AEG Europe exec on evolving expectations in entertainment and future of live events

Danielle Kennedy-Clark, vice president of guest experience at AEG Europe, tells Headliner about how the expectations of audiences at live events are evolving more rapidly than ever, how AEG is working to meet these demands, and what the future of the live events industry looks like at grassroots level…

For nearly two decades, Danielle Kennedy-Clark has not only witnessed first-hand the rapidly changing face of the live events industry as we know it first-hand, but taken a leading role in shaping it. Since joining AEG Europe 17 years ago, she has overseen something of a revolution in the realm of audience expectations at live events. From venues like the O2 Arena and events like the BRITs, British Summer Time at Hyde Park, and All Points East to name a mere few, she has not just led the charge on ensuring best possible experiences for customers once they have set foot on the site, but in virtually every moment of engagement the guest has with the event from the moment it is announced through to the minute they arrive home afterwards.

“In years gone by I think that, as an industry, we maybe didn't see how that whole journey, was so integral to making a good experience,” Kennedy-Clark considers as we join her in one of the meeting rooms at AEG Europe's plush London office. Generous with her time, she is warm and affable in conversation, happy to discuss an array of topics during the course of our conversation. “I think we just thought that if you put an artist on a stage, people will come, and they will enjoy themselves because of who they're watching.

“But what has really changed is the expectation of the guests now, and they are demanding so much more of the entire experience. So, from the minute they hit our website: is it slick? Is it smooth? Does it have the information that they need? Can they speak to somebody out of hours? Can they use a chatbot to do that? Is their ticket in the right place? Can they buy the ticket quickly? Do they have the right access? All of those things were probably there before in sections, but now it's much more of a seamless journey.”

As venues and events continue to grow ever more sophisticated, be it through the addition of shopping centres and entertainment complexes incorporated within venues like The O2, or the artisanal catering that has now become a staple of outdoor gigs and festivals, Kennedy-Clark notes it is also incumbent on organisers to ensure the essence and identity of the event itself isn’t lost in the mix. As she explains, it’s a fine balance that needs to be struck.

“It's still a gig, right, and that's what you want it to be,” she asserts. “So, the sound needs to be amazing, the artists need to be absolutely incredible. There needs to be a huge, diverse mix of artists coming through. And if you want to go to a premium space to enjoy the show, it’s important that it’s available to you. But if you’d rather be in the middle of the floor, enjoying yourself, jumping around with your friends and your family, then that experience has to be there for you, too. You don't want it to become cold and clinical because that's actually when you take the joy away. It’s a fine line.

“There are certain events that would want to be a bit more showy. Or you go to British Summer Time and it’s legends who are playing, and most of the people that come to that show have probably been to arenas in the past. Now they are going into a festival, so how do you communicate properly to that guest what they should expect when they get there? It's different, it's an outdoor environment. There is a real fine line and of course it needs to be all about who or whatever is going on. But all of the other bits around it, the stuff that you shouldn't have to worry about, is just thought of and dealt with by us. So, there is a balance, I should say, of how we actually achieve that.”

So, does the raised expectation around what is on offer with regard to complementary or supplementary content extend to the core event itself?

“I think yes is the answer to in simplistic terms,” she says. “Whatever it is, whatever spectacle you're going to watch, needs to be incredible. It's got you out of your home and it's made you spend your hard-earned cash, and most of our guests only come to maybe two events a year, so of course it is important that the spectacle itself is absolutely amazing. You could spend that money elsewhere, so it needs to be incredible, and you can see that the productions are very aware of that, as are we within the buildings and the festivals. The attention to detail about how that production works is much showier, from special effects, to the sound, the lighting, the ambience, the support acts. All of those things are created in such a meticulous way.

“With something like the BRIT Awards, for example, the level of detail that is put into making sure every moment feels special is unbelievable,” she continues. “All of the auxiliary bits need to be seamless. But what we actually see from the data that we pull back is that the first driver is always the artist or the main event. The second is being with friends and family and enjoying the experience together. That's what is reported back to us from the data that we pull from our post event surveys.”

In contrast to the glitz and glamour of events like the BRITs and other star-studded arena shows, the grassroots music venue circuit is in greater need of support than ever before. With so many venues being forced to close up and down the country, it is not just the grassroots community that is facing a very real existential threat, but also the next generation of potential arena and festival headliners. Is this of concern to the likes of AEG operating at the top tier of the live market?

“It’s absolutely vital,” Kennedy-Clark states. “AEG Presents, which is the live promotion arm of AEG, has a huge team looking at that grassroots level and how they can take an artist from the off and grow them and tour them around our buildings. So, we’ve got Olympia opening at the back end of this year, which is a mid-size venue, so it’s not tiny but will be around 4,000 capacity. We are looking at other venues in the marketplace and whether or not we can take them into our portfolio so we can route our artists and give clear roads for them to work their way up through the different sized venues and festivals. That’s how we see the trajectory.

“Without the grassroots sector the whole top end falls off right and nobody ever gets there. It's really, really important to us. You can really see how nurturing that artist gives them the opportunity to step into the next size building. It's something that everybody should be focusing on in this industry at the moment.”

Bringing our conversation back to the increasing demands of customers, Kennedy-Clark draws attention to the fact that the scrutiny around guest experience, both from the guests themselves and her team at AEG, is more intense today than ever.

“There's so much scrutiny around it today,” she says. “I spend most of my life looking at those details. For instance, we know that if you arrive at our buildings or our events and we don't say hello to you, or we don't make you feel welcome, that could impact the guest experience negatively by 30%. So, we could either make your day or fail your day if we don't get those bits right, and that's the level of detail that we would go into. It seems like it's dead straightforward and simplistic, and it should be, but it's not because there are so many factors that could create a make-or-break scenario for the guest.”

One of the most pressing topics on Kennedy-Clark’s agenda is the company’s sustainability drive. With events firms, artists, promoters, and all in between looking at how a more sustainable marketplace can be realised, she believes that AEG should be setting an example for the rest of the industry to follow.

“The industry’s attitude towards the subject has completely changed in recent years,” she says as our time together draws to a close. “When I started 17 years ago it wasn’t something that was even really talked about much. Today it is ingrained in everything we do. There is a decision-making process on what products we’ll have - we have sustainable cups, we look at what packaging is coming into the building. What we know from our guests is that they want to you to do it, but they want you to make it easy for them. They want to support it but it’s our job to make it simple to support.

“What we are also seeing is the artists are driving some of this, and we also drive the artists. We have a green rider we’ll send to artists in advance and say this is what we’d like you to do, how about you support it? Over the past five years or so we’ve really seen artists making this an agenda point and it’s how they are arranging their tours, so if we aren’t supporting that then we are amiss. Today it is a focus in everything we do, and we really want to drive that agenda.”

BST photo: Jennifer McCord

The O2 photo: Luke Dyson