GTC IS ALL THE WAY LIVE
“Our competitors told us we would never succeed,” James Hyland remembers.
Hyland (pictured) was one of three Irish friends (along with Russell Treacy and Lee Walsh) who journeyed from the Emerald Isle to L.A. and, in 2010, established Global Tour Creatives, a creative agency focused on art, radio, video, out-of-home (OOH) and digital assets for the touring industry.
The trio put their backs into it, renting a live-work loft and sleeping on its floor on blow-up mattresses. They knocked on countless doors and sent out innumerable email pitches. Though what they heard was an almost continuous “no,” they refused to take it for an answer.
“I remember trying to locate an email address for the owner of Cirque du Soleil and I kept trying every email format possible until one email finally delivered,” Hyland relates. “A few weeks later, having impressed their team in what we had to offer, we landed Cirque du Soleil as one of our first major clients.”
They kept pushing. By 2023, GTC was handling eight of the Top 10 worldwide touring acts, and if you’ve seen art promoting a tour, it’s very likely they’ve created it. Their clients include U2, Adele, Paul McCartney, Taylor Swift, Harry Styles, Lady Gaga, Beyoncé, Coldplay, Ed Sheeran, Bruno Mars, Usher, Justin Timberlake, P!nk, Green Day, Twenty One Pilots, Bruce Springsteen, Sebastian Maniscalco, Kevin Hart, Eagles and many more. They oversee the production and servicing of more than 4k creative assets every day for their global clients.
The company also set up an art-production division exclusively to handle the localization of artwork for every Live Nation show in North America. Meanwhile, they’ve shot content for such international stars as Lady Gaga, Enrique Iglesias, Sheeran, Christina Aguilera, Twice and Aerosmith, to name but a few.
While the rest of the live world essentially shut down during COVID, GTC launched Santa: The Experience, an elf-guided online trip to the North Pole that featured a live interactive chat with Santa. The virtual Yuletide attraction drew more than 100k people in a four-week period and more than kept the lights on until the pandemic ended.
The company recently opened spiffy new digs at 9200 Sunset Blvd., which will house its team of 50+ staffers. And there isn’t a blow-up mattress in sight.
