Live Nation Furloughing 20 Percent of Employees

Live Nation has terminated a planned $480 million acquisition of Mexico's largest promoter OCESA Entretenimiento, but a future agreement is still possible, a source tells Billboard. Monday (May 25), Live Nation officials notified Corporación Interamericana de Entretenimiento (CIE)

With no physical live music on the horizon due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Live Nation Canada and Budweiser are bringing live music to fans with the weekly virtual concert series, Budweiser Stage At Home.

“At this point you know you got to, you know, you got to listen to your heart,” said Ray J during a Q&A portion of the May 21 preview of his new single, “Stranded,” a song that references the accusations that he abandoned his then-pregnant wife Princess Love in Las Vegas in November 2019. Since then, Princess, 35, reunited with Ray J, 39, given birth to their son Epik, and filed for divorce.

It will be the first to welcome audiences to live events since the onset of the pandemic

2,100 employees forced into involuntary leave

Live Nation has furloughed approximately 2,100 of its 10,5000 employees across multiple divisions at the company Billboard has learned.The staff reductions are part of an effort that began in April to reduce costs by $600 million as the publicly traded concert promoters prepares to weather an extended shutdown due to the COVID-19 crisis.This is a developing story...

Live Nation is raising $1.2 billion in a note sale that closes May 20, giving the promoter and ticketing company roughly $3 billion of liquidity going into a near-empty summer concert season. The 6.5% senior secured notes will be used for general corporate purposes and will be due in 2027.The addition of these new notes would bring long-term debt to $4.85 billion and add to interest payments that totaled $157.5 million in 2019.

Live Nation Entertainment has been hit with a credit rating downgrade from S&P Global Ratings. The research firm on Wednesday reduced the concert promoter's rating to B+, from BB-, with a negative outlook, as it argued a prolonged postponement or cancellation of concerts and other events risked "dramatic revenue declines," which in turn would drive up Live Nation's debt load.

By Jill Goldsmith

With a pandemic hanging over the touring industry, Live Nation's first quarter earnings released Thursday revealed the damage caused since concerts were widely suspended in mid-March: Compared to Q1 2019, concert revenue dropped 24.6% and ticketing revenue fell 15.8%.This year, Live Nation will host virtual concerts, is testing drive-in concerts -- these started popping up in parking lots as early as mid-June -- and will later give superstar artists multiple theater dates rather than a single

Concert promoter Live Nation has said they are planning to resume concerts at "full scale" in 2021, after the spread of coronavirus stopped live shows across the world.

"Our goal is really to be on sale in the third and fourth quarters for 2021 at full scale.”

Due to the global freeze on live music

The gig promoters are trying to find a way for live music to return amid the coronavirus pandemic

When my fiancé and I found out I was pregnant in December we put together a list of all the stuff we needed to do before the baby arrived: countless items to buy, must-read books to ensure our baby was the happiest on the block, classes to enroll in. We even went so far as to divide the list by trimester—priority items such as doctor’s visits would happen right away, while ordering the breast pump could wait until the last few months of my pregnancy.

By Jill Goldsmith

By Jem Aswad

Live Nation blockbuster $480 million purchase of a controlling interest in Mexican promoter OCESA Entretenimiento has been put on hold because of the COVID-19 crisis, Live Nation chief executive Michael Rapino announced Thursday (May 7) on its first quarter earnings call.

The sudden cancellation of concerts and events in the last few weeks of March meant a 21% decline in revenues for Live Nation and a $172 million loss for the quarter, nearly seven times what the company posted for the same period last year.