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By Tom Roland
© 2008 CMA Close Up News Service / Country Music Association, Inc.
Feb. 29 isn't just another Leap Day for Brooks & Dunn. On that
date, the superstar duo will do something never before attempted in
more than 16 years together, as they open their first-ever string of
dates in Australia.
But in the Southern Hemisphere's largest commonwealth, it's
something even bigger - a milestone that may be remembered as a pivotal
moment in Music Row's quest for worldwide success.
"This was a big test case for us," said Michael Chugg, Executive
Chairman of Chugg Entertainment, whose company is promoting the Brooks
& Dunn dates in conjunction with Rob Potts Entertainment Edge.
Of course, Country acts have been drawing large crowds in Oz for a
while. Hometown boy Keith Urban and the Dixie Chicks stormed through
Australia in the past few years, but both also received significant
airplay on pop radio stations. In contrast, Brooks & Dunn are the
first major Country act this decade to launch an arena tour Down Under
without that crossover exposure.
It worked. Tickets for their debut night at the Brisbane
Entertainment Centre sold out, prompting the addition of a second
Brisbane show on March 1 followed by dates at the Rod Laver Arena in
Melbourne and at the Acer Arena in Sydney. All four shows eventually
sold out, according to co-promoter and CMA Board member Rob Potts, CEO
of Rob Potts Entertainment Edge. And that's with an average ticket
price of $125.
"The Brooks & Dunn thing is a big, important tour on many
levels," said Potts. "Certainly it's going to give this market a big
shot in the arm. But it will also help connect with the American
management and agencies to have them see that when Brooks & Dunn
went on sale, their show in Brisbane sold out in an hour. The Brisbane
Entertainment Centre is like a 10,000-seat arena. That's a real
achievement, right up there with Keith Urban - and that's in Keith's
hometown."
Before the sales floodgates broke for these dates, conventional
wisdom was that Country artists would make strong impacts
internationally only by committing to a global strategy from the very
start of their careers. Otherwise, success in the United States would
outdistance other territories so quickly that it would cease to make
financial sense to perform abroad.
Kix Brooks of Brooks & Dunn, a former President and Chairman and
current member of the CMA Board, agreed that it's best "for young acts
to go over and seed an audience. I feel like it's probably a little
late for us to get started over there."
According to the band's manager, CMA Board Chairman Clarence
Spalding, President of Spalding Entertainment, Brooks & Dunn came
close on two previous occasions to booking concerts in Australia, until
conflicting obligations forced them to suspend discussions.
Nowadays, though, the duo is performing only 50 to 70 dates per
year, which makes it easier to fit a foreign tour into their schedule.
Plus, their latest album on Arista Nashville, Cowboy Town, was out long enough that the Australian shows, in February and March, didn't conflict with promotional plans in the States.
It also helped that promotion in Australia is easier than it had
been in the past. The advent of the Country Music Channel (CMC) there,
in 2002, re-established a 24-hour television presence for the genre, an
obvious promotional forum for American Country Music, which benefits as
well from several Country-formatted stations and a handful of
syndicated radio shows. In a November 2007 CMC chart, Brooks &
Dunn's video for "Proud of the House We Built" topped the list of
viewer requests, with seven other American acts also present in the Top
10. With this ready-made market, the duo didn't have to brace for as
big a financial hit as they may have previously sustained to make the
trip.
"The thing that's helping us at the moment is the value of the
Australian dollar," Potts added. "We can afford to up the offers. When
you're trying to make an offer on a half-million-dollar act with a
50-cent dollar, it gets pretty expensive."
"In the past," Chugg observed, "it's always been, 'Look, they make
so much money in America. They're not really interested.' Also, up
until the last few years, a lot of the managers in America didn't care
about touring the rest of the world."
There's bitter truth in this observation, but the Brooks & Dunn
tour makes the point that many managers of Country artists have
developed a more nuanced view of the global market, with a particular
focus on Australia and Canada.
"They all have a similar history in terms of the way those countries
were settled and developed," Potts said. "They all have that Western
influence, if you like - not as in 'Country & Western' but as in
cattle, the out-West type of life, that sort of pioneering heritage and
similar timeline origins. As a result of that, this genre has real
traction in those markets."
Some hurdles remain for those who would take their show on the
Aussie road. Plane fare to Australia isn't cheap, and most touring
within its borders is done by plane rather than bus. But shipping
equipment isn't nearly the problem it used to be. "There are so many
sound and lighting systems down here now, it's ridiculous," Chugg said,
laughing.
Perhaps the biggest barrier, though, is simply inertia. Country
artists haven't typically thought of themselves as international
figures, and some are slow to come around now to that point of view.
"If you were an artist from Louisville, Ky., and you were in a pop
genre or a genre that was more accepted internationally, you would
think that way," Spalding explained. "You'd get on the Internet and you
would see that John Mayer tours extensively throughout the world. So if
you were anything like John Mayer, or if you were a rock band, you
would see historically that the big arena-rock bands don't just tour
the U.S., they tour the world. But I think a lot of Country acts are
thinking, 'I need to make it here [in the United States] first.'"
That explains why this Brooks & Dunn tour is such a major step.
They're a pure Country act whose impressive sales suggest that some of
the conventional thought about taking one's business to Australia is
already out of date. And Potts, Chugg and their fellow promoters can
point to one success story in hoping to persuade other acts - Alan
Jackson and Tim McGraw are mentioned often - to consider making the
leap.
"There's a lot of Country Music freaks in this country that don't
get to see much," Chugg summed up. "I think they're ready for it."
www.brooks-dunn.com
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