concerts in the Park, California’s longest running free music festival which is held every Friday from May to July, Nordan not only has the opportunity to work with some of his favorite artists, but is acutely aware of the current state of the booking and events landscape.
That experience is compounded by a resume that includes several years at Eventbrite and Queue Ticketing, as well as a recently completed four-year tenure with Lyte, where his roles included Global Head of Strategy, Events, and Global Head of Business Development.
Here, Nordan outlines four trends he’s currently seeing in the events and booking space, and one solution to a persistent issue…
"I help behind the scenes doing a lot of ticketing strategy and things like that with a handful of venues in the Sacramento area. And so I see the sales velocity, and I feel like there's this polarizing thing right now where the shows are either selling out very fast or trending towards sellout, or you get shows that in other markets are selling 1000 tickets and in our market they’re selling 150.
"And so is that a result of the market? Is there a ceiling in terms of the amount of money fans are willing to spend on a show that's at a 300 or 600-cap club? Really interesting balls of yarn to unravel.
"But also, in terms of buyer behavior, you see people gravitating towards transparency. And I think we're seeing that a lot with the demand from Congress that the price that you see on the front is the price you see at the end.
"Also [post-COVID], the no-show rate at shows is north of 20% often, which is crazy."
"The no-show rate at shows is north of 20% often, which is crazy."
"If fans know they have secure options to get rid of tickets if they're no longer able to attend, that's a huge bonus. Whether that be returnability through a platform like Lyte or Ticketmaster Resale, if they're able to have an easy way to return their tickets – and fans that are looking for tickets have an easy marketplace for them to go and find tickets that are reasonably priced – that gives people options.
"[Also], communication is everything. And not communication just for the sake of banter. But communication in terms of making it easy for people to access information that may be critical in terms of their experience with the show.
"Is it easy to find parking? Can you prepay for parking? Where do you go for will call or to pick up tickets? Where's the box office where you can get your tickets scanned? The easier you can make it on the fan, the more likely they are to come out."
"I think you're starting to see a trend where AXS and AEG are doing the pre-registration thing for a lot of their festivals. I think Front Gate Tickets and the Live Nation group along with Ticketmaster were doing a lot of pre-registration, but they were positioning it as a payment plan: for $10 down you can get a ticket. That's pretty enticing.
"It also gives you an understanding of who wants to go and who's willing to put down money for it, which is different from some of the other pre-registration things [which just require] an email. The fan can show you intent by putting money down and letting you know that they're a little more serious than being passive and providing an email.
"I think you're seeing a lot of that gain traction."
"Everything's more expensive. Not a shock, because we've got inflation, and the cost of touring is up, and all of that kind of stuff. The thing that I am lucky to have is that agents see the value in playing in front of 6000 people, 7000 people, 8000 people on a Friday [at Concerts in the Park], as opposed to playing a hard ticket gig inside a venue.
"We allow artists to keep 100% of their merch, that's a huge selling point.
"But I’ve realized that agents are a little more open to having conversations since COVID.
"People are more willing to do door deals and venues are more willing to do deals with a greater back end if they sell out or sell well, or have triggers that allow them to make some money based on velocity or success of ticket sales."
"2023 has been kind of wild. We usually don't start having conversations with agents [about Concerts in the Park] until November. [As of today in mid-November] I think we have three of our headliners already booked for the season. We had them booked a month ago.
"The other part was the amount of inbound we got was far greater than we've ever seen in the past.
"We have 12 national headliners over 12 weeks, and then the support underneath is usually regional or local artists. But the 12 headlining spots, we got over 300 submissions from agents.
"And the submissions were not only way larger artists with a way larger reach, but more. Which makes it a little bit harder for me and my partner because we're sifting through all these things going, man, we've got all these different options. And we're gonna have to leave someone out."
Follow Justin on LinkedIn here.
