The AvA Connection

🐝 The Weekly Buzz

The Golden Globes Biggest Winners of 2025: Emilia Pérez led the pack with 4 wins, “Shogun” won 4 and “The Brutalist” took home 3. Variety shared a breakdown with more highlights from the ceremony here.

🏆 Our biggest winner thought? Carolina from craft services!! After Colin Farrell won the Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Limited Series for The Penguin (go watch it if you haven’t it’s amazing) he gave a unique thank you to Carolina to end his speech. I don’t think I’ve ever heard an actor / actress thank craft services (the team that provides food and beverages for cast & crew) LET ALONE by name. So I only had one choice... find this “Carolina from craft services" to ask what the moment meant to her. Click here for her response. She is officially our first Unsung Hero of Hollywood. 

In the spirit of award shows, Joey King and Cooper Koch are set to announce this year’s SAG Awards nominations. Netflix’s YouTube channel will carry the announcement on Wednesday morning, and you can read more about their personal experience with the show as actors here.

Wasserman Music recently announced the hiring of three veteran agents from rival agency, WME. The trio that made the move are James Rubin, Cristina Baxter, and Kevin Shivers. This may mean nothing to you, but the group represents a shared roster of acts like Tyler, The Creator, Travis Scott, Kygo, Gwen Stefani, Snoop Dogg, Kali Uchis, Lil Baby, Becky G, and Kid Cudi. Agents changing companies doesn’t always mean the artists will too, but it does happen fairly often. More on that here.

Bonus: We actually interviewed Kevin Shivers, one of the agents making the move, back in 2023. If you want to learn more about one of the biggest agents in Hip-hop, you can find our interview here.

Vivid Seats is exploring a sale of their company, with only private equity firms reportedly showing interest so far as per a Bloomberg Report. The online ticketing marketplace has a market value of $904 million, and although the companies share prices have dropped 40% in the past year, there has been a recent surge amidst their potential sale. I sure hope there aren’t any “service fees” included in their sale. Full story here.

Daniel Ek continued his Spotify cash out spree, selling $93 million in shares during December to bring his 2024 total to $932.8 Million. Spotify’s co-founder Martin Lorentzon has also sold a large portion of his stocks in the company. If you’re interested in the breakdown of the $1.25 billion that has been sold by their management team, here is the link to that.

Universal and Amazon Music strike deal to collaborate on ‘streaming 2.0,’ audiobooks, and AI protection. The announcement states that this will “enable further innovation, exclusive content with UMG artists, and advancement of artist-centric principles including increased fraud protection.” They pulled out all of the buzz words for this one, and you can read more of the same here.

📞 The Call Log: Marc Geiger, Co-Founder & CEO of SaveLive

Former Global Head of Music at WME and Co-Founder & Partner of Lollapalooza

As a teenage college student at UC San Diego, Marc Geiger began his now 40-year career booking bands into local, small, independent clubs. As he grew in his career, as an agent at Triad Artists, then working side-by-side with Rick Rubin as Def American/American Recordings became an independent label success, Geiger has always been interested in “doing something a little different.” Whether it’s creating one of the preeminent global music festivals, Lollapalooza, with Jane’s Addiction front man Perry Farrell or starting dotcom disrupter ARTISTdirect with Lolla co-founder Don Muller, Geiger is interested in delivering a quality experience to fans.

Always an early adopter of technology, Geiger’s mission for ARTISTdirect was simple, be the first internet company designed to create a connection between artists and their fans. Using early ecommerce platforms, streaming technology, and building a strong, devoted, smart team of like-minded music and technology enthusiasts, Geiger’s reputation for consistently trying new things was solidified.

In 2003, Geiger moved to the William Morris Agency and, after its merger with Endeavor, moved up to run the global music division for the newly minted WME until early 2020.

True to his roots, Geiger formed SaveLive in 2020 to support independent music venues impacted by the COVID pandemic. By creating a network of industry veterans, SaveLive can offer talent buying, marketing, analytical analysis, and other lines of business that was previously out-of-reach for smaller venues but readily available to larger venue holders. Our conversation is below:

AvA: Your career spans leadership roles across agencies, startups, and entrepreneurial ventures. Can you identify a handful of decisions or risks that had the greatest impact on your growth? 

Geiger:

1. Working for people I didn't respect was reason #1 for moving on

2. Being treated poorly bonus wise in my first agent job, plus at that time record companies had all the power, (things have changed) and were harming artists I loved or making bad decisions

3. The Internet as a vision and opportunity

4. Going broke and internet crashing

5. The current concert market and where it is heading

AvA: You’ve been known for identifying cultural shifts before they become mainstream. What trends do you think the next generation of executives should be paying attention to right now?

Geiger:

1. How the entire business model for music is shifting and real globalization across music and more

2. The streamers ability to introduce super-fan tools

3. AI and how it influences or becomes a new tool or more in music and video

AvA: The live music industry has undergone significant changes in recent years. How do you see touring models and artist-to-fan engagement evolving in the future?

Geiger:

1. More good data to lead artists to their fanbases both IRL and online

2. More understanding of the GLOBE, not by territory (still a bad holdover from olden times). Territorial businesses will slowly shrink….

3. Artist VIP and direct sales to fans will slowly increase

AvA: What skills do you believe will be essential for the next generation to grow into executive roles? 

Geiger:

1. Curiosity and CORE understanding of digital

2. A worldview

3. Intense follow through

AvA: What is one piece of advice you’d give to someone just starting out their career? 

Geiger:

1. Listen to A LOT of music and study it

2. See answers to question 4

3. Go be an understudy for people you respect and admire and learn.

BONUS: Geiger’s Best Records of the year 2024 (in no order)

The Last Dinner Party- Prelude to Ecstasy
The The- Ensoulment
Bolis Pupul- Letter to Yu
Waxahatchee- Tigers Blood
The Cure- Songs from a Lost World
Michael Kiwanuka- Small Changes
Yard Act- Where’s My Utopia
Chinese American Bear- Wah!!!
Soccer Mommy- Evergreen
Liela Moss- Transparent Eyeball
Nilufer Yanya- My Method Actor
Beth Gibbons- Lives Outgrown
Yannis and the Yaw- Lagos, Paris , London
John Grant- The Art of the Lie
Angelica Garcia- Gemelo
Peter Gabriel- i/o
Channel Tres- Head Rush
Deathpact- From Darkness and Cipher Three
Kiasmos- II
Joy Oladokun- Observation
Caribou- Honey
Jamie XX- In Waves
St Vincent- All Born Screaming
Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross- Challengers

👋 See you back here on Thursday for a brand new selection of Entertainment jobs

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