Moderator: Bruce Moran, Live Nation
Gerry Fojo, Cardenas Marketing Network
John Pantle, United Talent Agency
Memo Parra, OCESA / CIE
Aran Rush, Mundo Imperial
Ignacio Saenz, Arena Monterrey

Aran Rush, Bruce Moran, Ignacio Saenz, Gerry Fojo, Memo Parra and John Pantle

Mexico's entertainment industry is thriving, thanks to a stable economy and more venues for artists to choose from compared to 10 years ago when Mexico City was the only tour stop.

And with festivals such as Vive Latino bringing Latin and American acts together on the same stage, Mexico's concert business has some-thing for everyone.

Moderator Bruce Moran of Live Nation started out by asking the panelists what they think has made Mexico an important concert destination in recent years.

OCESA/CIE's Memo Parra weighed in with a few reasons. "For the last 10 years Mexico has had an exchange rate of about 11 pesos, so if you're charging pesos and you have to pay the artist in dollars, that is very important," he said. "Another reason is that we've shown a lot of confidence in agents and managers in the last 15 years. We make sure all the requirements - logistics, payments, contracts - are set the way it is in the United States so a visit to Mexico is as enjoyable as it can be.

Memo Parra

Aran Rush, GM of Mundo Imperial under construction in Acapulco, agreed.

"There are several new venues opening up in a relatively short time period and there's a lot of new construction in Mexico right now," Rush said. "The economy is doing very well and is not as debt-ridden as the U.S. economy.

"You don't always have that spur-of-the-moment purchase like in the U.S. where you can sell out a show in an hour, though. I think the trend is to sell shows out over a longer period of time leading up to the date."

Moran turned the discussion to rock en español and asked whether it's "bigger than ever." United Talent Agency's John Pantle, who represents several Latin acts, said he has noticed an upswing.

"About three years ago, I was 'coerced' into being an agent by a group called Café Tacuba and they told me they wanted to do a bus tour similar to what Beck did," Pantle said. "Since that time, we've been able to do many different bus tours across the country. It's been amazing.

"It used to be that the hardest thing was doing California, Texas, Chicago and New York and the costs would eat up the money. But in the last two years that we've had Molotov go out, we've done two bus tours back to back and we didn't hit a market twice."

Moran asked the panel if there might be more packaging of Latin and American acts in the near future. Gerry Fojo of Cardenas Marketing Network said that isn't going to happen too soon.

"We need to educate the audience, not to mention the fact that you have to convince the talent. I mean, try telling Luis Miguel he's not going to play alone in an arena anymore or tell Maná they are to share the stage with a rock group,'" Fojo explained. "That's going to be difficult because they're used to selling out 10,000-seaters on their own."

Bruce Moran

Fojo said the tax situation is becoming easier because the per-formers know it's inevitable and some elect to use the IRS's Central Withholding Agreement. That way, a check for the 30 percent withholding is automatically sent to the IRS and that's it.

In regard to ticket prices, Parra said there's a factor beyond the usual costs that affects how much to charge.

"Suddenly there's a lot of flake promoters in Mexico who are offering insane amounts of money," Parra said. "Three weeks ago there was a promoter who wanted to do a stadium show with DJ Tiesto and he offered a huge amount of money. The next day, he was in jail and he didn't pay the artist.

"Even though agents don't want to do shows with flake promoters, the money is really, really big so they sometimes think twice about it."

Fojo added that the cost of the buildings keeps increasing every year, which adds to ticket prices.

Arena Monterrey GM Ignacio Saenz said his strategy to offset higher ticket prices is to offer mul-tiple price levels so tickets are more accessible to his customer base as well as to discourage scalping.

"It depends on the show but we sometimes have between nine and 12 ticket prices," he said. "Iron Maiden tickets ranged from $20 to $100 and Billy Joel tickets were $30 to $200. [This system] works because you can get a $20 ticket and a $250 ticket for the same show."

The panel wrapped with a discussion on how the melting pot of cultures in cities such as New York or Florida will influence which Latin acts head to the States this year. Tra-ditional performers such as Vicente Fernandez and Juan Gabriel are expected to do as much business as they normally do.