The newest venue in Nashville is The Pinnacle, which opens Thursday night with a show from hometown hero Kacey Musgraves. And while it can seem commonplace for another venue to open in Music City, The Pinnacle is more than a venue; it is the physical manifestation of corporate synergy in the live music experience. And it’s a big play for AEG.
I have been covering music for 10 years, and I’m a little embarrassed to say that I don’t really know how shows get booked at venues. Luckily, I found someone who does.
Mike DuCharme is the regional VP of AEG Presents, the booking company that owns The Pinnacle.
“Agent calls, says Jack White is coming to town,” DuCharme explained. “They say, ‘Can you hold these dates?’ And they will call Live Nation and say, ‘Can you hold these dates?’ Everyone bidding on the show will hold those dates. They will say, ‘We would like tickets to be in this world. Send us an offer.’ And we send our best offer based on what we think the economics of that show will do and where we think it will sell.”
Artists have an agent, who talks to a booker, who books the venue. The thing that makes The Pinnacle really unique is that AEG, talent agency CAA and speaker manufacturer L-Acoustics all have their regional headquarter offices in the skyscraper just steps away from the venue.
“I hope it puts us more as a player in the market,” DuCharme said. “This is our flagship venue. We are culminating forces with our global touring team to build a bigger market and have a bigger presence. Nashville is a market we want to show that we are invested in.”
Owning a venue is a big deal for a promoter. For a long time, this has been a Live Nation town. It, along with its subsidiary Ticketmaster, built the framework for corporate booking. Until The Pinnacle, AEG had to book shows in other venues, paying the cost and limiting its booking.
“We’re kind of handcuffed, honestly, in terms of what we can program,” DuCharme said, “so this would be an opportunity for us to do more in market.” Now the handcuffs are off, and with the money that they are saving by not paying the venue, they can put in bigger bids to artists.
“With an artist like Jack White, we are confident we are going to do the business, we swing as hard as we can swing to try and get that show in this room,” he said. “And it was an important show, with the Nashville connection, so might have swung harder because we really wanted to see it happen here.”
So what does that mean for the music fans? Right now, good shows.
AEG came out swinging, using that money to book Kacey Musgraves, Jack White, Jason Isbell, Kraftwerk and T-Pain. The Pinnacle’s opening concert calendar is impressive.
“Everything in the venue is intentionally curated with Nashville artists to feel local Nashville, but not caricature Nashville,” DuCharme said.
Even more so, it shows a tipping in Music City’s booking landscape. And AEG isn’t stopping with The Pinnacle.
Right now, Ascend Amphitheater is in a state of transition. For the last 10 years, it has been exclusively run by Live Nation, but AEG, with wind in its sails, is making a bid.
“We are pursuing it,” DuCharme said. “The jury is out. We don’t know where it lands, but we are interested.”
So, The Pinnacle could be just the start of AEG’s mark on Nashville.
