Top 30 Michael Rapino Quotes

BottleRock has these incredible VIP cabins where a chef is preparing sushi for you in your cabin or lounge decorated by Restoration Hardware.

The concert industry lags dramatically behind the great hospitality businesses out there, whether they’re theme parks or hotels or sporting events.

Dave Matthews, Tim McGraw, U2, The Rolling Stones – there are a lot of artists selling out stadiums around the world that we work with regularly. And end up making most of our money with those artists.

History has shown that even in a recession, consumers go to shows.

In early days of Live Nation, we really believed it was important to be a direct-to-consumer business, which the labels aren’t and no promoter was at the time. By merging with Ticketmaster, we could we give the artist a direct relationship with the fan.

A hit is a hit, and when you have a hit great things happen.

You’ll see an erosion of rock ‘n’ roll for sure… if you’re playing a mainstream festival, you don’t want to be the rock guy when everyone else is talking about Swedish House Mafia.

At a very young age in Canada, I had mapped out that my mission in life and my passion was live events.

Corporate America couldn’t be more excited about the demise of the record companies.

I probably go to 100 shows a year.

Going into 2010, we didn’t expect the consumer pullback that happened. We all thought that the theory that concerts are recession-proof was true.

Our goal is to continue to be a global consolidator of the live music business.

Clinging to old ways and fighting change is not the answer.

The biggest cost of my business is competition – promoters bidding against each other to get a tour.

In our business we don’t mind if a price of a ticket goes down; our job is to get as many bums in seats as possible.

Every city’s got a famous rib place or coffeehouse or dessert place.

Calling the new company Live Nation Entertainment is a big statement. Let’s make sure we send a strong message from the first investor call.

I’ve met plenty of CMOs in life, and I always say that I’ve never met any that can hold a candle to rock stars, who I truly believe are the greatest brand managers in the world.

One of the strengths of Michael Cohl is he’s a big thinker, strategic, great with relationships, artists and big deals.

Vice has done a great job at talking to millennials.

We as an industry need to do a better job of increasing the awareness of the show, decreasing the ticket price, and making it a better experience online to buy tickets.

To be the music company of the future, you have to figure out a way to be a great business and distribution partner of younger bands, midsized bands, and ones that break out, like Arcade Fire.

Our job is to build a company for the future that can meet the demands of the artist and fan of the future.

As an industry, YouTube and digital content have a huge upside to creation and virally reach fans, and there’s a multi-billion dollar business of advertising attached to that.

I can hope that the economy gets better, or I can seek a more proactive approach to protect our employees, reward our shareholders and better service artists and fans.

Jay Z doesn’t care if he plays in Paris or Denver, but we do. We make more money in Paris.

Bono. He still is somebody who, and I don’t say I’m starstruck in that sense, I’m always in awe of. It doesn’t matter how many times I’ve been with him, he’s still an exceptional man that continually inspires me in many ways in life.

We believe that the Internet is the live concert promoters best friend although it might have crippled the record label business.

EDM is here to stay. If you’re 19 years old, this is your rock ‘n’ roll.

We can’t say to a Ticketmaster venue that says they want to use a different ticketing platform, ‘If you do that, we won’t put shows in your building.’