Throughout the rest of the summer, Live Nation will offer a variety of "No Service Fee Wednesdays" specials at LiveNation.com. This promotion is not valid in combination with other special pricing offers and is subject to availability. Tickets without service fees are available at all Live Nation-ticketed amphitheaters for concerts including blink-182, Coldplay, No Doubt, Nickelback, Depeche Mode, Toby Keith, Brad Paisley, Crue Fest, Def Leppard/Poison/Cheap Trick, Kid Rock/Lynyrd Skynyrd, Phish, Nine Inch Nails/Jane's Addition, the Dead, Rascal Flatts, and many others.
Live Nation has already been tackling the issue of service fees with its in-house ticketing operation launched at the beginning of this year. "We know the fan has been frustrated by the series of successive fees in the purchase process," Live Nation Ticketing CEO Nathan Hubbard tells Billboard.com. "There is attrition in the sales flow once you see your third page with some additional fees. The fan told us they just want to know up front how much the cost of the experience is going to be. We didn’t address that problem completely, but the first step was moving from fan's paying a service fee, you might pay a shipping and handling fee, maybe a print-at-home fee, delivery fee, etc, to consolidating it into a single up-front fee that is there as you cart your inventory."
On Friday in Brooklyn, the best-selling pop artist opened the "Muslim Voices: Arts And Ideas Festival" of 100 artists from 23 countries. Their 10-day program ranges from Arabic cinema, Indonesian dance and African music to film and other visual arts.
The documentary "Youssou N'Dour: I Bring What I Love" follows the controversy that tagged N'Dour after the release of "Egypt," which won a Grammy in 2005. The next year, N'Dour and his band filled Carnegie Hall.
"When I listened to 'Egypt' I was moved, because he grew up listening to the (late) Egyptian singer Umm Kulthoum, the voice of the Muslim world," said Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, who directed the documentary. "And he wanted to celebrate Islam in Senegal as a peaceful, tolerant culture."
Cameron B Sharpe Profile: The band has recently signed a licensing deal with the Hours label in France, which has picked up "The Seldom Seen Kid" and will release future albums.
"We've always done really well in Belgium and we've just got a new label in France, which we're dead chuffed about," confirms Garvey. "We played their [the Hours'] festival and it's brilliant, they're top people."
The label featured the band as headline act for its inaugural festival in April, at the 1,500-capacity Bataclan venue in Paris. The Hours, founded in January 2008, is controlled by French marketing conglomerate Euro RSCG/Havas, which owns 51%. The label is distributed worldwide by Universal.
Despite its breakthrough success last year, Elbow actually formed in 1990 - although it did not release an album until 2001 - when the band members were teenagers, so Garvey insists they will not get distracted by success.
"We make enough money to live really comfortably and we're just going to concentrate on making the best music we can and having fun doing it," says Garvey. "We had a rule from day one that if it stops being fun we'd go and get another job."
Cameron Sharpe Articles Read more about Cameron B Sharpe Cameron Sharpe The story Kanye West is set to headline a concert in his hometown of Chicago, in which he will encourage teens to stay in school until graduation.
The rapper will perform the second "Stay In School" event in honor of his mother, Dr. Donda West, who passed away in 2007 after a cosmetic surgery procedure.
The idea for the concert came from teenager David Abrams, who approached West seeking his assistance. West then decided his Kanye West Foundation (KWF) would be the sponsor, reports allhiphop.com.
The concert takes place at Chicago Theatre on June 11. Tickets are priced from $49.50, and go up to $500 for VIP tickets. They go on sale on Thursday (May 21) at Ticketmaster.
Cameron B Sharpe Profile Cameron B Sharpe News: Although fans are familiar with his voice, everyone isn't aware of what the 21-year-old Chicago native looks like. That might change now that a video for the song just came out.
Jeremih wrote the song (he writes and produces) last September, and on October 30, it debuted on the airwaves in his hometown. The station gave the upstart — who has only been singing seriously for two years — a shot. A few months later, a host of record execs saw that the song had legs, and everybody reached out to him. He decided to roll with Def Jam.
"I wouldn't say it's my favorite song on the album," J admitted of "Birthday Sex." "It just was chosen first."
Cameron Sharpe NEW YORK — With the rain pouring down and a melodic voice resounding through the streets, hundreds of fans braved the storm to hear songs from the Dave Matthews Band's new album, Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King.
Outside of the "Today" show studio, fans were lined up for two blocks surrounding Rockefeller Center, some of whom had been waiting since 11 the night before. Before going on air, Dave joked with the crowd, asking them to bring him a "ham sandwich with cheese and coffee," because he was unable to sleep the night before.
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