A
s founder/CEO of Cárdenas Marketing
Network (CMN), Henry Cárdenas has
long been the top independent Latin
music promoter in the United States,
the man behind a bevy of successful
arena tours by megawatt stars like Marc Anthony,
Chayanne, Daddy Yankee and, most recently, Maluma
and Bad Bunny.
But lately, Cárdenas, 63, has felt others rattling
his cage. “We were fat and happy,” he says. “Then,
everywhere I looked, there was Live Nation breathing
down my neck. And that motivated me to get up and
see what was happening.”
What was happening was a flow of talent beyond the
big superstars CMN had long promoted. So Cárdenas
got to work, looking for emerging talent — and scooping
it up before anyone else did.
Cárdenas opened a booking arm at CMN that he
says has grown more than 200% in the past year and
now includes 12 acts (with such younger artists as Sech,
Manuel Turizo and Becky G among them), as well as
stars like Anthony. It is the fastest-growing sector in a
company that also pushed beyond music for opportu-
nities in sports events and experiential marketing. The
diversification allows Cárdenas to have a footprint in
many areas, straddling multiple genres — from regional
Mexican to pop — with artists big and small in a way he
didn’t before.
Between July 1, 2018, and June 30, 2019, CMN
grossed $102.5 million and sold 1,046,652 tickets across
161 shows, according to data the company has reported
to Billboard Boxscore. That places CMN at No. 9 on
Boxscore’s list of top promoters for that period.
In addition to the concerts tracked by Boxscore,
Cárdenas says, he produced over 300 events in 2018,
his biggest year ever, selling 2 million-plus tickets.
Those events include Bad Bunny’s and Maluma’s arena