JAY MARCIANO: THE HITS INTERVIEW

When AEG Presents Chairman and CEO Jay Marciano was asked by the cancer treatment and research organization City of Hope to be this year’s Spirit of Life honoree, his first reaction was that they’d made a huge mistake. “I thought, you don’t really want me.” His second was that he needed to talk it over with his wife, Lisa. “We tend to keep a low profile. We’re careful about putting ourselves out there.”

Still, there was a greater good at stake, not to mention an opportunity for the music industry to put its best foot forward. “We’re often rightfully maligned for our excesses,” he says. “We’re loud and we’re showy. But we’re also very generous. And for 51 years, the music business has been very generous with City of Hope.”

And so, on 10/22, Marciano will accept the 2024 Spirit of Life Award at the Shrine Auditorium and Expo Hall in downtown Los Angeles. The event will be hosted by comedian and actor Fred Armisen and will feature a special performance from Elton John, whose AEG-produced Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour was one of the most successful in music history, second only to another AEG-promoted venture, Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour.

“Jay is more than a colleague, he’s a dear friend,” said Sir Elton in a statement. “It is my pleasure to lend my support to him as he receives the Spirit of Life honor, especially given City of Hope’s dignity-giving supportive care for people who face cancer, along with its unmatched research for other life-threatening illnesses.”

How was your summer?

Busy. We were at a lot of shows this spring and summer, all of our major festivals: Coachella, Stagecoach, Jazz Fest, BST Hyde Park. And we’re all jumping on a flight on Monday to go to Columbus to see the start of the Sabrina Carpenter tour, which sold out the day we put it on sale. Forty arenas in North America.

Did you get a chance to relax?

Personally, when I need a respite from the business part of the music business, I’ll go to the Baked Potato on Ventura Boulevard in the Valley and see some great jazz. They have a Hammond B3 organist playing tomorrow night, and I thought, “Maybe somebody wants to come with me.” But I have to drag people to go with me.

I assume you saw The Rolling Stones this time around?

Oh yeah. We had them at Jazz Fest. It was a big deal. When you’re standing on the stage and Keith Richards kicks the band into gear and that rhythm section locks in and Mick Jagger is doing his thing, it’s a beautiful sight. Mick’s 81 years old, God bless him, and he still takes every show seriously. He’s involved with everything, the ticket prices, the markets, the venues.

Do you ever make a request? “Mick, there’s a song from side three of Exile you haven’t played in 30 years” kind of thing?

No, no. I learned a long time ago to stay out of that. We’re just lowly concert promoters; we know our place.

Beyond the fact that Taylor Swift is a one of one, what have you learned from the success of the Eras Tour?

There are a number of things Taylor did that other artists wouldn’t contemplate doing. One is, she had an opportunity to dynamically price her tickets, and she didn’t want to do that to her fans. She specifically said, “No dynamic pricing.” She was willing to make decisions that potentially cut into her income because she was taking a long-term view of her career.

That long-term view applied to every decision she made throughout the tour: over-deliver on the show, over-deliver on the production, don’t overcharge on the merchandise. Every part of the tour was set up to position her for the next tour and the tour after that.

The other thing is that she busted through globally and defined herself as a global superstar. She’s every bit as big everywhere around the world as she is in North America.

In the decades that I’ve been doing this, I’ve never seen anything like it. I may never see anything like it again. I wasn’t around for The Beatles, but it’s a phenomenon in that category.

It feels like she’s earned some time off.

She has, but she didn’t miss a show. Think about that—150 stadium shows. First of all, who does that? The only shows she wasn’t able to play had nothing to do with an illness or “I’m tired.” It was the three shows in Vienna where there was a security risk. She just felt, “I’m going to do the right and safe thing for fans.”

Have you made your arrangements to go to the final Eras show in December?

It’s funny you should ask that. I was actually thinking that if we go to Vancouver, we’ve got to bring end-of-tour gifts.

What in the world does one get Taylor Swift?

Exactly. What do you get someone whose tour is going to break every single record in our business? But I have a few ideas.

Such as?

Well, you want to personalize it. Sometimes it’s not about the amount of money you spend. I’ll give you an example.

We went to Rolex at the end of the Elton John tour and asked them to make these special watches, with engraving on the back—we actually brought them to see the show in Zurich. And we gave them out to the band members and to Bernie Taupin, David Furnish and Elton. We were able to get Rolex to engrave “Farewell Yellow Brick Road” in the same font that was used for the tour, and personal engraving with a specific logo is something they rarely do. If you’re going to get them to engrave something, they only do it the way that they do it, and it’s like, you have a choice of three fonts. Plus, there is currently a five-year wait for a Rolex. But because it was Elton, they did it for him. And by the way, we acquired an extra one for the City of Hope event, and we’re auctioning it off. We’re going to have Bernie wear the watch, and then we’re going to auction it off.

What has your involvement with City of Hope been over the years, and how did this honor come about?

In terms of buying tables and supporting this endeavor, I’ve been involved since the mid ’80s. In fact, when I was a talent buyer in my late 20s working at Universal Concerts, Zach Horowitz was my boss. His dad was one of the doctors at City of Hope. He asked me to figure out how to help raise money. So we’d add 25 cents a ticket to every ticket we sold, and that money went to City of Hope. We’d raise $100,000, which was a lot of money in the ’80s and ’90s.

Now, over the years, I’ve seen many people honored, from Irving Azoff to Fred Rosen to Joel Katz to Coran Capshaw. I’ve been to most of the dinners and heard most of the speeches, and they were always great events. And I always felt, after attending and seeing the speeches given by the doctors and some of the patients and the videos, that this was really good work, that the music industry was coming together to do something that was helpful.

But I never thought I would be an honoree. The only other concert promoter to ever have been honored is Bill Graham. And I thought, well, Bill Graham is Bill Graham; he’s a legend.

Then one day I was having a meeting at CAA with Rob Light, and after the meeting he said, “You know, there are a couple other people who would like to see you. Do you have a minute.” And then he went out and came back, and goes, “You’re going to hate me.” And in walk Zach Horowitz and Bruce Resnikoff. At first I thought, What is this, some kind of intervention? And they said, “Tag, you’re it.” And I thought it was a bad idea. But they’re pretty persuasive: “It’s your turn… You can really be helpful… Look at the great work you’ve done at AEG.” None of that was resonating with me. And then Bruce said, “You’re gonna help save lives.” I said to Bruce, “Well, that’s your best argument.”

How much time elapsed between you being asked and you asking Elton?

I knew that I had to do that in person. It wasn’t something I was going to do on a phone call. His L.A. house is under a mile from my house, and I was going to be over there anyway for a meeting with him and David.

To be completely candid, I’m never comfortable asking. Asking for others is one thing, but asking on behalf of yourself is always difficult. But I’ll tell you what happened. We were going through a list of things that we needed to deal with. And he wanted to show me this video of Brandi Carlile and Joni Mitchell at the Newport Jazz Festival. We were in Elton’s kitchen, and he had it on his iPad, and he played me Joni singing “Both Sides Now.”

And I had this out-of-body moment where I’m sitting in Elton John’s kitchen watching Joni Mitchell sing “I’ve looked at life from both sides now,” and honestly, I started to tear up. And Elton and David were looking at me tearing up. I said, “I apologize. This is so beautiful and so emotional.” And they said, “Well, we felt the same way, and that’s why we wanted you to see this.”

So that finished, and I took a sip of my water and said, “Well, I have one other thing I want to ask you about. I’m being honored. And I’d be honored if you would consider playing the event for me.” And Elton said, “Of course I’ll do this for you.” And I was a little bit shocked, because you never know if it’s a business relationship you have with artists or a friendship. I never want to assume that I’ve crossed over to friends. But there was never a hesitation in his voice. I drove home and said to my wife, “Well, Elton said yes, so I guess we’re doing this.”

If you go too long on your speech, is Elton going to play you off the stage?

I hope so. I told everybody, five minutes, I’m out. I know not to overstay my welcome.

What else is planned besides Elton?

We have Fred Armisen emceeing, David Blaine’s going to do magic and Evan Funke’s doing the food. And we’ve got some great auction items. We’re auctioning off a beautiful six-foot-tall Wes Lang painting that he did specifically for this event. He designed the invitation as well.

Has the event been at the Shrine before?

I don’t think so. I was somewhat reticent to do it there even though it’s one of our venues, but since the live-music business is being honored, it made sense. There was a little bit of concern that psychologically, for Westside people, the Shrine might be a bit of a leap. But as it turns out, we’re basically sold out, which never happens in advance. They didn’t pay to see me, of course. It’s Elton.

You’re Bernie Taupin to Elton’s Elton.

Nobody can be Bernie to Elton’s Elton.

In all seriousness, as part of being an honoree, you get the sort of VIP tour behind the scenes of City of Hope and the campus that they built there and the wonderful work that they’re doing to try to figure out a cure for cancer. I left feeling very hopeful that they’re getting close. There’s some really great work being done there. And it’s great to be able to support that work.

Let’s talk about your business for a minute, and about your flagship festivals. Is it fair to say that Coachella had a down year last year?

Not in the end, but in the beginning it came out a little bit slower than years past. It’s difficult to understand why one year maybe we were down. Maybe people took a year off. I fully expect that Coachella will be back stronger and will sell out in advance in 2025 again.

But Jazz Fest had its biggest year, Buckeye Country Superfest had a big year, Hyde Park had a big year. And Stagecoach was stronger than ever. And next year’s Stagecoach will beat 2024’s.

Earlier this year, after the DOJ filed to break up Live Nation and Ticketmaster, you were quoted in a memo saying that Live Nation was indeed a monopoly, and that you “strongly believed” that the lawsuit will succeed, among other things. Anything you care to add to that today?

You know what, we’re going to want to talk about this at some point again. Today’s not the day. But we have thoughts about this that need to be amplified, about what’s really at stake. And I think some of it’s getting lost in the spin. We need to explain why this is important, why we think there’s a correction necessary in the music business.

It’s not necessarily an attack against Live Nation/Ticketmaster, but I think there are things we can all do to open up the marketplaces that will benefit fans and artists alike.