The Rise Of Mexican Music Touring | Billboard Latin Music Week 2023
The hottest genre on the charts is the hottest genre on the road. Fuerza Regida’s frontman JOP and Live Nation’s Hans Schafer and Jorge Garcia on how to book, market and sell out Mexican music shows.
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00:00 A lot of struggle.
00:01 [SPEAKING SPANISH]
00:04 I would do my own flyer parties.
00:06 And I'll hire the best groups in the city.
00:09 And then I'll close-- we'll close.
00:12 I'll hire my own band to close.
00:14 We started like that.
00:15 Then we had our first hit.
00:17 We started going into clubs.
00:20 Then it went to like from 20 to 50.
00:23 And then from 50 to 100.
00:25 And then little by little, we went to a lot of clubs,
00:29 a lot of--
00:30 nothing the same, you know?
00:32 The people get extra drunk.
00:33 That's where Otra Peda came from, you know?
00:35 At the club, it's a little more crazy.
00:37 But then we just jumped into the next step.
00:42 And thank God.
00:42 [SPEAKING SPANISH]
00:45 [SPEAKING SPANISH]
00:47 [CHEERING]
00:51 [SPEAKING SPANISH]
00:55 [SPEAKING SPANISH]
00:59 Fierce frontman of Fuerza Regida.
01:02 Thank you so much for being here with us.
01:04 I'm so excited.
01:05 [SPEAKING SPANISH]
01:06 Welcome to Latin Music.
01:07 And thank you, everyone, for being here.
01:10 Before we get into the conversation,
01:12 I want to see if we could play some footage from the massive
01:15 Otra Peda tour de Fuerza Regida.
01:17 [CHEERING]
01:20 It's a party on stage.
01:23 Well, first of all, I want to say a special thank you
01:25 to Live Nation for hosting this very timely conversation.
01:30 Jesus, when you see that footage, what do you feel?
01:33 And were your early shows like that, or no?
01:38 Some of your earlier shows.
01:39 We always got lit like that, but it
01:40 wasn't the amount of people, you know?
01:42 The same amount of people.
01:43 Probably like 20.
01:45 20 people.
01:46 Like 20.
01:46 But we would all get lit and drunk.
01:48 Same thing.
01:50 But now we do it on a--
01:53 [SPEAKING SPANISH]
01:54 On a greater scale.
01:55 On another level.
01:56 It's another level.
01:57 If you could just talk about--
01:59 I know you've hustled for many years to get to this point,
02:02 to have a massive tour where you're selling out stadiums.
02:06 What were those early days like in your career
02:09 and those first shows like to get to this point?
02:14 A lot of struggle.
02:16 [SPEAKING SPANISH]
02:19 I would do my own flyer parties.
02:21 And I'll hire the best groups in the city.
02:24 And then I'll close.
02:26 We'll close.
02:27 I'll hire my own band to close.
02:29 We started like that.
02:30 Then we had our first hit.
02:32 We started going into clubs.
02:35 Then it went to like from 20 to 50.
02:38 And then from 50 to 100.
02:40 And then little by little, we went to a lot of clubs.
02:44 Nothing the same.
02:47 The people get extra drunk.
02:48 That's where Otra Peda came from.
02:50 At the clubs, it's a little more crazy.
02:52 But then we just jumped into the next step.
02:56 And thank God.
02:57 [SPEAKING SPANISH]
03:00 [SPEAKING SPANISH]
03:01 [SPEAKING SPANISH]
03:04 [SPEAKING SPANISH]
03:06 [SPEAKING SPANISH]
03:09 [SPEAKING SPANISH]
03:10 [LAUGHTER]
03:12 [SPEAKING SPANISH]
03:13 We were the promoters.
03:15 I would have one of my managers sell a beer.
03:18 He was my staff back then.
03:20 And--
03:20 [SPEAKING SPANISH]
03:23 [SPEAKING SPANISH]
03:26 [LAUGHTER]
03:28 Jose, you wore all hats.
03:30 You were everything.
03:32 Business.
03:33 From the jump, we've been businessmen.
03:35 OK.
03:35 So I definitely want to talk about like,
03:38 it seems that Mexican music--
03:40 obviously, we talk about like the growth,
03:42 [SPEAKING SPANISH]
03:44 But that also translates not only on the charts.
03:46 But we're seeing it in the touring space, también.
03:50 And it seems like it was overnight, right?
03:52 All of a sudden, now we're seeing them do stadiums sell
03:56 out.
03:57 That's not true, right?
03:59 It was nothing like that.
04:00 Right.
04:01 We came-- I'm not going to say we're the first ones,
04:05 but we're one of the pioneers that
04:07 started opening these doors.
04:09 When I came in, actually--
04:12 if you had a million streams, monthly listeners,
04:15 a million monthly listeners on Spotify, that was--
04:18 you could sell out a venue of like 1,000 people already.
04:22 And the big regional Mexican in those times
04:25 was like Banda MS, which had like 10 million.
04:28 And that was like, oh my god, you know?
04:31 We came from the beginning, from the jump, carving the road.
04:36 And it took-- people think it was fast, you get me?
04:39 But it was never fast.
04:40 Because before Fuerza Regida came in, there was--
04:45 you know, Ramon Ayala, all the big legends
04:48 that carved it for us.
04:50 But we're the ones that--
04:52 we're Americans, so we kind of have the flow.
04:54 And we started dressing different.
04:56 And we kind of like, hey, let's take the Mexican music
04:59 and let's go out.
05:01 And then everybody came with us.
05:02 And then all the Mexican artists started dressing like us,
05:05 and it started going that way.
05:08 And now, thank god, La Musica Americana
05:11 is numero uno ahorita en todos los charts.
05:13 [APPLAUSE]
05:17 I want to get your perspective, too, Hans and Jorge, on--
05:21 again, this was not overnight.
05:23 I'm sure also you guys struggled to promote these concerts
05:26 until--
05:27 and eventually, we got to this point.
05:29 So how has that trajectory been for you guys
05:31 that are behind the scenes actually
05:33 producing these shows?
05:36 It was definitely a process.
05:38 Years before, taking this type of bands to the clubs
05:42 was what made sense.
05:44 And then when these generations of Latinos start growing up,
05:51 there's a bigger mass.
05:52 And these are the same people that
05:53 are buying the Drake tickets.
05:55 They're buying the Fuerza Arreglita tickets.
05:57 So for us, it was more like, where do we take this next?
06:00 And we started aiming for theaters, and then
06:03 aiming for arenas, and then amphitheaters, and then
06:06 stadiums.
06:07 And it's been working out.
06:08 But it's been years in the making,
06:10 and a lot of thought process on the ticket prices
06:13 on the routings of the tours.
06:16 Can we go to a certain market?
06:18 Can we go to Bristol, Virginia and sell 20,000 tickets?
06:22 When years before, going to anywhere in the East Coast
06:26 with Mexican music was like, you'll
06:27 be lucky to sell 3,000.
06:29 You'll be lucky to sell 2,000.
06:31 It's been a process, and it's been a very positive outcome
06:33 so far.
06:35 I think it's very tied of what's happening
06:37 with the explosion of streaming, what
06:38 you guys were talking about, and then
06:40 also the movement of just people around the city--
06:43 around the country.
06:44 So part of what we're seeing is the history, the genesis
06:49 of where Música Mexicana was touring or doing shows.
06:53 It wasn't even really touring at that point.
06:55 But Los Bailes was a big part of that.
06:59 And then you saw that transition into going
07:01 into real concert venues, and then moving into arenas,
07:05 moving into theaters.
07:07 And now I think that that's being interlaced
07:09 with the new generation, Gen Zers.
07:12 We're seeing 13, 14-year-olds that
07:15 are listening to this music.
07:16 That's the next generation.
07:18 That's the future of what we're seeing.
07:21 Jesus is the future of Música Mexicana, right?
07:24 I have a question for you guys.
07:27 Who was the first--
07:28 back in the day, the Mexicans going into arenas,
07:35 before the new generation?
07:37 I just had that question right now.
07:39 Vicente Fernandez.
07:39 The obvious one, Vicente.
07:40 Vicente.
07:41 Antonio Aguilar.
07:42 Joan Sebastian.
07:43 Joan Sebastian.
07:43 There were a few.
07:44 That's a question that I have.
07:46 [LAUGHTER]
07:48 You're getting ahead of yourself.
07:50 I took over.
07:50 I took over.
07:51 [LAUGHTER]
07:53 You're getting ahead of yourself.
07:56 But you said, OK, now it's time to go into arenas, stadiums.
08:00 How do you measure that?
08:01 How do you know that the industry is ready,
08:04 that the audience is ready?
08:05 [SPEAKING SPANISH]
08:08 [SPEAKING SPANISH]
08:13 So how do you measure that, where it's like, we're ready?
08:17 A lot of the stuff we do--
08:19 well, you've got to look at the data, look at the numbers.
08:22 But a lot of the stuff we do, believe it or not, is gut.
08:26 You feel it.
08:28 Can it work?
08:29 You have a feeling it can work.
08:31 You just go for it.
08:32 See, you see the trends.
08:34 As you work and you develop and you
08:36 have this strategy of what we want to build towards,
08:39 you start seeing the sale tendency, how fast things move.
08:43 When you go to the shows, you can
08:44 see the excitement, the new music that comes out.
08:47 And you're saying, all right, it's time.
08:50 You can start to feel it.
08:52 We're selling out way, way more in advance
08:54 than you ever have in the past.
08:57 Typical, we would sell out shows in the last two weeks.
09:02 Now we're selling shows out on the on sale.
09:04 The buying patterns are changing.
09:07 And you could just see--
09:08 that's the thing about Jesus.
09:09 Jesus has a grind that very few artists have.
09:14 I mean, he's got a great story.
09:15 You should tell the story about a show in Ontario
09:18 where sales sort of stopped.
09:20 When you mentioned that, I was thinking about the first year
09:23 we started, which is only our second year.
09:25 But we would-- to be honest, each city we had to go to,
09:30 to sell out, we had to show up two days early.
09:32 But if he's talking about Ontario,
09:34 we stopped the freeway and stuff like that in my city
09:37 because the tickets weren't selling.
09:39 But they sold out.
09:40 But we made sure it sold out.
09:42 But what did you do on the streets?
09:44 I just went to go stop the freeway.
09:45 I stopped the 10 freeway, right?
09:48 The 10 freeway, we stopped it right there
09:51 where the billboard was at.
09:53 He performed.
09:54 Yeah, and we performed the song.
09:56 And everybody was honking, get out of the way.
09:59 And I was like, I got to perform my concert.
10:00 I got to sell tickets.
10:01 I think we got like a week left.
10:02 Let's go.
10:03 And he stopped on the freeway.
10:05 And then they shot TikTok.
10:06 And they shot content that had the arena in the background.
10:10 And that became the promotion for selling out the show.
10:13 And now, thank god, I show up the day of.
10:18 And I go straight to the arena.
10:20 And we're sold out.
10:20 So I had to put in that work.
10:22 It wasn't just-- for me, it's never been easy, you know?
10:26 I'm telling you, since the flyers, to when I was in Mesero
10:29 and I was charging at the door, to now, finally, this year,
10:33 we get to kind of a little kickback and rest
10:36 and just show up to the show.
10:37 Sold out, we go like this.
10:40 Feel me?
10:41 Thank god.
10:42 Yeah, when they tell you, OK, we're
10:44 going to start doing a stadium, how do you prepare for that?
10:49 Did you feel ready?
10:49 Were you like, let's do it?
10:52 I just said, let's do it.
10:53 And like I said, it was just sold like that.
10:55 [SPEAKING SPANISH]
10:56 [LAUGHTER]
10:57 [SPEAKING SPANISH]
10:59 Boom, boom, boom, boom.
11:00 [SPEAKING SPANISH]
11:02 OK, I want to talk about--
11:04 you guys said this is your second year working together,
11:07 Life Nation, Jesus.
11:10 What were your priorities for them?
11:12 What did you want from this partnership?
11:14 And also, what did you guys want?
11:17 What was your vision for Jesus and for Cerrejida?
11:21 First--
11:22 Because you're a businessman.
11:24 And this is you.
11:24 I'm sure you knew what you wanted right away.
11:27 Well, we just wanted to make sure we had a good promoter,
11:30 a good team, and we do.
11:34 And we wanted to sell out.
11:36 And as a team, we've been doing it.
11:38 We've been doing pretty good.
11:40 Yeah, I mean, we talked about what
11:42 are the things you want to accomplish, the stadiums?
11:45 What are the steps to get there?
11:47 You dream big first, and then you kind of
11:49 put the plan backwards to saying,
11:51 these are the steps that we need to do to get there.
11:54 The strategy, bringing structure,
11:57 helping organize the tour so it's more cost effective
12:00 for them so that they make more money, they save more money,
12:05 and just really maximizing the efficiencies of a tour,
12:08 coupled with strategy and making dreams come true.
12:11 That's, at the end of the day, what we want to do for fans
12:14 and for the artists.
12:16 Jorge, anything you want to add about--
12:17 For us, we saw what Cerrejida was doing.
12:21 And we saw him as a performer.
12:24 I saw him a few times perform.
12:26 And I knew he was ready for the big masses.
12:32 When I saw Fuertasat, I can't remember which club it was.
12:35 Probably El Malecono, one of those.
12:37 And I was like, this band could be massive.
12:40 This is a great front man that if you
12:43 put him in front of an arena level stage, he will kill it.
12:47 And for us, it was just, let's put our infrastructure
12:50 to work for them and help them achieve all those goals.
12:55 And it was great.
12:56 It's been great.
12:58 If you can talk-- obviously, BMO Stadium was huge.
13:03 I think there's an anecdote about beating out
13:05 Blink-182's attendance.
13:08 But can you talk about behind the scenes
13:10 of getting that stadium and how it marked up
13:14 before and after in your career?
13:16 I'll be honest.
13:17 They just told me, hey, you're going to be at the BMO.
13:18 You want to do a stadium?
13:19 I was like, yeah.
13:21 And then we went on sale, and then we sold out.
13:25 Like that.
13:27 To be honest, it was never that easy for us.
13:30 And thank God, all the hard work we've been putting in,
13:34 that's how that show was.
13:36 I didn't have to do nothing.
13:37 I didn't have to go stop a freeway or nothing.
13:41 Thank God.
13:42 It was just like, hey, you're sold out.
13:43 I was like, pfft.
13:46 You feel me?
13:48 What about for you guys at Live Nation?
13:50 How was the behind the scenes for that?
13:51 No, we knew we wanted a big statement.
13:56 California, LA, obviously being his hometown,
13:58 that was part of Austin.
14:00 We knew that the support was going to be there.
14:02 We knew it was a time for him to make a statement,
14:04 not just for Fortisite, but for the genre in general.
14:10 That for us was important.
14:12 I think the next thing for us is taking this thing global
14:15 is really what we're thinking about.
14:17 We've been talking with Chema over at Sony.
14:20 They're very excited.
14:21 And we have a strategy that we're
14:23 implementing in conjunction with the label,
14:26 with the artists, with Rancho, to really focus
14:30 on taking this to a global scale.
14:32 That, for me, is where the next phase of this is moving.
14:36 And it's been going.
14:37 I've seen a lot of Mexican music in a lot of other countries.
14:41 I think we are going global, gracias a Dios, for real.
14:44 Back in the day, if they were bumping Mexican music,
14:48 if you were bumping it, you have to lower it.
14:50 You have to be like, shh.
14:52 Now people that don't even speak Spanish bump that shit.
14:55 So I feel like we already went global.
14:57 We're going global.
14:58 Ya no hay vuelta atras.
15:00 No hay vuelta atras.
15:01 Puro derecho.
15:01 Let's go.
15:02 Let's go.
15:02 Gas.
15:03 All gas.
15:03 No brakes.
15:04 Oh, that's a good one.
15:09 I already got the name.
15:12 So this is where my question comes in, where before it
15:15 was like John Sebastian, Vicente Fernandez.
15:19 It was like an elite group of artists
15:21 who could only do arenas, who can only
15:23 do that type of massive tours.
15:26 But what I love now is that you have young artists who
15:30 are doing it.
15:30 It's not just los que llevan años,
15:32 either legacy artists.
15:34 It's young artists who are selling out stadiums, arenas,
15:37 todo.
15:37 Entonces, how important is that today,
15:40 that it's no longer just like the elite
15:43 or like a specific list of artists
15:46 who can actually sell out?
15:47 How important is that to the industry
15:49 and to the ecosystem for Latin music?
15:52 I think it's important to the economy of this country.
15:55 Like the impact that the music is
15:58 having by Mexican-Americans born here or from Mexico
16:03 but are speaking to that culture,
16:05 that's the bigger story to tell.
16:07 Yes, it's great to tour.
16:08 It's great for the entertainment business.
16:10 It's great that that is all thriving.
16:12 But it's really like the contribution economically
16:16 that it's having in this country is really the impact
16:20 that it's being felt.
16:21 That's, I think, the biggest thing
16:24 that we have to have a conversation like macro, what
16:28 those things mean, that there are more artists selling out.
16:33 But that's more jobs.
16:34 It's more money going through the cities.
16:36 It's a huge contribution from that community
16:42 to this country.
16:43 It's big.
16:44 And no disrespect to the legends.
16:45 Because they're the ones that inspired--
16:48 I mean, they inspired me.
16:49 Seeing them-- I love John Sabatia music, Vicente Fernandez,
16:53 Luis Miguel, all the big dogs.
16:56 But no disrespect to them.
16:57 It was just like tío music.
16:58 All like, pa los tíos.
17:00 And now we made it hit.
17:03 We made it it.
17:04 It's him, you feel me?
17:05 Yeah.
17:05 Nosotros somos los tíos.
17:07 No, pero I do feel like now it's cool.
17:12 It's cool.
17:13 We made it cool.
17:14 Thank God.
17:14 [SPEAKING SPANISH]
17:17 You pull up to high school, you have to lower it.
17:19 And it's switching for hip hop.
17:20 [LAUGHTER]
17:23 So does that mean that because it is a younger
17:25 generation of artists, it's younger people also
17:28 buying tickets?
17:29 We were walking around--
17:33 we had shows with Marc Antonio Solis this weekend.
17:35 And we were walking around the hallways.
17:38 And we were seeing like young 14-year-olds, groups,
17:43 not with their parents, not with--
17:45 so and if you--
17:47 like last year at a Junior Hatchet concert in Chicago,
17:51 I went to walk around the room.
17:53 And it looked like a high school prom.
17:55 So true story.
17:57 And you see like multi-generations
18:00 going to the shows, to the Fuerza Rígida shows,
18:03 to the Junior Hatchet shows, to the Marco shows.
18:05 Like I think it's more integrated than before.
18:07 Before, you would go to a Vicente Fernandez shows,
18:10 and you would see all the 30-year-olds.
18:12 And that was it.
18:13 That was it.
18:14 Today, it's a different story.
18:15 I think that the generations are growing up to be Americans,
18:20 whether they're Venezuelans or Mexicans or whatever.
18:23 But they're Americans.
18:25 And they're all going to the shows.
18:27 And they're all listening to this music,
18:28 because they love it, because it was probably
18:31 fed to them growing up.
18:32 So they're buying the tickets.
18:34 So all these new generations.
18:36 And at the same time, you have the new acts, right?
18:39 Gabito Ballesteros and Javi and this and that.
18:41 They're all going to be developed.
18:43 And they're all going to grow, most of them, to this level.
18:46 Some of them are going to stay at us for a little bit.
18:49 But we got more stars coming behind the pioneers that
18:53 are going to help us continue to develop this business.
18:58 Do you see also a lot of multi-generational fans?
19:03 Is there an audience on this one?
19:05 [SPEAKING SPANISH]
19:07 [SPEAKING SPANISH]
19:09 When I'm singing, [SPEAKING SPANISH]
19:11 No, they even bring a newborn.
19:12 They have newborns.
19:13 And then they have a little five-year-old.
19:15 And then they have a abuelita over there.
19:17 So I'm over here.
19:18 And then abuelita, I'm like, what up, baby girl?
19:22 And I make the abuelita shy.
19:24 And then the husband's like--
19:27 Nah, but yeah, I do see all types of crowds in my concerts.
19:34 And you know, he was talking about junior age.
19:36 They do got a lot of prom.
19:38 I've seen that.
19:38 It's different.
19:39 It's just a bunch of small kids.
19:42 But that's dope.
19:43 Everyone has their crowd.
19:45 You talked about stopping the freeway in Ontario.
19:49 How are those strategies, once you guys do announce--
19:53 now they're selling out, like on sale.
19:56 Pero Andes, how was that strategy
19:58 implement to sell tickets?
19:59 Were you super involved in like, hey,
20:01 this is what I'm going to do from my perspective,
20:03 do like content stuff?
20:04 That's what we do.
20:06 We do that.
20:08 When my team, we make sure--
20:11 like, we didn't go to school for marketing,
20:13 but we the king at that.
20:15 We do marketing.
20:16 And then later on, I came back with a big bill.
20:18 Like, hey, Live Nation, I paid this much.
20:21 I wish every artist was as creative with the content
20:24 as Puerto Rico is.
20:26 They just create all this stuff.
20:28 And to just-- like, we don't ask for it.
20:31 We just get it.
20:32 And then we amplify the message.
20:34 Like, they're very creative.
20:35 And they do all these crazy videos, all this like,
20:38 I'm going global, bro, outside of his house,
20:40 with a Lamborghini.
20:41 But like, all this crazy content.
20:44 And it works.
20:46 It helps.
20:47 Now that they're selling out immediately,
20:51 we can take a breather.
20:52 But there's other artists that we
20:53 need to implement different strategies,
20:56 different creative things that we can do and ask them to do.
20:59 And some of them will say, no, I won't do it.
21:02 Go market it however you can without me.
21:04 Some people just have the star, though.
21:06 Some people don't got to do all that.
21:09 On my side, I see it like, we have to work a little hard.
21:12 Hey, Naipa'o, hard work beats talent.
21:16 Yeah, and I think also today, artists in general
21:20 are in constant communication with their fans.
21:23 It's not just a promotion of one thing.
21:27 That allows us, I think, in general,
21:30 to have more flexibility with being creative on how
21:33 you can market shows versus how you traditionally
21:35 used to market them pre-social media, where things were
21:38 a little bit more rigid and you had
21:40 to get creative with implementing ideas
21:42 that we could do, but it was very limited.
21:45 I think today, the artist has a much bigger reach.
21:49 And it just becomes a part of an extension.
21:51 So when Jesus or any other artist
21:53 goes and does these types of promotions
21:55 on their social media, it doesn't
21:56 feel like it was a promotion.
21:57 It's another way of having a conversation with your fan,
22:00 reminding them that they're here.
22:01 How do we connect?
22:02 That's what he's a master of.
22:04 That's what allows us to then get involved and amplify
22:08 that message.
22:10 That's, I think, how what we've seen today
22:14 in the differences of marketing shows
22:16 is you have a greater flexibility of content
22:19 and reaching fans, amplifying it through a lot
22:22 of their existing channels.
22:24 It seems way more organic than--
22:26 That's what I was going to say.
22:27 That's the secret to it.
22:28 It can't feel forced.
22:30 When it feels like it's a real, genuine conversation,
22:33 and if you treat it that way, that's
22:35 where you see the greatest impact of people responding.
22:38 That, at the end of the day, is you're
22:39 just trying to tighten that bond that they have with the fans.
22:43 And it's big.
22:45 They drink a lot for you.
22:47 They show their love in liquor.
22:51 It is called the otra pedator.
22:54 I heard we broke some records, huh?
22:56 We be breaking records in a lot of places, right?
22:58 On the alcohol?
22:59 Well, yes.
23:01 Yes.
23:04 Big drinking crowd.
23:06 What goes into a good strategy for--
23:08 I know you guys talked about strategy,
23:10 but does it differ when you're, say,
23:12 promoting a reggaeton artist tour,
23:15 or does it different for a Mexican music artist?
23:18 Does that strategy look different?
23:21 Again, I think back to what we were talking about,
23:25 nothing can be cookie cutter.
23:26 Nothing can be rinse and repeat.
23:29 I think when you do that, you're not genuine.
23:31 You're not having a real conversation.
23:33 You're not treating the fans with respect.
23:34 You're not treating the artists with the respect
23:36 that they deserve.
23:37 So everything that we do starts with conception,
23:39 sitting down with the teams, sometimes with the artists,
23:42 and saying, what is this tour about?
23:44 Otra pedator.
23:46 All right, well, let's start developing ideas
23:48 around the concepts that you're already doing with the tour.
23:52 For every tour that we do, every marketing,
23:55 it's all hitting the creative block
23:59 and thinking about what is best for a launch.
24:03 Sometimes they're simple launches.
24:05 Sometimes they're content videos that we'll produce.
24:08 But we always try to start with the inception of,
24:12 what is the artist trying to accomplish creatively
24:15 with their tour?
24:16 And then how do we complement that for the launch?
24:19 Creatively, what were you trying to accomplish?
24:21 What did you tell them?
24:22 [INAUDIBLE]
24:25 Party.
24:26 It was just not a concert.
24:28 [INAUDIBLE]
24:29 [INAUDIBLE]
24:31 That's it.
24:31 But that was part of the conversation.
24:36 It was like, hey, this is not just a show.
24:38 We're going to go, and this is going to be a party.
24:40 It's like the flyer parties.
24:42 It's like when he was with his 20 friends,
24:44 and they were all getting drunk and having a good time
24:48 and partying.
24:49 That's what this tour was trying to evoke.
24:52 And it's really a party.
24:53 You should go to the show.
24:54 When we go to the concert, when we go to the show,
24:57 we make sure everybody--
24:59 I tell everybody, hey, make sure you don't
25:01 feel like you're at a concert.
25:02 You're at the backyard with your tío,
25:04 with whoever you want to be with.
25:05 You're a fuerza rígida drinking.
25:07 That's it.
25:08 Feel at home.
25:09 And everybody just gets all drunk.
25:10 [LAUGHTER]
25:13 So the title of the panel is "The Boom of Mexican Music
25:17 in the Touring Space."
25:18 Pero does that boom--
25:20 can you break down what that means?
25:22 Is it ticket sales?
25:23 Is it bigger spaces?
25:27 I think it's everything.
25:28 Yes, they are doing bigger venues that
25:33 weren't imaginable years ago.
25:36 There is a boom in streaming and visibility.
25:42 Now you have people that don't even speak Spanish
25:45 singing the songs.
25:45 There's a dude-- what's his name--
25:47 in Northern California, Jeff or Brent?
25:52 I don't know, Brent, the white guy?
25:53 Yeah.
25:54 And he rocks.
25:57 He's amazing.
25:58 And he sings all this stuff.
26:00 We had him at the party when we announced the tour.
26:04 And then we got-- there's a black guy, too.
26:06 Everyone just-- they're learning.
26:08 It's awesome to see all this, how this thing is becoming
26:12 organically so massive and so well-accepted
26:16 in other cultures.
26:17 So yes, ticket sales are amazing.
26:20 We're really having fun.
26:21 But culturally, also, it means a lot
26:24 to see that it's expanding.
26:26 And there's other countries.
26:27 And there's Latin America.
26:28 And then there's Spain.
26:30 And we are yet to see where this is going.
26:32 I don't think we're halfway done.
26:35 Boom is tied to all of it.
26:36 It's the streaming.
26:37 It's the biggest jump in consumption of any genre.
26:41 I think only behind K-pop is the only one.
26:46 But by a little bit, it just broke out.
26:48 I mean, it's a huge jump in consumption.
26:51 It's a huge jump in crossing over.
26:53 It's a huge jump in hitting new territories
26:55 and growing into bigger buildings.
26:59 And it's been-- again, this is like the year
27:01 that there's been a huge explosion.
27:04 But I think over the last few years, we've already seen it.
27:08 Bookies was the first Mexican band-- or first Latin band
27:13 to do a stadium tour.
27:15 It was by Mexican music.
27:17 I mean, that has been opening the way
27:20 for what we're seeing today.
27:21 Coupled with streaming, I think it becomes limitless.
27:24 What I'd like to see is where there
27:26 is a level of activity, touring-wise,
27:29 that matches the general market, if you want to call it,
27:32 in terms of the amount of territories
27:34 that we're going to, when you're looking
27:35 at going into Australia, when you're looking at going
27:38 into New Zealand.
27:39 Those are the things that I continue
27:40 to see because we've seen it now over the last 20 years.
27:44 Europe has been completely changed
27:46 in the demographic of people that are out there.
27:51 There's more Mexicans.
27:51 There's more Venezuelans.
27:53 There's more Ecuadorians.
27:54 That's changing the consumption habits of those countries.
27:57 That's allowing for bands to now go and tour deeper into Europe.
28:03 That's the continued growth that we're seeing.
28:05 Let's go.
28:06 Let's go.
28:06 Let's go.
28:08 Jesus, did you ever imagine this in your career?
28:13 [SPEAKING SPANISH]
28:14 Maybe like six years ago, were you
28:16 thinking stadiums?
28:18 I always imagined something big.
28:21 But six years ago, it was kind of hard to see through it.
28:25 Kind of hard to be like, oh, we're
28:26 going to be hitting stadiums.
28:30 Now we thought probably, oh, we're
28:31 going to do a little-- the biggest nightclub
28:34 or a nice little terreno over there.
28:39 But that's it.
28:41 I probably didn't see this.
28:43 I always seen myself as a little kid
28:46 being this big, but for real, for real,
28:50 obviously I didn't see it with this type of music.
28:52 I didn't see us breaking the barrier like that.
28:55 And we did.
28:57 What do you think it means culturally?
28:59 To Hans, we're limitless at this point.
29:02 What does that mean to you as an artist?
29:05 What's that word mean?
29:06 Limitless?
29:06 What?
29:07 [SPEAKING SPANISH]
29:08 Oh, I thought you said we're limitless.
29:11 Limitless.
29:13 No, yeah, like right now, who knows how far it's going to get
29:17 because it already crossed a lot of borders.
29:20 Not just Mexico.
29:21 It's not Mexico and US.
29:22 That's the same way.
29:24 You get me?
29:25 So I think, yeah.
29:27 What is it?
29:28 How's that saying?
29:29 The limit is the sky?
29:30 [SPEAKING SPANISH]
29:31 Sky's the limit.
29:31 Yeah.
29:32 [LAUGHTER]
29:34 Well, we have five minutes left,
29:40 but I wanted to talk about the future of Mexican music
29:44 in the touring space, what comes next for the genre.
29:47 But also, can all Mexican music artists
29:50 expect now to sell Stadia?
29:52 Hey.
29:58 We'll see, right?
29:58 Look--
29:59 You got to work.
30:00 For us, it would be amazing if we had 20 more--
30:04 Apples going on.
30:06 But some are going to make it.
30:08 Some are not going to make it.
30:09 But I think we will have a very healthy touring space
30:14 for a lot of Mexican acts.
30:17 I think we're looking really good.
30:19 I think, like I said earlier, there's
30:21 acts that are being developed that are going to make
30:23 headlines very soon.
30:25 And they're going to join the Fuerzas Rígidas of the world
30:28 in the bigger venues.
30:30 And I think we're seeing that there's buyers.
30:36 There's ticket buyers in large numbers,
30:40 because I can't remember where we were with Fuerza.
30:43 And Karim León was there the same night.
30:45 He was sold out.
30:46 We were sold out.
30:47 And there were also violas that were in the same night.
30:51 I think it was Denver.
30:51 I can't remember what city it was.
30:53 And we were like, Jesus, he sold out.
30:55 We sold out.
30:56 There's people for everybody.
30:58 This is really healthy.
30:59 I think you have to also--
31:03 regional Mexican is such an umbrella term.
31:05 And it's been always thrown into this one pot.
31:08 And it's really not representative
31:10 of talking about who the artists are and the fans are.
31:14 It just happens to be coming from one country, almost,
31:18 is when you're talking about that.
31:20 But the reality is, for an artist,
31:23 there needs to be, I think, greater representation
31:26 for the genres within it, so that we talk about them
31:30 within the genres.
31:31 We don't talk about American music,
31:33 and then it's all hip hop, country, indie,
31:36 alternative rock.
31:38 It would be the equivalent of throwing all that into one pot.
31:40 I think there needs to be greater representation,
31:42 because the numbers are there.
31:44 The explosion keeps going.
31:45 And you're seeing it, right?
31:46 We call it now, "Regional Urbano."
31:49 We call it--
31:50 I don't even know what the hell to call it anymore.
31:51 Yeah.
31:52 It keeps changing every year.
31:53 Hey, but--
31:54 [SPEAKING SPANISH]
31:55 Hey, as long as we--
31:57 let's keep pushing.
31:57 But it's important that you're talking to your fan.
32:00 And that artist, when they're focusing,
32:02 whether you do marachi, whether you're doing corridos,
32:05 whether it's banda, talk to your fan.
32:06 And you don't have to--
32:08 I think the wrong approach is always trying
32:10 to be the music for everybody.
32:12 And this market is so varied that you
32:17 do have different fan groups that
32:20 listen to different types of music, Mexicana.
32:23 And they don't necessarily listen to all of them, right?
32:26 But they may also be listening to Fuerza and Drake or Kanye.
32:30 There's a lot of shared interest.
32:32 So I think you do have to--
32:33 we have to.
32:34 We have the responsibility, all of us in this industry.
32:37 Because at the end of the day, we're
32:38 sort of setting that tone of the conversation
32:41 that we need to give this the space that it deserves.
32:44 And we need to start calling things by what they are,
32:47 so that they have better representation
32:50 within the industry to the people who are not
32:52 in our business.
32:53 As long as we sell those tickets, huh?
32:55 I got you.
32:57 Jorge, you wanted to add something to that?
32:59 I-- no.
33:01 OK.
33:03 Yeah, I guess we could just spend--
33:06 Jesus, where do you see yourself next?
33:09 What's your goal in touring?
33:11 Is there a space or a place where you are dying to go to?
33:15 What's your future like in touring?
33:17 I'm just in my own lane, just going that way.
33:20 So whatever's coming up, let's go.
33:23 I'm not stopping.
33:24 Do you have a dream venue?
33:27 To be honest, I've accomplished almost everything
33:29 I wanted to do already.
33:30 So the next thing is just--
33:33 let's just-- I don't even know.
33:34 Let's just keep on going.
33:35 I look at whatever--
33:37 if there's potholes, if we topamos con carros, piedras,
33:41 no hay pedo.
33:41 I'm in my own lane.
33:42 So I just swerve out.
33:44 Let's go.
33:44 Bam.
33:45 That's what I'm saying.
33:46 Jesus is just so focused.
33:47 I mean, you were up till, I don't know,
33:49 God knows what hour, working on new music.
33:50 Like, he's in the studio.
33:51 If he's not in the studio, he's making music.
33:53 He's on the road.
33:54 It's just a consistent sort of focus on his music
33:58 and growing that, right?
33:59 And I think that's what we're--
34:01 Yeah, just focus on me, pretty much what he's saying.
34:03 Like, just-- I don't look at--
34:05 over there, I don't look over there.
34:06 I look that way.
34:07 And that's it.
34:08 Let's go.
34:09 And like he said, I called George at 5, 6 in the morning.
34:11 I was, hey, you can't change the--
34:13 I heard.
34:14 I was like, man, I don't know.
34:15 I'm only going to get like 40 minutes of sleep.
34:18 I don't think so, man.
34:19 I was like, all right.
34:21 And I continued working on the song, because I
34:22 had to finish it for my album.
34:24 So to be honest, I'll do everything.
34:28 I'll do whatever you want.
34:29 [SPEAKING SPANISH]
34:32 I think we've proved it with some cumbias already,
34:35 with some corridos.
34:35 And in the album, we got a lot of stuff.
34:37 In the album, we got everything.
34:38 So be surprised.
34:39 Be ready for that album October 20th.
34:42 [SPEAKING SPANISH]
34:47 And he's developing acts with his label.
34:49 So there's a lot more to see.
34:51 Oh, yeah.
34:52 Chinito Pacas is popping.
34:54 He's about to be at the Billboard show.
34:57 We're not, you feel me?
34:58 But he's going to be there.
35:01 It's going to be lit.
35:03 A businessman through and through.
35:04 Yeah, yeah, Street Mile Records.
35:06 I grew my company.
35:07 And I got a lot of artists that are doing good, thank god.
35:12 I think Calle 24 was on one of the magazines.
35:16 Yeah, something big.
35:18 Crazy.
35:19 Any-- time is up.
35:20 But any last thoughts on the topic on Mexican music
35:25 in the touring space?
35:25 Anything that you guys want to add?
35:28 We're not done yet.
35:29 We're going to continue to see the growth.
35:32 We're going global.
35:33 Just wait and see.
35:33 Yeah.
35:34 Well, thank you all three so much.
35:36 Jorge, Hans, Jesus, thank you so much.
35:39 [BLANK_AUDIO]