Ben Weeden '98 (Music Executive, Live Nation, House of Blues Entertainment)
By Sara Melson '90
Ben Weeden '98 seems to have been born under a lucky star. His story is one of being in the right place at the right time, combined with the talent and skills to deliver on the opportunity.
After graduating Harvard in 1998 as an economics major, Ben was working in finance at Bear Stearns in New York. One of their clients was SFX Entertainment, which was rolling up many of the regional concert promoters, amphitheaters, theaters, and clubs in the US and was starting to do the same in Europe. "What SFX was doing seemed so much more fun.” Weeden went to work for SFX in Business Development, and after two months in the New York office, he was transferred to the London office, which at the time was a very small operation, consisting of only a couple promoters.
Weeden was given what most recent college graduates would call a dream assignment: travel around Europe and acquire the major promoters in each European territory. Most of these had festivals, not venues. Weeden headed up the deals to acquire promoters in Scandinavia, Belgium, Holland, Italy, and Spain; since then, the company has grown to every country in Europe. When the bubble burst and capital dried up in 2001/2002, SFX stopped doing a lot of their acquisitions. "Coincidentally, at the time, a gentleman from the US came over to run marketing for Europe, Michael Rapino, who ended up becoming the CEO of Live Nation/Ticketmaster, " explains Weeden. It was a fortuitous arrangement for the recent graduate. "We got to know each other, and he started taking on more and more roles with the operations of the music division. He took me under his wing, and we started working together as a team; ten different countries, all these different festivals."
Michael Rapino moved further up the chain in Europe, and took Weeden with him. "I definitely look at Michael as a mentor, and you know, just right place and right time, hard work and luck.” When Rapino became CEO of the European division, Weeden helped him run the music business in Europe, and put together large arena tours throughout Europe with Britney Spears, Prince, and the like. "I would go out on the road on tour for a couple of years, based in London. Very fun.” Around 2005, when Rapino became CEO of Clear Channel Entertainment (which had acquired SFX in 2000), he moved to LA, bringing Weeden with him. "I’d spent the last couple of years learning the industry and working in the touring division. Our job was to help run the North American business and do a lot of the same stuff we’d done in Europe, which was run it as one cohesive team.” At first this consisted of 45 amphitheaters and 40 theaters and clubs in the US alone. Weeden’s job was to structure the deals of the tours and operate the concert venues more efficiently, bringing the business side to the equation. "Looking at the bottom line: what are you spending on costs, and what are you making back.”
The company was buying and promoting 30-40 amphitheater tours a year. Weeden became the interim CFO of the concert division in North America in 2007, making sure that all the teams under the company’s auspices started to work together, coordinating budgets with promoters in the field. Weeden laughs, "We have the best promoters in the business. Meanwhile I’m just this little punk… It was like, I know you’ve been doing this for forty years, but… Here’s how we’d like to do it now. Do you mind? It was a new thing for everyone, because we were such a young company. I didn’t go to business school or have a ton of experience promoting concerts. So there were growing pains, and it took a while.”
In 2008, Weeden was made COO of Live Nation’s North American concert division. A year later, the company acquired Ticketmaster, and divided up their US business into different units: Ticketmaster, sponsorship, and the concert division. Concerts were further divided amongst amphitheater/ arena shows and theatre/ club shows.
Weeden became CEO of House Of Blues Entertainment, which encompasses the theater and club division of the company, overseeing 6,000 shows a year in over 40 venues, including 3 comedy clubs. "We had spent so much time dealing with the amphitheater and arenas, that the theatres and clubs never got the attention they deserved. It’s a high volume business." Weeden observes that he prefers dealing with the smaller shows. "I find that a lot of the content nowadays is more in the small and middle-sized venues, where all the artists are developing, rather than selling out Staples Center.”
Weeden oversees a team comprised of 25 senior promoters for the 40 venues, in addition to show marketers, venue teams, and a "farm team,” comprised of kids right out of college. "We bring them up and teach them the ropes of the business,” says Weeden. These junior promoters help market, strike contracts, take calls, and create special event nights and recurring programs at the various venues to fill up potentially slower nights. "In terms of the day to day: Are we booking shows, are those shows selling tickets? Is the beer cold and are the tacos hot?”
In LA, Weeden also oversees the national touring team, whose job is to buy national tours ––"artists that we want to get behind and add additional marketing power to, and fill the void that the labels used to serve on the marketing side,” explains Weeden. "I’m going to use all the assets we have at Ticketmaster, Live Nation, and House of Blues, and help sell more tickets. We believe that we can add more value and get them more exposure… We have this marketing machine, with a database of over a hundred million people.” By demographically targeting fans of similar artists, Weeden believes that Live Nation offers a unique service. If you’re a developing touring artist, says Weeden, "We can help you start your career.” In terms of where the company is headed in the future, Weeden muses, "There are only so many Friday nights of the year that I can book shows. And it’s a tough business, because there’s so much competition for artists to play… So artist promotion is a natural next step for us.”
Weeden’s first concert as a kid was U2 at RFK stadium in DC. "I had no idea at that point that there was somebody behind the scenes selling the tickets. I didn’t even know that this part of the music industry even existed. It’s a very cool business that’s very unusual to get into. I was just lucky to get into it.”
I ask Weeden if anything at Harvard had prepared him for this life as a significant player in the music industry. "I majored in economics,” he replies, "but completely fell into this.” However, Harvard came through four years ago, when Weeden went to meet his Harvard roommate at Nick’s Martini Bar, and ended up meeting his wife there. "It worked out very well,” laughs Weeden. Indeed, the couple has a 22-month old daughter, and another girl on the way in May.
Ben Weeden may indeed have a knack for being in the right place at the right time.