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\n \t\t\t\t\tBillboard’s Latin Power Players 2023: Executive List\u00a0Revealed\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3><\/div>\n
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\n\tThat fearlessness has helped Albareda become one of today\u2019s most successful music executives. After nearly two decades working at labels and in radio, marketing and concert promotion, including as the leader of his formidable company Eventus, Albareda founded Loud And Live in 2017. The forward-thinking outfit\u2019s flywheel-style model combines independent concert promotion \u2014 in 2022, it ranked at No.\u00a014 on Billboard Boxscore\u2019s year-end promoters chart with $96.5\u00a0million grossed, propelled by major tours including arena runs by Camilo and Ricardo Arjona \u2014 with marketing, brand partnerships and a content development studio. Loud And Live\u2019s breadth reflects Albareda\u2019s own guiding ethos, which emphasizes a broader culture and how disparate revenue streams fit into it, rather than focusing on just one or two of those streams.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cI was very proud of my culture and my heritage, and I wanted to give back,\u201d Albareda says. \u201cI got into music because of culture and because of pride, not necessarily because of the business \u2014 even though I ended up being in the business.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tFor Albareda, who grew up in Miami during a \u201cgolden age\u201d for music in the city in the 1980s, running Loud And Live is a natural fit. As a kid, he would listen to any cassettes or CDs he could get his hands on \u2014 he cites Cuban salsa singer Willie Chirino as a childhood favorite and inspiration \u2014 and he fondly recalls attending the Calle Ocho festival, where he saw Gloria Estefan\u00a0& Miami Sound Machine perform.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cI grew up in a moment where Miami defined different sounds within the music business and always wanted to be part of that, primarily because of culture and the heritage of my parents,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
\n\tAlbareda\u2019s entr\u00e9e into the industry, while circuitous, laid the foundation for his interdisciplinary career. As a Miami Dade College freshman, he scored a meeting with Bacardi executives and successfully pitched \u201ca branded entertainment concept\u00a0\u2026 mixing music and cigars and the whole lifestyle around a big band.\u201d As the project of \u201ccreating a 1950s, 1960s tropical salsa band\u201d commenced, the team enlisted Celia Cruz \u2014 and when executives from her label, RMM, got to know Albareda, they offered him a publicity job in-house. RMM was distributed by Universal, then affiliated with the Bronfman family, which owned beverage conglomerate Seagrams; Albareda shared office space with the spirits division and began consulting for the likes of Absolut and Chivas Regal. The experience was formative, and after leaving RMM, he logged time at advertising agency Sanchez and Levitan before landing in radio at Hispanic Broadcasting Corp., where he deployed his passions for music and marketing.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cI saw an opportunity to make money on everything but the radio,\u201d Albareda says. \u201cI started a team that would do events, concerts, festivals \u2014 and then we also would go to the brands and say, \u2018Hey, you\u2019re Procter\u00a0& Gamble. How do I help you?\u2019\u00a0\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tAlbareda understood the deep bond between radio audiences, particularly Hispanic listeners, and their favorite stations \u2014 and how it could be harnessed to deliver returns to brand partners. \u201cYou listened to that morning show, and you trusted that morning show,\u201d he says. \u201cYou trusted the conviction that those are your friends. You wake up every day with them; you drive home with them. That\u2019s what I built: You had the relationship with the artists, you had the relationship with the brands, you have the relationship with the listeners.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tAs the company underwent changes, culminating in its absorption into Univision, Albareda realized, \u201cHey, I can do this without radio. Let me go on my own and really focus on this.\u201d His first, short-lived attempt, a company called Unipro Group, failed when the 26-year-old Albareda misjudged the viability of a Christmas event and lost $3\u00a0million. \u201cIt was a decisive moment in my life,\u201d he says now. \u201cYou realize when you\u2019re at the bottom, you don\u2019t have that many friends.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tAfter regrouping, in early 2005, he founded Eventus, which would focus on marketing and brands \u2014 not just because he knew the area well, but because he now lacked the capital to put on events. Eventus\u2019 first client was the Latin Recording Academy, then still relatively new and looking to grow its footprint. Albareda helped it do just that, particularly through the sponsorship-driven event property Latin Grammy Street Parties, which staged open-air festivals in major cities nationwide. Brands took notice.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cWe became the go-to guys for corporate America to connect anything that was culture with brands, specifically in the multicultural market,\u201d Albareda says. \u201cOur core was Hispanic. One by one, we started growing, and we built a company that worked with 60 brands. McDonald\u2019s, Walmart, Dr\u00a0Pepper, Verizon\u00a0\u2026 those were all clients of ours.\u201d<\/p>\n
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From left: El Alfa, Nelson Albareda, and Silvestre Dangond photographed on September 5, 2023 at Loud And Live in Doral, Fla. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\tWith 40% growth year over year, Eventus also had runway to enter concert promotion, and Albareda focused on the South Florida market. After selling Eventus, now one of America\u2019s biggest multicultural marketing players, to Advantage Solutions in 2013, Albareda remained as CEO until 2016, when he struck out on his own (on May\u00a020, Cuban Independence Day, he observes) with a noncompete clause and free time to boat, fish and develop the kernel of the idea that would become Loud And Live.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cWe are marketers turned promoters \u2014 versus a lot of the entertainment companies out there, and a lot of the promoters out there want to become marketers,\u201d Albareda says of launching his current company in 2017. Because he understood \u201cwhat brands want,\u201d he could facilitate the types of partnerships that help make tours profitable. But his decision to focus on touring at Loud And Live before branching out into agency work \u2014 effectively reversing his Eventus path \u2014 was also borne of necessity: His noncompete around live entertainment expired first.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cWhen we started, artists would pick up our calls because of brands, but they didn\u2019t necessarily trust us with touring,\u201d Albareda says. To build Loud And Live\u2019s reputation, he deviated from the industry trend \u2014 \u201cEverybody was going after urban,\u201d he recalls \u2014 and decided to pursue \u201cfive or six iconic artists that we can make an impact [with] and that other artists look up to.\u201d He began with Juan Luis Guerra and later added Arjona, Carlos Vives, Franco De\u00a0Vita and Ricardo Montaner, who all then spread the gospel of Loud And Live. And once Albareda was able to reenter the agency space with Loud And Live, what the company could offer clients clarified.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cThe businesses here are all synergistic,\u201d he says. \u201cThe way that we treat artists, we are their partner when they\u2019re touring and when they\u2019re not touring. We\u2019re not that promoter that signs a deal, puts a tour [on and says,] \u2018See ya.\u2019\u00a0\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tLoud And Live\u2019s attentiveness to its clients runs \u201cfrom the manager to the engineer all the way up to the manager to the artist,\u201d Albareda explains, and while he\u2019s emphatic that \u201cin this business anybody can write a check; we can write a check,\u201d it has helped the company compete with deeper-pocketed, more established competitors.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cThey\u2019ve bet a lot on me and will continue to do so,\u201d says Colombian vallenato artist Silvestre Dangond, who will embark on his fifth Loud And Live-promoted tour in 2024. \u201cWe have a lot of love for each other. I feel like he\u2019s not even my promoter because of the way he talks to me. He has created a team that\u2019s a hybrid of who he is, with his personality, his positivity, good energy. He\u2019s very decent and very human.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tAdds WK Entertainment founder\/CEO Walter Kolm, who manages Dangond and other Loud And Live clients like Vives and Prince Royce: \u201cNelson is a promoter, but his advantage is that he also thinks like a manager. On top of being a hard worker and great at his job, Nelson is such a kind human, and [that] makes working with him the greatest pleasure.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tThe pandemic interrupted Loud And Live\u2019s growth, but now the company is firing on all cylinders. After orchestrating a partnership between McDonald\u2019s and J\u00a0Balvin in 2020, Loud And Live has continued connecting the restaurant chain with artists including Prince Royce, Nicky Jam and Manuel Turizo. The company\u2019s brand portfolio now includes Pepsi, Walmart, Mattel and Michael Kors. When Becky\u00a0G embarked on her first headlining tour on Sept.\u00a014, she did it with Loud And Live as her promoter \u2014 and with a fresh Vita Coco partnership facilitated by the company. Other fall tours for the promoter include U.S. runs by Vives, El\u00a0Alfa and Diego El\u00a0Cigala.<\/p>\n
\n\tWith in-person concerts on pause during the COVID-19 lockdowns, Loud And Live was able to grow its content division more quickly than anticipated, and it won a Latin Grammy for its 2021 Juan Luis Guerra concert special. When Lionel Messi signed with Inter Miami CF, the soccer team (already a Loud And Live client) turned to Albareda to help roll out the superstar\u2019s arrival \u2014 and Loud And Live assembled LaPresentaS\u00edon, a concert featuring Camilo, Tiago\u00a0PZK and more. (\u201cAll music artists look up to athletes; all athletes look up to artists,\u201d Albareda says.)<\/p>\n
\n\tAnd philanthropically, in keeping with his MO that his work place the culture, not business, first, Albareda announced a $1\u00a0million donation to the Latin Grammy Cultural Foundation late last year; the funds, to be disbursed over five years, will go toward college scholarships, grants and educational programs.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cThroughout his career, Nelson has been an avid supporter of the Latin Recording Academy and our sister organization, the Latin Grammy Cultural Foundation, donating time and resources to our events as well as engaging as an advocate to share our mission and vision with artists,\u201d says Latin Recording Academy CEO Manuel Abud. \u201cAmong [his] greatest professional strengths are the intangible qualities that are from the heart, particularly his passion for Latin music.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tBut despite Loud And Live\u2019s success, Albareda still possesses the scrappy drive that fueled him at his Garden debut nearly 20 years ago. The father of three says he works 18-hour days, adding that his \u201caspiration is to be the leading Latin promoter and entertainment company in the world.\u201d Immediately before the pandemic, Loud And Live partnered with Move Concerts, a major Latin American promoter that works across genres, to increase its presence in Central and South America, and Albareda is now eyeing expansion into Europe.<\/p>\n
\n\tAnd his vision isn\u2019t restricted to Latin music: In November, Thomas Rhett and Sam Hunt will headline the inaugural Country Bay Music Festival, Loud And Live\u2019s first foray into the country market and an attempt to introduce a major country festival in Miami. \u201cCountry is a genre that is very similar in culture to Latin,\u201d Albareda observes. \u201cIt\u2019s a tight-knit community of family, core values, every song is a story \u2014 and we also know that Hispanics overindex in country music. Over 30% of country music fans in the U.S. today identify of Latino origin\u00a0\u2026 My great-great-grandfather came here in 1876. Why is it that I can\u2019t do country music?\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tAs he navigates a turbulent industry and the attendant pivots, Albareda returns to essential traits like perseverance, determination and trustworthiness. \u201cWe don\u2019t sell widgets,\u201d he says. \u201cWe sell relationships.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tAdditional reporting by Griselda Flores.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\tThis story will appear in the Sept. 23, 2023, issue of <\/em>Billboard.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nAller \u00e0 la source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The first time Nelson Albareda promoted a show at the Madison Square Garden complex in New York \u2014 not at the arena proper, but at the 5,600-capacity theater beneath it \u2014 everyone told him, \u201cYou\u2019re going to lose your ass.\u201d Albareda, a Miami-born Cuban, had assembled what to him was a dream lineup: a 50th-anniversary […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-52428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-musique","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52428"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52428\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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