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Goldsmith calls on record industry to talk to the live sector more

By CMU Editorial | Published on Monday 25 January 2010

Given everyone seems to agree that the live sector plays an ever more important role in the wider music industry, and given that that sector will presumably soon need to start investing in new talent alongside the record companies and music publishers, it is perhaps surprising how disparate the music rights and music performance sectors still remain. Well, it probably isn’t, but it would probably be in everyone’s interest for there to be more close working between the labels and publishers and the promoters.

Well, anyway, that was the basic gist of celebrity promoter Harvey Goldsmith’s stint at MidemNet this weekend. According to MusicAlly, Goldsmith told his audience of primarily record industry types: “The [wider music] industry doesn’t talk to each other on a senior level. Normally all the conversations centre around recorded music, and live is left out”. He said he thought subscription services were an important part of the future of music, possibly including live elements in the mix.

Touching on what is probably the biggest story in the live sector just now – the proposed Live Nation Ticketmaster merger – he said he thought that if that deal does go ahead it will provide new challenges to the whole music industry, though that might prove to be a good thing. Goldsmith: “I believe that the Live Nation Ticketmaster deal will make everybody else sharpen the pencil and start to become more creative. [And] there are tons of new solutions around to deal with the issues that everyone’s concerned about with that deal”.