MTS left the concert – Newspaper Kommersant No. 33 (7478) of 02/22/2023
[ad_1]
The structures of the Gutseriev family and MTS refused to jointly develop the concert venue at Skolkovo. The hall with a capacity of 11 thousand people, launched at the end of 2022, was supposed to receive the MTS brand, its ticketing systems and investments in “tens of millions of dollars.” The main ticket services of the site were Kassir.ru and Intickets. MTS will continue to work with it, but without exclusive conditions.
MTS withdrew from the concert project with the structures of the Gutseriev family, sources told Kommersant in the ticket operator market. We are talking about a site with a capacity of up to 11 thousand people, located next to the Skolkovo innovation center, which the Safmar group (since 2021 renamed SAFAI) began building in 2019 and planned to launch under the MTS Live Arena brand. The parties stated that they would sign an agreement for ten years with the possibility of extension.
MTS was supposed to become the title partner, give the complex a brand and invest “several tens of millions of dollars” in the project. In 2019, Safmar talked about the necessary investments in the amount of about $70 million. It was also assumed that MTS would create the site’s IT infrastructure, integrate its Ticketland and Ponominalu ticketing services into the project, and also hold its events there.
It was supposed that the complex in Skolkovo would open in 2020, but due to the pandemic, the deadlines were delayed. In 2021, MTS announced plans to create its own network of concert venues in major Russian cities with a million population (see Kommersant dated April 22, 2021). So, in 2021, the company opened the MTS Live Hall concert venue in Yekaterinburg, and in September 2022 it took control of two large venues in Moscow and St. Petersburg, which were also named MTS Live Hall (Moscow) and MTS Live Arena (St. Petersburg). The complex in Skolkovo started operating in December 2022, but under the Live Arena brand without mentioning MTS. On its website, the operator is not mentioned among the partners. The next event is scheduled for March 1, tickets are sold through Kassir.ru and Intickets.
MTS told Kommersant that “they are still cooperating with the site in terms of the ticket and promotional business, refusing only naming.” The decision was made jointly with a partner represented by Amphion (LLC Amphion, according to SPARK-Interfax, is 100% owned by Bourna Trading Limited, until 2017 LLC was 100% owned by Said Gutseriev). The reasons were not explained in MTS, in the SSFAI group they did not answer “Kommersant”. “Perhaps, the situation on the market, the sanctions, which limited access to the necessary equipment, have affected,” says Yevgeny Safronov, editor-in-chief of InterMedia. “Since 2019, a lot has changed. But this is a beautifully designed venue, the likes of which are few in the country, so I am sure that the hall will be given a name in the near future.”
VK began to develop its network of concert venues from the end of 2022, in December the holding opened a concert venue under its brand on the site of the Moscow club Adrenaline Stadium (seats 7 thousand people), and in February VK Gipsy opened on the site of the Gipsy club in Moscow. The venue can accommodate up to 2.5 thousand people, and it is planned to hold 100 concerts there a year.
The main goal of launching such networks is to reduce the cost of organizing tours for artists, “MTS or VK can book dates in advance at venues in bulk,” explains Sergey Babich, producer of the Colisium International Music Forum. In the case of MTS, it is assumed that the sale of tickets for events should also be provided through their ticketing system, he adds. The expert calls the breakup of the Live Arena partnership a serious loss for MTS: “A venue like Live Arena can collect about 20–30 million rubles per event, 10–15 million rubles a year. But since MTS did not become the Live Arena ticket operator by default, the company will not receive a percentage of ticket sales and a tangible part of the proceeds, including from non-own projects.” Meanwhile, the ticket market for events in Russia is already declining (see “Kommersant” dated December 1, 2022), primarily due to the reduction in the concert segment as a result of the cancellation of tours by foreign artists and the departure of some Russian ones from the country.
[ad_2]
Source link
