Japanese Breakfast Teams With Independent Venues For Livestream Concert To Support Band, Crew & Promoters

Ten Atoms president Ryan Matteson was chatting on the phone with Pabst Theater Group chief operating officer Matt Beringer about their respective livestreaming efforts when he had a lightbulb moment to partner his management client Japanese Breakfast’s ticketed livestream concert with PTG’s Milwaukee venues and beyond.  

“The lightbulb kind of went off and I was like, ‘You know what, we played sold out shows with [Pabst Theater Group venues including Turner Ballroom in 2018], we’ve played sold out shows with First Avenue, we played sold out shows at Thalia Hall, all over the U.S. What if we gave a unique link to each of the promoters and whatever you guys sold you’d be a benefactor of those sales,’” Matteson told Pollstar. 

Matteson and Beringer, who had previously worked together when Milwaukee native Matteson was the public relations director at the Pabst Theater, immediately started brainstorming about how to properly execute the idea. They started calling other promoters they were close with, including First Avenue’s Sonia Grover and Brent Heyl at Thalia Hall, with Matteson noting that it was “important we reached out to people who had been there for us in the past.”

 

Michelle Zauner, who records as Japanese Breakfast, had previously announced a livestream concert to be held on May 14 at 7 p.m. EDT to benefit her band and crew who are unable to tour, “which is to say unable to work and earn income,” because of the COVID-19 shutdowns. Filmed at her home in New York, the livestream will feature songs from her upcoming album, special covers and “some stripped down deep cuts.” Tickets are priced at $20. 

Matteson explains that teaming up with independent venues is a win-win for Zauner to help out her band and crew, while also supporting “these venues that she wants to make sure succeed and thrive after this pandemic is over.” 

He added, “I think she’s kind of a trailblazer in this way because she’ll be the first to try something like this. … It’s going to take a lot of these [events] and a lot of other artists to come behind her and support these venues.” 

To keep things simple, 100% of tickets purchased via Japanese Breakfast’s website go to the band and crew, while tickets by the venues are a 50/50 profit split, with half going to the venue.  All ticketholders will have access to a rebroadcast of the livestream no matter the point of purchase. 

The Pabst Theatre Group – which is a founding member of the National Independent Venues Association (NIVA) and includes The Pabst Theater, The Riverside Theater, Turner Hall Ballroom, The Back Room at Colectiv – is promoting the Japanese Breakfast livestream concert as the first event in its new streaming series dubbed “#ReviveLiveMKE” to support artists and help keep the Milwaukee venues alive.  

“We launched #ReviveLiveMKE in recognition of the fact that there was a strong community of fans here in Milwaukee looking to find ways to support both the independent music venues and the artists that they love during this time of peril for the live entertainment industry. In addition to the streaming concerts, we are aiming for this broader initiative and are exploring diverse and innovative ways to engage fans. The through line here will be organic, positive collaborations with artists aimed at reaching fans who want to see live entertainment thrive once more as a crucial element to our quality of life,” Beringer said. 

He added, “In addition to an excellent 2018 Japanese Breakfast show at Turner Hall, our partnership with Ryan and Ten Atoms goes back over a decade and we are pleased that this is our first entry in the #ReviveLiveMilwaukee initiative.”

The series has already confirmed a “good number of streaming concerts and exciting projects in the works,” with plans to roll out the announcements on PTG’s venue calendar lineup. 

   

Since announcing the Japanese Breakfast livestream earlier this week Beringer said the response from the public has been “outstanding” so far. 

After initially hoping to get five venues on board for the Japanese Breakfast livestream, Matteson said more than 25 independent venues have signed on. He said May 13 that the band had sold over 1,000 tickets via its website and they’d hear about numbers from individual promoters on May 14. The full list of participating promoters is below. 

 “We really have gotten a lot of people who are willing to come into these waters and try it, we’re not out here guaranteeing success but we’re out here saying we feel this is an opportunity … to work together with people who have helped us build our careers in these markets,” Matteson said.

Matteson hopes to continue the model of teaming with venues for livestream concerts. Ten Atoms’ roster also includes Black Pumas, Brad Cook, Buffalo Nichols, Bully, Charlie Sexton, Indigo De Souza, Molly Burch, Nikki Lane, Paul Cauthen, The Mountain Goats and Whitney.  

 “I think this will be the first of many we do in our office. We’re excited to continue these relationships and to continue to build this as an experience for promoters to offer their communities right now who are looking for things to do,” Matteson said. 

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