are just staggering,” says Meglen. “She’s
hotter than she has ever been.”
Jay Marciano
COO, AEG; chairman/CEO, AEG Presents
Rick Mueller
President of North America, AEG Presents
Gary Gersh
President of global touring and talent,
AEG Presents
Under Marciano’s leadership, AEG Presents
achieved record grosses with tours from
Elton John, Ed Sheeran, Shawn Mendes
and The Rolling Stones (through its Con-
certs West division). The company’s club
and theater portfolio expanded to over
100 venues, with openings including the
Mission Ballroom in Denver, the Eventim
Apollo in London and the renovated Web-
ster Hall in New York. AEG now has over
40 festivals, a part of the business with
“continued growth,” says Marciano, who
singles out the success of Stagecoach,
overseen by Stacy Vee, Goldenvoice vp
festival talent and Messina Touring Group
vp artist relations. “We have built the
single biggest country music festival in
Southern California.”
Louis Messina
CEO, Messina Touring Group
Shawn Mendes, Eric Church and George
Strait grossed a combined $188 million
with only eight stadium shows in 2019,
punctuating a stellar year for Messina,
- Next up, the veteran promoter says
he is hitting the road hard in 2020 with a
stadium tour “that will be Kenny Chesney’s
biggest ever.” Messina will soon be
traveling in style with a new tour bus. His
favorite moments of 2019? Staging the first
hometown shows for Mendes (at Toronto’s
Rogers Centre) and Church (at Nashville’s
Nissan Stadium).
Bob Newman
President/CEO, ASM Global
The former president of AEG Facilities
completed a merger in October with SMG
to form ASM Global, a sprawling network
of arenas, theaters, convention centers
and stadiums that includes 310 venues on
five continents. “It was a merger of entities
that had unique resources and strengths
that, when combined, created something
completely different,” says Newman, 56.
Now with an expanded team of over 60,000
employees across the globe, Newman says
he’s motivated to help them “deliver amazing
experiences every moment of every day to
our clients, our guests and to each other.”
Darren Pfeffer
Executive vp, Madison Square Garden Co.
As the executive who oversees MSG’s ven-
ues, Pfeffer closed out 2019 on top. Madi-
son Square Garden itself in New York led
Billboard’s year-end rankings of arenas in
its class with a total gross of $221 million,
marking the first time a North American
arena passed the $200 million threshold.
The Forum in Inglewood, Calif., took the
No. 2 North American spot on the same
chart with a $93 million gross, while Radio
City Music Hall in New York was the year’s
No. 1 large theater (5,001 to 10,000 capac-
ity), grossing $120 million. In total, the six
venues under Pfeffer’s command grossed a
collective $533 million in ticket sales, with
a new live property — chairman James
Dolan’s ambitious Sphere project in Las
Vegas — under construction. “The sheer
volume and diversity of what [our] team
does is pretty staggering,” says Pfeffer.
Michael Rapino
President/CEO, Live Nation Entertainment
Denis Desmond
Chairman of U.K. and Ireland, Live Nation
LIVE
Henry Cárdenas
Founder/CEO, Cárdenas Marketing Network
Cárdenas’ CMN invested in the touring
infrastructure of his native Colombia
with the July 2019 purchase of the
24,000-capacity Arena Bogotá. The deal,
valued at over $30 million, is a “lifelong
dream,” says the promoter who was
named Executive of the Year in Billboard’s
Latin Power Players list in October. As
Latin music’s biggest concert production
company, CMN’s client list includes Marc
Anthony, Maluma, Pepe Aguilar and Bad
Bunny, whose debut album, X100PRE, has
ruled Billboard’s Top Latin Albums chart
for 42 weeks and secured a “99% sold-out”
arena tour for the star, says Cárdenas. He
also signed rising Latin urban acts Sech and
Darkiel. “Looking for new talent to see if I
can discover the world’s next Bad Bunny,
that makes me get up every day,” he says.
Paul Gongaware
Co-CEO, Concerts West/AEG Presents
John Meglen
Co-CEO, Concerts West/AEG Presents
Despite the rescheduling of 17 North Amer-
ican shows due to Mick Jagger’s heart sur-
gery, The Rolling Stones’ three-year, three-
leg No Filter Tour (promoted by Concerts
West’s Gongaware and Meglen) wrapped
in August 2019 after grossing $415.6 million
and selling 2,290,871 tickets to become
one of the top 10 highest-grossing tours
in Billboard Boxscore history. Meglen also
calls Céline Dion’s Courage World Tour “as
good as it gets,” with the Canadian super-
star hitting the road after her historic Las
Vegas residencies. “She’s selling tickets,
her shows are amazing [and] the reviews
CÁRDENAS
GONGAWARE
MEGLEN
MARCIANO
MUELLER
GERSH
PFEFFER
RAPINO
MESSINA
NEWMAN
DESMOND
POWER MOVE
Spotify Flexes Its Muscles
“Every songwriter and fan of music
should stand up and take notice.”
—National Music Publishers’ Association president/CEO
DAVID ISRAELITE reacting to Spotify’s March 2019 notice that it
would appeal the Copyright Royalty Board’s decision to boost pay-
ments to songwriters and publishers by 44% between 2018 and 2022.
It was one of three moves by the streaming service — with 113 million
subscribers, the world’s largest — that riled the industry as it sought
to reduce costs and approach profitability. In February, Spotify
launched in India despite a legal injunction from Warner Music Group
over songs published by WMG’s Warner Chappell (the two sides
reached a deal this month). Spotify also filed an antitrust complaint
with the European Commission about the way its rival Apple sets and
changes its app store practices. Spotify “is using its particular mo-
ment in the marketplace to protect the moat they’ve built,” said one
industry executive at the time. “Why wouldn’t they?”
Spotify’s Daniel Ek
and Dawn Ostroff
PORTRAIT ILLUSTRATIONS BY ËLODIE
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CÁRDENAS:^ SANDRO^MILLER.GONGAWARE,MEGLEN,MUELLER,^ GERSH:^ AEGPRESENTS.MARCIANO:SUZANNETERESA.MESSINA:^ CHRISTYIVIE.^ N
EWMAN:COURTESY^ OF^ ASMGLOBAL.PFEFFER:^ REBECCATAYLOR/MSGPHOTOS.RAPINO:COURTESY^OFLIVE^ NATION^ENTERTAINMENT.^ D
ESMOND:^ COURTESY^OFSUBJECT.^ P
REVIOUS^SPREAD:^ GROOMING^BYSHARON^BECKERANDGIAGUTIERREZATENNIS.