MTS enters the hall – Business – Kommersant

MTS structures took control of two large venues for entertainment and sports events – the Music Media Dome in Moscow and the M-1 Arena concert and sports complex in St. Petersburg. The company will receive income from the operation of the sites, ticket sales, sponsorship and advertising, as well as the operation of bars, and the owner of the site will receive rental payments. According to experts, such cooperation will be of interest to owners of large commercial areas that can be used in an entertainment format.

MTS Entertainment (controlled by MTS, manages MTS Live and Ticketland ticket sales services) is part of the management of the Music Media Dome multimedia space (MMD seats from 3,000 to 8,000 people) in Moscow and the M-1 Arena concert and sports complex ” in St. Petersburg (formerly Tinkoff Arena, from 2 thousand to 4 thousand people), Mikhail Minin, general director of the company, told Kommersant.

The concert venues will become part of the MTS Live federal network (it already includes a venue in Yekaterinburg) and will be named MTC Live Hall in Moscow and MTC Live Arena in St. Petersburg.

MTS Live will take over the operational work of the venues: holding own and rental events by other organizers or for corporate events, ticket sales, operation of bars and restaurants, sponsorship and advertising activations. According to Mr. Minin, the MMD and M1 Arena team will move to MTS Entertainment.

As Mikhail Minin explained to Kommersant, MTS Live will receive income from the operation of the site, the sale of tickets for events, sponsorship and advertising, as well as the operation of bars, and the owner of the site, in turn, will receive rental payments. The contract was concluded for five years, the terms were not disclosed.

The fact that MTS is investing in the creation of a network of concert venues in major Russian cities was announced by the company in 2021 (see “Kommersant” dated April 22, 2021). According to Mr. Minin, MTS expects to launch sites in all million-plus cities: “We are also considering the redevelopment of various facilities, for example, Soviet cinemas in the regions. For example, in Nizhny Novgorod we are considering such a project.”

There is also interest from real estate market participants in the built-to-suit format, for example, when they are building a facility under the guarantee of a long-term lease from MTS Entertainment, Mikhail Minin specified: “Such a hall can be a separate project or combined with hotels or shopping centers “. Despite the fact that foreign artists and some Russian ones have left the country, we still have a noticeable shortage of quality concert venues, Mikhail Minin added:

“MTS is also looking for platforms for launching new projects, since the demand for entertainment has not fallen due to the reduction in the concert market segment, but has been redistributed to accessible types of content.”

Earlier, an attempt to launch a network of concert halls in Russia was made by the owners of GlavClub – Igor Tonkikh and Mikhail Evgrafov, then Tinkoff (in 2019 it signed an agreement with the Ogni Ufa entertainment complex), notes Sergey Babich, director of the International Music Industry Forum Colisium: ” Earlier, in partnership with Kassir.ru, Tinkoff planned to launch sites in all million-plus cities (In July 2021, the main beneficiary of Kassir.ru, Evgeny Finkelstein, bought out 29.13% of the company from TCS Group (the parent company of Tinkoff Bank .— “b”)”. According to the expert, the format of building a federal network of venues gives advantages, in particular when organizing artist tours: “For example, MTS recently announced that it would organize Philip Kirkorov’s anniversary tour, which by the end of 2023 will cover more than 100 cities of the country. If MTS had at least 20 of its own venues, then the organization of the tour would have been cheaper due to the fact that MTS could get the venue at cost.”

In addition, MTS will strengthen its position in the market for organizing events and selling tickets due to the fact that it will be able to manage the schedule of events at venues, both of its own and competitors, the expert adds: “This will allow the company, among other things, to form a more efficient pricing policy.”

Today, the demand for leisure outside the home is growing, so the interest of MTS in the management of concert venues is quite natural, says Evgenia Osipova, ADG Group Sales Director: % of the area for entertainment and leisure public spaces. Owners who today have large commercial areas may be interested in reformatting the space for an entertainment function, Evgenia Osipova believes: “In this case, a professional operator with experience in managing such facilities and with powerful resources can provide a stable income for property owners.”

Yulia Tishina, Alexandra Mertsalova