NASHVILLE SPECIAL 2024: ROAD WARRIORS
It’s where the rubber—or the songs—meet the road: playing shows and witnessing to the people who love country music. Whether a massive stadium-sized headliner like Kenny Chesney, Morgan Wallen, Luke Combs and Kane Brown or young artists selling out the Ryman Auditorium for the first time, nothing compares to that live connection that happens between country artists and their fans.
Whether the genre is the hot thing beyond country-identifying fans or just another button not pushed on someone’s car radio, no style of music embraces touring as constant, as ongoing or as year after year as country. Whether multiple nights at MetLife, SoFi or Gillette stadiums, county-fair dates, clubs like Chicago’s Joe’s on Weed Street or Fort Worth’s legendary Billy Bob’s, an amphitheater or arena tour or multi-day festival, country musicians, as well as Americana artists, bluegrass players, Western swingers and Texas/Oklahoma red dirt outlaws, are burning it up and building careers taking
it to the fans.
With streaming and social media leveling the access, the new cross-pollination with hip-hop, rock and pop’s biggest names and the arrival of Beyoncé, Ed Sheeran, Post Malone and Lana Del Rey, the game is changing. But according to Wasserman Music SVP Michael Betterton (Chesney, Old Dominion), UTA’s Nashville co-head Jeffrey Hasson (Tyler Hubbard, Jamey Johnson, Oliver Anthony), CAA agent Meredith Jones (Maren Morris, Little Big Town, Whiskey Myers) and Neal Agency founder-owner Austin Neal (Wallen, HARDY, Nate Smith), the one constant is the power of hearing songs delivered live by the artists who created them.
So many tours, so little time. How do you—as a talent seller—avoid having big losers?
Michael Betterton: That’s what keeps all good agents up at night, but sometimes you just have to say no and advise either the promoter, the client or both against what appears to be a potentially lucrative deal on the surface but isn’t, and give them solid reasoning (or data) to support that take. But as the adage goes, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
Meredith Jones: I generally stick by the rules—to not skip steps in a market and to give space between market plays. Another way we hit a market differently—play over play—between headline runs would be playing a festival, going out on a package, a support look, or even a softer fair/casino play. Sometimes it’s deciding to play indoors versus outdoors because you are likely to hit a bit of a different fanbase.
Austin Neal: It’s important to be realistic where an artist is in their career, then take a calculated risk in a small sample size before pushing the limits. We have been fortunate to have been with most of our artists from the beginning and do our best to not skip steps.
We’ve also had the beauty of a family of artists who support each other, so we’re exposing clients to audiences who’ve already embraced the artist on the ticket. When the fans come to many of our shows, they’re seeing an artist who’s already been exposed to them by the headliner.
Jeffrey Hasson: We sign great artists [laughs].
With so many “specials” on records, so much reaching across genres, has it changed how you view support acts (for major country tours), or what artists you pitch country acts to?
MB: Genre for support acts is less important than the tour package just making sense and appealing to fans overall. For country tours, I’ve seen rock and pop support acts that move the needle and country acts that didn’t. You need to look at the big picture.
AN: Morgan has pushed into the pop/hip-hop world, and HARDY has pushed into the rock world, which makes for interesting support opportunities. We’ve been able to place HARDY into the rock-festival world as a result of blending of genres, where his music not only fits but feels right. It’s as much how it feels as anything.
JH: With so much heat surrounding the format and fans of all music genres engaging with it, it’s only natural for packaging on the touring side to do the same. In addition to the hard-ticket touring side of things, we’re also seeing major festivals that have historically not had a lot of country music like Lollapalooza, Hangout or Boston Calling leaning toward adding country artists into the mix.
With so many country nightclubs gone, what fills in to develop young—especially social media-driven—artists as performers? Both for acts not playing to people, plus fans paying for tickets with hard-earned dollars instead of getting it for free on social platforms?
MJ: Watching someone perform live on a social-media platform is not anything close to the live experience. The magic of seeing an act live and in person is not replaceable. Social media performances are an advertising tool for the tour.
JH: There are countless amazing multi-genre rooms across the country and still a solid amount of country clubs that play a key role in the culture of live country music. Social media is an amazing tool that breaks down the barrier to entry for any artist and can help create a direct link to fans. I don’t look at that as something you’re giving away for free because nothing can replace being live and in person with an artist you’re a fan of.
AN: I am nostalgic, because I grew up booking a lot of those country clubs in the Southeast. It’s been sad to see many close over the years. A lot of those clubs were very tied to into their local radio stations, so as social media and streaming has become more dominant, it’s had a massive impact on those venues as well.
Is there a way to a fairly reliable methodology to quantify acts who aren’t playing the Country-radio game? We’re seeing so many breakout acts without radio, there must be a way you measure.
AN: You see it in a lot of young artists who are going out and selling out hard-ticket venues with no support on Country radio. Riley Green, who has only had two #1s at radio, but sells out arenas across the country is a perfect example. I still think radio has a place in taking an artist to the highest of highs, but it is no longer the main ingredient in making an act become a hard ticket headliner.
JH: The beauty about social media and streaming is there’s no barrier to entry, and you can create that relationship direct to the fans. As an agent, we have the ability to see the data for how and where our fans are engaging. Data can be misleading, as we’ve seen so many artists with large numbers that don’t translate to ticket sales.
You have to be able to really look at the true engagement of the fans and know how to discern a passive fan from an active one. Watching cross-platform growth and then seeing the fans come to live shows are what separate others from the pack. I’m not going to say that Country radio can’t be impactful to an artist’s career for many reasons, but it’s not the only pathway like it once was.
How is social media impacting what you do? How much weight has it shifted from airplay’s significance?
MJ: While watching what’s happening on radio, I’m more often paying attention to the engagement on socials. Numbers are great, but the likes and comments mean there’s an active fanbase you can advertise a tour to.
Also, while social media is a great tool, it’s only part of the picture. Paying attention to the artist’s growth on socials alongside streaming, media and PR and radio to make sure it’s all growing is most important. If everything is growing at a similar rate, it affects the decisions we make for that act on the road regarding venue size and ticket price.
MB: Social media is one of the inputs we look at, but it’s not a straight numbers game, which many people fail to realize. Just because you have X million followers doesn’t necessarily mean that translates into a live audience.
The greatest value of social media for me is seeing instant feedback on a show, good or bad. Those are the unfiltered opinions coming straight from fans, which we value the most.
Are amphitheaters the new “fair date”? A soft(er) ticket that is low cost, but still yields for the promoters?
AN: There are still so many great fairs in the U.S. that create so much business for our ecosystem—and reach markets that don’t have major amphitheaters. It plays a lot of different ways, because even when the ticket at the fair is an “add on,” it’s still something you’re doing as part of the fair experience.
As someone who grew up going to Starwood Amphitheatre in Nashville, I think amphitheaters are a place you can go and have gone growing up to see your favorite acts with your friends, and that’s one kind of experience. That said, there are a lot of artists who can’t sell tickets at an amphitheater. Though the discount lawn seats help get kids who don’t have a lot of money in the door.
MB: That comparison is a bit of a stretch. Most people go to the fair primarily because it’s a community event with rides, food, everything else. Although some may come for the show, others may or may not care about it even though it’s sometimes included in the price of admission. Conversely, people go to the amphitheater for the show, not the funnel cakes—although those things are damn good. So for me it’s a pretty different dynamic.
