Quotes from Michael Rapino

Jay Z doesn't care if he plays in Paris or Denver, but we do. We make more money in Paris.

To be the music company of the future, you have to figure out a way to be a great business and distribution partner of younger bands, midsized bands, and ones that break out, like Arcade Fire.

It's a very competitive market. AEG has a ticketing platform, Stubhub has grown their marketshare, Vivid has come out of nowhere. It's not like venues don't have options. If you're a venue you can pick any ticket platform you want, and we have to provide a better product and win that business fair and square.

I've met plenty of CMOs in life, and I always say that I've never met any that can hold a candle to rock stars, who I truly believe are the greatest brand managers in the world.

The better job we do of getting the right fans in the right seats at the right time, the more money our clients are going to make.

You'll see an erosion of rock 'n' roll for sure... if you're playing a mainstream festival, you don't want to be the rock guy when everyone else is talking about Swedish House Mafia.

We want people to know that Live Nation can serve all their live-music needs. If we're going to be the ones who have a relationship with the consumer, then we have a responsibility to be the ones accountable if things go bad.

Drake has become a mega-star, with sell-out crowds around the world.

Our job is to build a company for the future that can meet the demands of the artist and fan of the future.

Every city's got a famous rib place or coffeehouse or dessert place.

It's cheaper to buy and use and place ads on Facebook than it is to buy print and radio.

I can hope that the economy gets better, or I can seek a more proactive approach to protect our employees, reward our shareholders and better service artists and fans.

In early days of Live Nation, we really believed it was important to be a direct-to-consumer business, which the labels aren't and no promoter was at the time. By merging with Ticketmaster, we could we give the artist a direct relationship with the fan.

In the U.S., we were slow to evolve and build a festival capability.

There's always a fine line between 'What is the market going to bear?' and, 'By the way, I've got 2,000 unsold seats.'

Our job is we work for the artist and we service the artists fans. And the better service and the better company we can provide for the artist, the better job we can do for the fans, from flexibility in selling to lower service fees.

The history of the ticketing business was about barriers to entry, which kept Ticketmaster protected. That has changed.

The concert industry lags dramatically behind the great hospitality businesses out there, whether they're theme parks or hotels or sporting events.

Going into 2010, we didn't expect the consumer pullback that happened. We all thought that the theory that concerts are recession-proof was true.

A hit is a hit, and when you have a hit great things happen.

One of the strengths of Michael Cohl is he's a big thinker, strategic, great with relationships, artists and big deals.

I got lucky when I was a teenager when we were booking bands at university. Those gigs were the greatest two hours in my life and there was nothing else I wanted to do. I knew my passion early, which is always the tough part of life, figuring out what makes you tick.

In my business, the cheaper the ticket price the better. I'd love for more consumers to walk into an amphitheater, park, have a beer and eat a hot dog. There's no advantage to me to have anything but sold-out shows.

We spend a great deal of time getting the fan to buy the ticket. Why shouldn't it be: 'Buy the concert ticket and bundle in the t-shirt, or join the fan club?'