Report: AEG & Frontier looking at Asian touring circuit

The new joint venture by global promoter powerhouse AEG and Australia’s Frontier Touring is looking at establishing a touring circuit in Southeast Asia.

Jay Marciano, chairman/CEO at AEG Presents told Billboard there was a big opportunity in the region.

“There’s no other 40-market touring region other than the APEC region,” said Marciano.

APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation), based in Singapore, works together on everything from digital start-ups to science research.

It includes countries as Indonesia, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Brunei, Thailand, South Korea and also involves Australia and New Zealand.

Australian promoters have long eyed the Asian market.

Frontier Touring had an office in SE Asia decades back.

Promoter Michael Chugg envisaged a touring circuit that took in major Asian cities as well as North Australian cities as Darwin, Townsville and Cairns, as it would be easier to entice western superstars with a deal that involved a dozen cities rather than half a dozen in Australia and New Zealand.

Coincidentally, Frontier’s Michael Gudinski and Chugg have also recently forged closer ties between their two companies.

Since then, there’s been a boom in state-of-the-art venues and music festivals in the Asian region, and Australian-based companies as TEG, AEG Ogden, Laneway and musicals company Michael Cassel Group are among those who have worked the region.

The significance of the merger is best indicated in Billboard’s Top Promoters list for 2018.

Live Nation was #1 with US$3.7 billion in sales.

AEG was at second spot with $1.5 billion.

Frontier was at #3 with $245 million.

In the Billboard interview, Marciano revealed that negotiations for the AEG/Frontier deal –  in which AEG bought a 50% stake in Frontier— took two years and five law firms to hammer out the details.

The magazine stated the deal strengthens Frontier in the Australian and NZ market, AEG gets to close the gap with Live Nation by breaking further into Asia, and opens up more opportunities for ANZ acts in North America.