2023 Women of Live: Elizabeth Collins & Susan Genco

Co-Presidents | The Azoff Company

The Azoff Company grew significantly in 2022. 

The company, overseen by co-presidents Elizabeth Collins and Susan Genco, continues to be a leader as the live industry expands, consolidates and amalgamates.

The company’s varied holdings include Full Stop Management, Iconic Artists Group, Global Music Rights and a stake in the Oak View Group (parent company of Pollstar). The Azoff Company’s holdings link together genre and generation, from Don Henley to Harry Styles, the Beach Boys to Lizzo, John Mayer to Earth, Wind & Fire, Bon Jovi to HAIM and far beyond.

It’s impossible to talk about The Azoff Company’s success without mentioning Harry Styles, one of many top acts represented by Full Stop Management. Styles had the fourth-highest grossing tour in 2022 with a $218 million gross which included a 15-show run at Madison Square Garden that brought in a total of $63102,676 on 276,852 tickets sold, according to Pollstar Boxoffice reports.

Full Stop further represents a roster of major touring acts who made Pollstar’s 2022’s Top Worldwide Tours chart including Eagles (No. 16), John Mayer (No. 39), Lizzo (56) and Bon Jovi (139).

This year, new signings to the roster included U2 and Cardi B, according to multiple reports.

After Harry conquered the world, it was time for U2 — Pollstar‘s top touring artist of the decade for the 2010s — to announce their latest and greatest in a career of greatness. A Super Bowl ad during the Oscars revealed the Irish mega superstars will open the futuristic new MSG Sphere in Las Vegas with the band’s new project called “U2:UV Achtung Baby Live At The Sphere.” U2’s residency will launch sometime in the fall. 

The venue – which offers seating for 17,500 and a scalable capacity up to 20,000 guests – boasts “the first 16K screen that wraps up, around, and behind the audience;” 4D technology treating fans to the feel of “wind on their face, the heat on their skin and the rumble of thunder,” along with what’s being called pitch perfect audio via Sphere Immersive sound. MSG Sphere London is in the planning process.

 It was also another big year for the entertainment rights management company Iconic Artists Group. After inking a deal for David Crosby’s catalog in 2021, Iconic dealt for CSNY-mate Stephen Stills’ intellectual property and catalog in 2022. The company also holds stakes in the intellectual property rights to the Beach Boys, Linda Ronstadt, Nat King Cole and Dean Martin.

Global Music Rights, an organization that seeks to protect performance rights for artists, made headlines in 2022, settling long-running litigation against the Radio Music Licensing Committee. As part of that settlement, many of the commercial radio stations under the RMLC entered into licensing agreements with GMR. Later, GMR filed another suit against three terrestrial radio companies alleging non-payment of royalties. Two of those suits settled in January.

GMR’s catalog includes songs by Bruce Springsteen, Dave Matthews, Don Henley, George Harrison, Drake, Eddie Vedder, Bad Bunny and Bruno Mars, among others.

But there’s some new growth in The Azoff Company ecosystem as well.

In June, the company launched the record label Giant Music with Shawn Holiday, former co-head of urban music at Columbia, Shawn Holiday. Label signings include Tay B, SwaVay, Ayleen  Valentine and Cash Cobain. Holiday also helped bring Cardi B, Roddy Ricch and Daniel Caesar (who played Coachella last year) to Full Stop. 

In March, Oak View Group announced plans to build a 25-acre entertainment and arena district south of The Strip in Las Vegas, which will include an 850,000-square-foot-arena, casino, hotel and an additional entertainment venue amphitheater. The Gensler and Populous-designed arena will reportedly be able to host an NBA-caliber team should the league choose to expand into Vegas. 

The arena is slated to be OVG’s largest project to date following openings including the Moody Center at the University of Texas in Austin; Acrisure Arena in Coachella Valley, California; Enmarket Arena in Savannah, Georgia; and Baltimore’s $150 million CFG Bank Arena. Other projects in the pipeline include FirstOntario Centre Arena in Hamilton and major U.K. venues including a 15,000-seat arena in Cardiff, Wales, and Co-op Live in Manchester, checking in at 23,500 seats.