Live Nation

SFX has established a new model for live entertainment, one built on providing an unparalleled standard of global service and creativity in the industry. SFX's whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Never before has the live entertainment industry been packaged in a manner that makes it so accessible to fans, marketers, and talent. Through synergy and cross-pollination of all aspects of the industry, from venues to content, we have created new strategic business opportunities for our varied constituencies, including marketers who now have unmatched opportunities to showcase their products and services in the most creative, interactive and impacting way. Key Dates: SFX Entertainment division is founded; Bill Graham Presents and other properties are acquired. SFX Entertainment, Inc. is spun off; exclusive deal with Ticketmaster is signed. SFX Entertainment, Inc. is the largest owner and operator of venues for live entertainment in the United States. Since its founding in 1997 the company has acquired many of the largest concert promotion companies in the United States and has begun doing the same in Canada and Europe. Two-thirds of its revenues come from this area. SFX companies also manage sports celebrities, promote monster truck shows, and put together touring theatrical productions. To boost revenues, SFX has signed corporate sponsorship contracts, expanded its venues' premium-priced seating, and increased the number of events each venue schedules. The acquisition of the company by media giant Clear Channel Communications could further strengthen its dominance, giving it access to that corporation's network of radio and television stations. SFX founder Robert F.X. Sillerman was born in 1948 and grew up in the world of entrepreneurship and entertainment. His father, Michael McKinley Sillerman, had founded the Keystone Radio Network, which ended up going bankrupt when Robert was 13. The younger Sillerman took to the world of business from an early age, founding a greeting card company while still in his teens and a marketing consultation firm while an undergraduate at Brandeis University. Following graduation he worked in the field of marketing, founding National Discount Marketers, Inc. in 1974. In 1978 he formed a business partnership with legendary New York radio personality Bruce 'Cousin Brucie' Morrow. Sillerman-Morrow Broadcasting Group bought eight radio stations and a TV station before selling out in 1985. Sillerman continued investing in radio and founded SFX Broadcasting, Inc. with Steven Hicks in 1992 to acquire the stations owned by Command Communications and Capstar Communications. The company's name was created by scrambling Sillerman's middle and last initials. In 1993, SFX Broadcasting went public. Sillerman was ahead of the curve in radio consolidation, buying up stations at a time when they were relatively cheap. In the early 1990s the Federal Communications Commission loosened rules forbidding ownership of multiple stations in the same market, which helped make owning a string of stations more profitable. SFX acquired additional stations over the next several years, and when the 1996 Federal Telecommunications Act further lifted ownership restrictions, the company went on a buying spree. Purchases of Multi-Market Radio, Inc., ABS Communications, Prism Radio Partners, Liberty Broadcasting, and Secret Communications soon increased the company's portfolio to more than 70 stations in 20 markets. In the spring of 1998 SFX Broadcasting received clearance for its acquisition by Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst, with newly christened SFX Entertainment, Inc. to be spun off as a separate entity. Shortly thereafter, five more major acquisitions were announced. SFX Entertainment would spend $227 million to purchase concert promoters Avalon Attractions of Los Angeles and Don Law's Blackstone Entertainment of New England, souvenir company Event Merchandising, Inc., the Oakdale Theater of Wallingford, Connecticut, and