"At some point in time, the word of KPOP increased dramatically in our office branches around the world. We confirmed KPOP's potential for growth, and during that time, we took note of Big Bang's talents. Big Bang has the greatest talents in order to be fit to be a global artist."
Global entertainment and concert production company Live Nation's Mats Brandt, President of Live Nation Far East, expressed big anticipation for their upcoming world tour with Big Bang. Recently visiting Korea for business, he discussed Big Bang as he met with OSEN at Seoul Shindorim Sheraton Hotel, emphasizing that they will apply the same process in planning Big Bang's world tour as they did with that of Lady Gaga.
Starting in March, Live Nation will carry out Big Bang's 16 country world tour "BIGBANG ALIVE TOUR 2012" in cooperation with YG. It is the first time that the global entertainment company will directly manage a world tour.
Q: How did you end up gaining interest in KPOP?
At the headquarters, we first heard of it from 4 years ago when we visited Korea for market research. From that, we saw the potential of Korean artists. For the next 3 years, we were concerned about it, but starting last year it progressed very quickly. At Live Nation, information is shared through our [global] branches, and news of KPOP increased dramatically. I began visiting Korea a year ago, and after that I've been visiting once a month.
Q: What made you pick Big Bang?
We saw that Big Bang had the greatest potential to do not just a few performances, but a world tour that covered the globe. The members have such impressive talent that we decided that they were the most fit to be a global artist. The discussions with YG were good as well.
Q: What would deem this world tour as a success?
First and foremost, the audience's response has to be good. Regardless of how many people are in the audience, the level of satisfaction is more important than a mere number.
Second, the review from industry officials are important. We are putting on a production with YG, but it's not only the performance that is important. It would be great if it set a global standard in the industry.
Q: If you had to say, what are you most focused on?
Live Nation and YG are a team. The synergy that will result from the world's number one entertainment company and Korea's best record label is inspiring.
Korea's performance productions are considerably tight and cost a large amount of money. Those things are are of course good, but it would be great if it became a more international and organized system.
Live Nation sees Big Bang as a global case like Lady Gaga, and we are planning to apply the same process in the tour as that of Lady Gaga. It's not that YG has not yet been able to go global, but we see ourselves as capable of using YG's existing productions to go more global. We're focusing on marketing as well. We're anticipating not only directing the stage, but also using business skills to make a world class production. We believe that this process will make Big Bang into an even better artist.
Q: With the director of Lady Gaga's world tour, Laurieann Gibson, even the staff seems impressive. How did you come up with this list?
The office and the creative team both listened to Big Bang's music considerably and had many meetings. We had discussions with complete lists of our top choices, and we consulted with YG after passing those lists on. The director had already met with Big Bang, so they could exchange words about the production comfortably. That is how we came up with the list.
Q: Advancement into the foreign market is the greatest topic of conversation among Korean artists, and they face difficulties from that. What would you say as advice to them?
I think that the fact that Korean labels have succeeded in showing Korean music to the world is very impressive. This is probably really general advice, but if you want to succeed in the global market, you should not stay only in Korea and Japan. It's important to go out and understand the environment in other places. Live Nation also puts in a huge amount of effort in using the establishment of its branches to learn about different places and cultures. In particular, it's good to keep in step with the people that are the best at what they do in a particular place and be able to do business with them.
I think it's important for Korean artists to not settle for their current successes and always reach for the next step.
Source: OSEN via Naver
Translated by: SARA @ bigbangupdates | fuckyeahbigbangstuff
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