Live & Touring

As Ticket Sales Slumped, Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino Got A 137% Pay Hike

image from www.google.com 2010 was not a great year for the live touring industry in general or concert and ticketing giant Live Nation in particular.  Ticket sales fell, "synergies" created by the merger with Ticketmaster led to several rounds of layoffs, and key executives departed. But Live Nation's top three executives still took home hefty pay packages:

  • Live Nation Entertainment CEO Michael Rapino got a 137% raise from $6.68 million in 2009 to $15.9 million in 2010. His base salary was $1.97 million plus a bonus of $1.78 million because LN hit 89% of operating income projections. Then there was another $2 million bonus for meeting debt refinancing and cost cutting targets and $7 million in stock and options. 
  • Executive chairman Irving Azoff earned $22.8 million in 2010. His base salary was $1.86 million plus a bonus of $3 million, $462,035 in stock awards, $1,653,217 in stock options and $13.8 million in other "compensation" mostly related to the merger and his ownership in management giant Front Line.
  • Ticketmaster CEO Nathan Hubbard earned $5.7 million 2010 with a salary of $626,000, a bonus of another $637,875 plus stock awards and options.

Bruce Houghton on 04/18/2011 in Live & Touring | Permalink | Comments (3)
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  1. So when anyone goes to a completely ridiculous costing concert now we know where that money is going. It’s interesting (sad) that in a day and age where musicians are relying more and more on live performaces, so much money is still going into the pockets of people who aren’t really doing much any. These guys are getting paid WAY more than they’re worth! In most businesses if you’re profits are down for the year then everyone takes home less for the year. If people are taking home more in a year that saw less profits than the prior year then something is wrong. The math just doesn’t add up!
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  2. This is disgusting, don’t they feel bad that people are losing their jobs because of them while they are making double?

  3. Excellent information here. This interesting post made me smile. Maybe if you put in a couple of pics it will make the whole thing more interesting.

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