Just ask the University of Michigan, which happens to be my alma mater. This September, Michigan Stadium, affectionately known as The Big House (and yes, the place I still wish my wife would have let us host our wedding), will welcome country superstar Zach Bryan and special guest John Mayer in what is expected to become the largest-attended concert in U.S. stadium history with over 112,000 fans. The event will surpass George Strait’s record-setting 2024 performance at Kyle Field at Texas A&M. I, along with my team at Degy Consulting, had the privilege of serving as the consulting partner to the University of Michigan Athletic Department, providing strategic guidance on venue planning, financial modeling, and deal structure to complete a deal with AEG’s global touring team.
And Michigan is certainly not alone. Across the country, athletic departments are leaning into the opportunity to use their spaces as vessels for high-profile events:
These events are not anomalies. They reflect a nationwide shift. College stadiums, arenas, and fields are evolving into world-class concert venues. In doing so, they are driving revenue, building community, and making schools more competitive in the era of NIL and direct athlete compensation.
Success starts with understanding your space(s). Is your field built to handle a 45,000+ pound stage (that’s the weight that a mid-level stage, such as a SL320, boasts)? Can trucks flow in and out, even when the weather doesn’t cooperate during load-in or out? Where do the generators go, or can you pull hard power from another location? These are just some of the early questions at the start. It’s best to get a hold of properly constructed and current engineering plans and operational specs to set the stage, literally. Engineering plans aren’t just to validate the ability to support weight (and your event), but they often share measurements that better set in motion Step 2 below.
Once the site is validated, Step 2 is to build out detailed CAD layouts. This isn’t just about putting a stage somewhere. It’s about defining capacity, safety zones, ADA access, entry/exit flow, vendor setups, VIP sections, artist compounds, and more. The CAD becomes the roadmap for everything to follow. When looking at how best to prepare a venue for an event, it’s often desirable to create multiple CADs that place different sized stages in different positions. For instance, a baseball field could impact its capacity and setup multiple ways by moving the stage from the dirt around second base to various spots in the outfield. By having multiple event layouts of a new athletic space, you can often bend your numbers to accommodate for different size artists (or even based on the success of your initial ticket sales).
Now that your venue layout is mapped and capacity is known, it's time to dig into the numbers. This is where your college concert financial model begins to take shape. You can use your gameday expense model as a reference point, but concerts come with a different set of variables. Setup and load-out times are generally longer. Technical production is more complex. Staffing needs are broader, especially when handling artist riders, stage builds, and full-day access requirements. Insurance requirements may change, and security must scale to meet different risk levels than what you’re accustomed to with an athletics event. Your Proforma for a concert should be informed by gameday but not dictated by it.
On the revenue side, this is where strategic planning becomes essential. A well-built ProForma usually includes six core income streams:
These categories form the backbone of the financial model. Once built, this ProForma becomes the financial blueprint that drives decision-making. It tells you whether to move forward, pivot the plan, or reevaluate altogether. And here’s the truth, this just isn’t a place to ‘guess’. A small oversight can swing your event from profitable to loss-making fast. That’s why we recommend reaching out to an experienced event consultant or concert buyer who can provide you with a complete venue ProForma template tailored to your size, goals, and market. If you're looking for a starting point or want someone to walk through it with you, feel free to reach out. We’re here to help you build it right the first time.
Once your financial model is in place, it is time to evaluate which event strategy best matches your department’s resources, risk tolerance, and desired level of control. There are three distinct paths to consider, each with its own advantages and trade-offs. Choosing the right one depends on how well-capitalized your athletic department is, what your goals are for the event, and whether you are prepared to handle full responsibility or prefer to share or delegate it.
1. Buy the Show In this model, your institution takes full ownership of the event. You are responsible for booking the artist, covering the artist guarantee (and their often ‘daunting’ riders), handling marketing, ticketing, production, security, insurance, and all operational logistics. This model offers the highest potential return but also carries the most financial risk.
It is critical to understand that artists at certain levels are often under exclusive touring agreements with major promoters such as Live Nation or AEG Presents, making direct access more difficult. In some cases, the promoter already active in your market may have existing relationships with venues, artists, or management teams that create additional competition. This can limit access to top-tier acts or require strategic alignment with tour routing.
If you plan to buy the show yourself, it is highly recommended that you partner with a professional middle agent or talent buyer who has deep relationships with agents, managers, and artists. These professionals can provide you with market data, historical performance insights, and sound recommendations that go beyond surface-level popularity. They can also support your operations team to ensure every detail from contracts to production logistics is executed safely and efficiently.
2. Co-Pro A co-pro model involves a shared-risk, shared-reward approach. You partner with a promoter (or third party like an investor or corporation/sponsor/brand) who brings capital, booking relationships, and/or production expertise to the table. In return, you share control of decision-making and revenue. This model is ideal for schools that want to stay involved but need to reduce financial exposure or leverage industry know-how. Co-pros also allow for a more collaborative experience, where the promoter is equally invested in the success of the event.
3. Lease the Venue The "leasing" model is the lowest risk path and appeals to schools looking to monetize their athletic facilities with limited internal involvement. In this scenario, your department rents the space to a third-party promoter who takes on the full execution of the concert or event.
National promoters like Live Nation, AEG Presents, Goldenvoice, C3 Presents, and Danny Wimmer Presents may see your venue as a unique opportunity to place a national tour in a new market or fill a routing gap with high upside. Additionally, some of the country’s strongest regional promoters may be ideal leasing partners in specific territories. 313 Presents is prominent across Michigan with a mix of arena and amphitheater shows. PromoWest Productions has a major presence in Ohio and the Midwest with a strong track record of hosting large-scale alternative and rock tours. The Bowery Presents is active in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic with a wide range of theater, club, and mid-size arena events.
While every deal differs, in many of these cases, the promoter brings in the artist, covers all costs, and takes full operational control of the event. Your school can earn in areas such as a negotiated flat rental fee, a share of the ticketing revenue, or a percentage of ancillary income from food and beverage, parking, or merchandise.
That said, while your involvement is reduced, your responsibility is not eliminated. You remain the host institution, meaning you must ensure that your venue is properly maintained, inspected, and ready for activation. Your internal staff may still be required for compliance, facilities access, or on-site coordination. And please don’t forget to still maintain proper insurance and coverage in the case of situations related to weather, illness cancellation, or safety.
Completing Steps 1, 2, and 3 beforehand gives your team and potential promoters confidence that your facility is ready to go. From the engineering review to CAD layouts to financial modeling, the prep work makes your venue turnkey. What promoters will appreciate is that you’re not just offering a space, but that you’ve done your homework to offer a “plan”. Doing the work makes you a more attractive and professional partner, which in turn increases your negotiating power and revenue potential.
Once your strategy is in place and your path is selected, it's time to begin the talent buying process. If your path is to use a promoter or doing a Co-Pro deal, there are likely ways to offer your input, but your involvement and research may be considerably less than presenting your own date. This step to focus on your act choices is about more than just selecting an artist.
Working with an experienced talent buyer or middle agent would be a strong consideration if you haven't already been working with an entertainment consultant or professional from the start (or if you don’t have institutional knowledge around ‘entertainment buying’ on your existing team). Talent buying professionals do more than connect the dots. They bring years of industry knowledge to help you assess artist value, understand venue fit, and forecast ticket sales based on historical data and current demand. Their strong relationships with managers, agents, and tour producers also allow them to negotiate with speed, credibility, and confidence.
Before making an offer, your team should carefully review the artist's technical and hospitality rider. These documents outline important elements like staging, lighting, sound, catering, and transportation; all of which impact your operations and expenses (pull an eraser back out to tweak that ProForma). Your buyer should help you determine if your venue is equipped to meet those rider requirements or if outside rentals or accommodations will be necessary. Remember those conversations about separating M&M colors? The rider is the place you’ll see those considerations, but moving around chocolate colors is the easy stuff.
You’ll also need to prepare a detailed offer sheet, typically submitted to the artist's agency representative. Offer sheets outline the proposed deal terms, including venue, date, ticket scaling, financial offer, and terms for production support and marketing. Understanding which agent handles that artist within a specific region and venue size is key to getting your offer considered.
Top agencies that you’ll likely work with include:
Also consider independent agencies, which play a major role in college-level and mid-sized concert bookings:
But booking is only half the battle. Whether you're promoting the show yourself, working in a co-pro model, or leasing the venue, event execution requires experienced professionals. From site build and tech load-in to guest services and emergency response planning, a skilled operations team will ensure the concert is delivered professionally, legally, and safely. Your talent buyer or consultant should provide guidance or a support team that understands crowd control, credentialing, insurance, rider fulfillment, artist relations, press submissions, and real-time production troubleshooting.
When planning a concert (or better yet, a long-term event strategy with multiple spaces) of this scale, involving a professional entertainment consultant from the beginning can be one of the most valuable decisions your team makes. Unlike a talent buyer/middle agent who focuses primarily on booking artists, an entertainment consultant brings broader expertise across all phases of event planning and execution. Some entertainment consultants can get you from start-to-finish with all the necessary professionals on their staff.
Consultants in this space help your team evaluate venue infrastructure, understand what’s feasible from a structural and operational standpoint, and translate engineering documents and CAD layouts into real-world event setups. They work together with your staff to develop comprehensive financial projections, build ProFormas, and recommend the best revenue model based on the specific characteristics of your facility and target audience.
An entertainment consultant is also your strategic advisor. They provide recommendations on operating models, risk assessments, and contingency planning. Often, they will recommend running competitor, market, and gap analysis initiatives to broaden the base of knowledge. They can guide internal conversations with university leadership, address concerns from facilities and legal teams, and ensure that everyone involved—from athletics to administration—is aligned around the opportunity and its execution.
If your school is considering buying your own show, entering a co-pro partnership, or leasing to a promoter, a consultant can help you make those decisions based on data and experience, not just assumptions. They also often serve as the connector between your venue and potential promoters or agents, helping structure deals on your team’s behalf that are fair, strategic, and executable.
If you’re sitting on a stadium, arena, field, or parking lot that only gets used for athletic purposes, let’s see if we can find gold out of that goldmine. Our team is ready to help you explore what’s possible and make it happen.
Degy Entertainment (talent buying & middle agency)
Degy Consulting Services (entertainment consulting services)
Email: ari@degy.com
Call: 732-818-9600 (Office) | 908-296-2874 (Cell)
Website: www.degy.com