The music rights business is changing into more and more enamoured with two points of at present’s enterprise: ‘identify, picture, and likeness’ (NIL) rights, and ‘experiential’ occasions for followers.
You possibly can see the facility of this mix in London’s ABBA Voyage, which comfortably generates greater than $125 million a yr regardless of being locked to only one location (for now).
You too can see it on Broadway, the place music-adjacent reveals just like the Tony-winning Michael Jackson hit MJ: The Musical proceed to play to packed-out audiences every evening. (Not for nothing did Sony Music Group boss, Rob Stringer, just lately comment that having 5 MJ: The Musical productions taking part in around the globe concurrently was “like a touring act instances 5 – fairly profitable”.)
The newest main transfer into the experiential world of music comes from an organization that’s been maximising NIL’s potential for twenty years: Main Wave.
The New York-headquartered firm is the co-creator of the brand new Las Vegas immersive dwell present spectacular, Bob Marley Hope Highway.
Held on the Mandalay Bay Resort & On line casino, visitors transfer by way of themed rooms with the solid as they carry out. The uniquely designed, non-seated present makes use of cutting-edge expertise with a capability of roughly 180 ticketed visitors per efficiency.
Relying on whether or not you’re shopping for as an early hen or a typical buyer, Hope Highway tickets on the Mandalay website usually value between $69 and $99 (excluding taxes/reserving payment).
5 night reveals per day are already up and operating, throughout 5 days every week. That’s round 100 reveals monthly.
And Larry Mestel, the CEO of Main Wave – who struck a $50 million deal to amass a stake in Bob Marley’s property seven years in the past – says a whopping NINE reveals per day (X5 per week) will quickly be operational, throughout three totally different casts.
“Add in particular packages – plus, crucially, merch – and this ballpark annual income determine might simply tip nearer in direction of $40 million for Main Wave and its companions.”
Doing the quick-sketch math, that creates an occasion with clear potential for a $30 million+ annual gross turnover. Add in particular packages – plus, crucially, merch – and this ballpark annual income determine might simply tip nearer in direction of $40 million for Main Wave and its companions within the present, together with producer FiveCurrents.
One cause this frequency of reveals is feasible is that Hope Highway is comparatively concise, at 75 minutes lengthy – one thing Mestel says was a acutely aware choice.
“We picked a [shorter] present when contemplating the eye span of audiences, and all their alternatives for leisure, particularly in Vegas,” he tells MBW. “The upside is that it permits us to do a number of reveals a day.”
Mestel is coy about Main Wave’s actual monetary projections for Hope Highway, however is completely satisfied to reiterate that the merch aspect (assume completely satisfied holidaymakers strolling the Vegas Strip in Bob Marley tees and hats, all purchased within the official Hope Highway retailer) is a “massive piece” of the occasion’s roll-out.
A mannequin constructed on partnership
The economics of Hope Highway are particularly attention-grabbing due to Main Wave’s specific M&A method.
Like most of PW’s acquisitions, the deal for Bob Marley in 2018 wasn’t a easy rights-buyout. As a substitute, it enabled Main Wave to amass its stake, whereas the Marley property additionally retained some fairness.
This partnership construction, says Mestel, is core to a lot of the acquisitions that Main Wave has closed.
“We accomplice with households [of iconic artists] – partly to maintain every part as true to the artist as attainable, and partly in order that [the family] will get the profit and the popularity when these items are profitable.”
Larry Mestel, Main Wave
“Main Wave, the Marley household, and [FiveCurrents] are all companions in Hope Highway, and it does make a distinction,” says Mestel, who final week attended the Vegas premiere with members of the Marley household, together with Bob’s widow, Rita, and Chris Blackwell, founding father of Island Information.
“A part of our mannequin is to accomplice with these artists and households – partly to maintain every part as true to the artist as attainable, and partly in order that [the family] will get the profit and the popularity when these items are profitable.”
Hope Highway happens throughout a number of levels, with the gang standing simply ft away from actors performing and dancing to a few of Marley’s most iconic materials.
It’s gotten off to a promising begin: barely per week after launch, it’s averaging 5 stars throughout over 200 Google opinions.
(Such acclaim shouldn’t be a forgone conclusion for ‘immersive’ music occasions; simply ask the organisers of London’s roundly panned Elvis Evolution.)
Scaling the experiential mannequin
For Mestel, Hope Highway represents the fruits of a technique Main Wave has been constructing towards for years.
“We have been in all probability the primary music firm to start out investing in ‘identify, picture, and likeness’ rights – beginning in 2006 – and that is the precise cause we did so,” he says. “This took 5 years to develop, with loads of cautious curating.”
He provides: “We’ve got three totally different casts who’ll every do three reveals a day. So we’ll have 9 flights a day – that’s unprecedented.
“And it is a present that we are able to journey sooner or later. We might do an identical model of it in London, Miami, Jamaica, wherever our workforce and the Marley household want to take action.”
Hope Highway’s broad demographic attraction was bolstered by the success of the 2024 Bob Marley biopic One Love, which Mestel credit with serving to to “drive the demo youthful.”
The movie’s success, mixed with Main Wave’s broader content material technique across the Marley property, demonstrates how a number of content material codecs can work collectively to increase an artist’s attain.
Swimming in opposition to the streaming tide
Exterior of Hope Highway, Mestel says Main Wave at the moment has “30-plus content material items in growth, from immersive experiences to biographical movies and exhibitions”.
He’s speaking a few future the place PW more and more leans on NIL rights because the bedrock to increase iconic artists’ viewers – and their revenue alternatives.
Curiously, Hope Highway arrives at a time when the normal music rights enterprise is dealing with headwinds. Streaming development has slowed in established markets, not least the United States.
In the meantime, a number of firms proceed to eat up catalog acquisitions regardless of the problem of servicing debt in a higher-rate atmosphere than we noticed 5-10 years in the past.
Mestel stays optimistic on the longer term for streaming royalty revenue, each from DSP worth rises and development in rising markets. But he predicts a reckoning for one or two over-leveraged opponents.
“Some newer entrants into the house are having to overpay to compete with us,” he says.
“You’re going to see, over the subsequent few years, that they’re going to have bother producing applicable returns for his or her fairness traders due to the costs they pay, and the truth that they don’t have an infrastructure like we do to develop their revenue past streaming.”
“You’re going to see individuals changing into over-leveraged, and in three, 4, and 5 years, many of those firms might be available on the market [for sale].”
Larry Mestel, Main Wave
Provides Mestel: “You’re going to see individuals changing into over-leveraged, and in three, 4, and 5 years, many of those firms might be available on the market [for sale].”
Discussing Main Wave’s long-held concentrate on maximizing ‘identify, picture, and likeness’ rights, Mestel notes that at present “70% of our 115 [employees] are consultants in advertising, digital, model, and content material creation, in addition to A&R”.
He provides: “There’s no query conventional revenue streams, like performing rights and streaming synchronization, are nonetheless a predominant type of revenue. However leveraging these ancillary rights is more and more changing into a part of our total money circulation within the enterprise.”
Main Wave’s strategy with Whitney Houston gives a template.
“Consider all we’ve completed with Whitney: a fragrance line, a magnificence line, a biographical movie, now an enormously profitable slot machine; plus the remixes that we created on Greater Love with Kygo. It’s all designed to usher in new followers, to make the music extra out there, and to succeed in youth tradition.”
Wanting forward: The dwell leisure future
Sources near Main Wave say that it now has USD $2.5 billion in money to deploy on M&A and artistic investments.
Mestel gained’t verify that determine, however states that his firm sees “loads of alternative on the market” for extra iconic artist catalog and name-and-likeness acquisitions.
(The $2.5 billion money quantity is noteworthy, not least as PW final publicly introduced an funding increase in 2022: a $2 billion take care of Brookfield.)
With vital money sources at its disposal, Main Wave seems well-positioned to increase the ‘NIL-plus’ mannequin of Bob Marley and Hope Highway throughout its in depth catalog of legendary artists.
Contemplate the long-lasting IP that PW already has to play with: from Prince and Whitney Houston to Stevie Nicks, James Brown, Ray Charles, and (as confirmed final yr) Infamous B.I.G, amongst 200+ different catalogs.
If Hope Highway continues to show the idea works, extra music rights firms are more likely to take discover of an event-centric mannequin that would basically change how legacy catalogs generate income within the streaming age.
As Mestel places it: “That is the way forward for this enterprise, and plenty of firms on this house don’t even perceive what NIL means.
“It’s one factor to amass ‘identify, picture, and likeness’ rights, alongside the music. It’s one other factor to have the in-house experience, sources, and ingenuity to have the ability to get it completed.”Music Enterprise Worldwide
