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Sony expands live interests in US via deal with theatrical booking agency The Road Company
By Chris Cooke | Published on Thursday 8 October 2020
Sony Music has further pushed itself into the live entertainment sector by launching a new joint venture with New York-based theatrical booking agency The Road Company via its Masterworks division.
The Road Company, led by Stephen Lindsay and Brett Sirota, book tours for musicals, plays and other family entertainment productions around North America and beyond.
The new JV with Sony, to be called RoadCo Entertainment, will “develop and produce a range of live events based on popular brands and pre-existing intellectual properties, as well as all new immersive, interactive attractions for viewers of all ages”.
Part of the plan is to work with other Sony divisions and companies – and the brands and content they control – in creating some of these lovely live events and lots of those there mentioned and always fun “immersive, interactive attractions for viewers of all ages”.
“We are THRILLED to be partnering with Stephen Lindsay and Brett Sirota, whose track record as booking experts is well-known throughout the entertainment industry”, Mark Cavell, President of Sony Music Masterworks, said earlier this week.
Noting a past collaboration between Sony and The Road Company, he went on: “Since first working together on the co-producing team of the Tony Award-winning SpongeBob musical, we have looked for other opportunities to collaborate. RoadCo is the perfect venue for us to join forces and further grow our entertainment division in the US market when the live touring business is ready to return”.
Lindsay and Sirota added in a joint statement: “We are energised and excited at the opportunity to create a second booking agency with our friends at Sony Music Masterworks, who bring a wealth of expertise, resources and intellectual property. The Road Company will continue its focus on Broadway and other theatricals, while RoadCo starts a new chapter for us, as we build this expansive new enterprise with Sony Music capable of handling a broad roster of live entertainment properties”.
Sony Music has been slowly increasing its interest in live entertainment in recent years, especially via Masterworks, a division which includes the major’s classical and theatrical labels. In the UK Masterworks has interests in concert promoters Raymond Gubbay and Senbla, the latter of which just bought festivals Strawberries & Creem and Cambridge Club.
