WOMEN OF INFLUENCE
Jamie Loeb
Vice President of Marketing
Nederlander Concerts
Helping When It Counts
Her dedication leads her above and beyond for customers, clients and the industry
By Andy Gensler
Jamie Loeb is a consummate professional who hasn’t dialed things back for a second. In the course of talking about her love for her job, her Nederlander Concerts team and mentoring up and comers, she says that helping people is her most favorite thing.
“We have a drive-in show with Common Kings and I’m handling the info at the CityNationalGroveofAnaheim.com email address right now,” Loeb said. “I had a gentleman who was having trouble buying a ticket. And I’m helping him and then my email craps out. I’m trying to email the guy from my personal email address and ask him to ‘call me, please’ and that ‘I want to take care of you, please.’ So my email just came back and he told me that one of his friends managed to buy a ticket.”
That this VP of marketing is doing online customer service for drive-in shows and giving out her personal email speaks volumes about her dedication and continually going far over and above her job. It also helps explain why she’s working with the National Independent Venue Association, which is advocating for venues to be included in a new federal stimulus package. “We’re doing everything we can to get Congress to recognize the importance of live events to our local, city, county and state economies,” she said. “For every dollar spent on a concert ticket approximately 12 dollars are spent in the community. This is the reason why the (The RESTART) bill is getting bipartisan support.”
Loeb has refashioned her executive marketing talents and applied them to NIVA. “There’s a video we just finished today that’s going to the Hill,” she said. “There’s another one we made, and both make me cry every time I watch it.”
Loeb’s love for the business, like so many life-changing moments, came in a moment of happenstance. “When I was in college somebody came up to me and said, ‘Do you want to go to a show for free,’” Loeb recalled. “Next thing I knew I was doing backstage security. That was my first exposure to the live business and that was my first lightbulb moment of, ‘Holy shit! I can actually do something with my love of music.’” It was the Beat Farmers at Campbell Hall at UC Santa Barbara and in that late-80s moment of kismet Loeb became a live business lifer.
Her career trajectory included stints at Universal Amphitheatre, ICM Partners, the Dragonfly, Revolution Records, Artist Direct, Marketing Factory, House of Blues, Live Nation and finally Nederlander, where she’s been since 2008. None of that, however, scratches the surface of her storied career and the multitude of relationships she’s built and cherishes. Her mentors include Missy Worth and Nederlander Concerts CEO Alex Hodges, both of whom she worked with at LA’s Universal Amphitheatre. She’s attended Aspen Live for 22 years, hosts an informal gathering of women live professionals (which is now on Zoom every other Wednesday) and even keeps in touch with her college adviser from the events committee.
“It is a thousand percent about relationships,” she said. “We’ve all seen people come up the ladder in not necessarily the nicest ways and when they come back down there’s nobody there to break their fall.”
Hot Takes
First job in the business?
I worked at Universal Amphitheatre for a few years as a marketing manager.
Biggest career/business success?
It’s not outward-facing and it’s not sexy, but it’s creating such a forward-thinking marketing team. We are small but we are mighty and we can hit it on a dime. We can test stuff out, figure out if it’s useful and incorporate it or jettison it on a moment’s notice. When we find something we like we are huge advocates and are partners for life. I have an amazing team that I work with. I’m very very fortunate. That dovetails into our great internship program. The intern sits in my office and listens to everything that I do. Hears everything I do and I’m really proud that.
Mentors?
Missy Worth is absolutely a mentor of mine. We still talk to this day. We’re still very close friends, but she taught me important lessons: One is that no is not the right answer. It can be the right answer for now, but you also need to figure out how to make that a yes. She taught me to anticipate questions and be prepared with answers. And that is still a job. We’re not going to love every aspect of it. We’re lucky and that we love most of it. I remember she booked Motley Crüe and Warrant and I went into her office and I said I cannot market this. “I hate it. I want nothing to do with it.” And she said, ‘Guess what? This is your gig. You better figure it out. You got to find something that gets you excited about this. You don’t have to love the music, but you need to find a way to connect with it.” Which I did.
Also, Universal is where I met Alex Hodges for the first time. He’s another mentor of mine who I work with now. I’ve worked with a couple. He’s like a second father to me. He’s such an amazing man.
Technology most affecting work or personal life?
Right now, in the current conditions as I have Zoom running in the background, it’s Zoom. It’s Zoom. Zoom takes the place of the office. Zoom takes the place of meetings. Zoom is even taking the place of conference calls — you don’t have conference calls anymore.
Favorite meal?
I am a total foodie and I love to cook. If somebody else is preparing it for me it would probably be Vespertine in Los Angeles. But if I’m cooking it, it would probably be Ina Garten’s roasted lemon chicken with caramelized onions and croutons. It’s sooo good.
Last live event attended before shutdown?
It was the day before everything shut down. I went to go see Soul Asylum. It was at the Teragram Ballroom. Dave Pirner’s been a friend of mine since when I worked at Universal Amphitheatre.
Plans for the rest of 2020?
Doing everything we can in order to get Congress to recognize the importance of live events to our communal mental health and our local, city, county and state economies. For every dollar spent on a concert ticket approximately 12 dollars are spent in the community. This is the reason why this bill [the RESTART bill] is getting bipartisan support. NIVA’s done a really great job and our lobbyists have done a really great job explaining to them exactly how much our business affects local economies and beyond. In the meantime we’ve got the drive-in shows with the Common Kings … at the City National Grove of Anaheim. We had Andrew McMahon last weekend and we have Fitz and the Tantrums the first weekend of September.