AI Bands, Spotify, TikTok & The Death Of Songwriting - Rick Beato - #965

**Chris Williamson** (0:00)
Why does everyone hate Live Nation? What's the problem with Live Nation?

**Rick Beato** (0:05)
I talked to one of my best friends this morning who works for Live Nation. He's worked for Live Nation for probably 25 years. I'll have to ask him that question. I don't hate Live Nation. I do live shows occasionally, and at Live Nation venues. Why do people hate it?
For a lot of the same reasons, people hate how much ticket prices are, and that's related to that.
People like to complain about things. It's like ticket prices are expensive, there's tons of add-ons, taxes, all this kind of stuff. That's one of the reasons, I think. As far as Live Nation, though, there's always somebody that's getting in the way that annoys people. It's like me saying to you, Chris, why do people complain in the comments section about how many ads there are? Or, you know, like, I'll have a video that's demonetized, right? I'll play music and it gets demonetized. So I have no control over the ads. I can't undemonetize it. And they play as many ads as they can. And people get mad at me. It's like, I'm not even making money on the video.

**Chris Williamson** (1:35)
Oh, that's interesting. I didn't realize that when a video gets popped for copyright, that you rescind all ability to either place or remove ads that's really funny.

**Rick Beato** (1:44)
Yeah, but people are mad about it.

**Chris Williamson** (1:46)
And it's like, sorry, not on me.

**Rick Beato** (1:48)
Right.

**Chris Williamson** (1:48)
Yeah. I only learned recently about dynamic pricing. This is something I didn't even know existed. Can you explain how that works?

**Rick Beato** (1:58)
You're talking about like pricing the changes from depending on availability?

**Chris Williamson** (2:04)
Yeah, for live shows and demand on the site is high and the price goes up as more people.

**Rick Beato** (2:10)
I can't understand that honestly, because I'll look at somebody and be like, why is it that the price here was, why is it $800 here in this part, but it's $300 three rows back? What's the deal with it? My agent, who books my live gigs, Larry, he explains this stuff to me and I'm like, I don't get this. I don't understand this. It's, I don't understand how they do live pricing for events. I really, that's not a thing that, it's not like when I used to go to concerts where it's like, you buy your ticket, it's a price.
If you went to a concert in the 1970s, you buy your ticket, tickets have a particular price for that particular seat, and that's what you pay. Now, it's, things are changing, depends on availability. Sometimes they'll hold seats for people, if they're guests of the artist, then they're going to release seats the day before or they'll ask me, how many people do you have? Well, I don't have 20 people here, so you can, I only have four people come, so you can release the other seats, or, you know, it's, so there's so many factors.

**Chris Williamson** (3:34)
I really didn't realize, I mean, it makes sense when you think about trying to put together the operation that is a live concert. I run nightclubs for ages. Putting together live music is going to be a bit complex, but I didn't realize just how complex it is to make sound come out of speakers on a stage with a person.
Oh no, there's got to be an LD and there's got to be a production manager and there's got to be the monitor guy that looks after the in-ears and then there's a special mic at the back of the stage that they can speak to, to communicate to the person that's looking after that. Each different band member on stage has got a different tech who's looking after them. They might have a different monitor outside who's looking after them as well, especially as you say Metallica playing in the round. They've got, I don't know, it feels like a military operation, especially as you get bigger.

**Rick Beato** (4:23)
I went to see this band in Perfect Circle play.

**Chris Williamson** (4:26)
I love Perfect Circle.

**Rick Beato** (4:27)
I love Perfect Circle. I know all the guys in the band. I've interviewed Maynard a couple of times and Billy, the guitarist, invited me to come by the soundcheck. I came by with two of my kids, my daughter Layla and my youngest and my son Dylan, and Josh Freese.
Layla's favorite song is the song Weak and Powerless. It's off the 13th step record. It's got an amazing drum beat on it. I had told Josh when I interviewed him, yeah, it's my 12-year-old favorite song, Weak and Powerless. We go up to soundcheck and we go up to the top of this riser and they're up there and they had this incredibly elaborate setup because it was a Perfect Circle, Pussifer, Maynard's band, and then Primus was playing with them. They did every two songs they switched between it. This was a really interesting setup. Every two songs, it's a different band playing.