It’s the end of an era at Live Nation. Eight years after selling their company to Live Nation, and promoting more than 4,000 concerts with the company, founders Dan Steinberg and Jason Zink are leaving the company.
What’s next? The two are still figuring that out, they tell Decibel. The men will stay on through the end of the year, then they have a six-month non-compete period to complete. After that, the two say, anything is possible. But for now, they’re not going to get ahead of themselves.
The time off will “give us a chance to figure out if there's a third act for us or if there's a beach that we want to sit on,” says Steinberg, who is also a host of the popular Promoter 101 Podcast (the show still belongs to Steinberg and his cohost Luke Pierce and was not part of the Live Nation deal).
Steinberg lived in the Seattle area when he first sold his company to Live Nation — now he’s living in Northern California’s Marin County. Zink, previously living in Denver, relocated to Nashville.
“We've been at it for a long time, building the company from scratch and it's completely life-consuming, 24/7,” Zink says. “It's all day, every day in the office. It's nights and weekends and all that stuff. I think we’re just in a position to be able to step back and say, ‘Hey, let's take a breath and see what else is out there.’"
Steinberg says he and Zink are now responsible for about 25 employees and must now begin the work of helping those employees find new roles inside Live Nation, or in some cases, new jobs.
“Emporium will cease to exist at Live Nation at the end when we're gone,” Zink said.
Steinberg added, “When they called and asked if we wanted to get into our contract renewal, we'd let them know that we weren't seeking a renewal and we’re ready to step out and see what else the world had to offer.”
“We're super grateful for Bob Roux for bringing us the opportunity of becoming partners with Live Nation, Mark Campana for mentoring us and Michael Rapino for having the vision and being willing to invest in us,” Steinberg said, noting that he and Zink’s group had been growing at a steady clip of 15 percent a year. “We thought we did a lot of great business together and really appreciated our time at Live Nation.”
