All Summer Live Nation have been giving its customers great deals on live events, its “No Service Fee Wednesday” promotion and “all-in” ticket have been well received by the public, especially in these tough economic times. But it’s got one more treat in store for its customers on August 12th with an “End of Summer Blow-Out Sale”.

This final Summer promotion will bring music fans $10 lawn tickets and $15 reserved seats, the special all-in pricing means fans pay zero fees and can save up to 60% on Summer concert tickets for shows by artists such as Creed, Motley Crue, Def Leppard, Depeche Mode and Lil’ Wayne. This promotion will only run for 24 hours at www.livenation.com, so don’t hang around.

“In these tough economic times we have been offering fans deep discounts all summer long, from no service fee tickets, to all-in pricing, half-priced tickets and more with an overwhelmingly positive response from fans week after week,” said Michael Rapino, President and Chief Executive Officer of Live Nation. “This week’s final blow-out sale is our biggest and best value offering yet. With these unprecedented low prices, we want everyone to have the opportunity to see their favorite artist in their local amphitheater, before the end of summer.”

Live Nation has sold nearly 500,000 concert tickets through its “No Service Fee Wednesday” promotion this Summer, however last week it reported a loss of $27.2 million during the 2nd quarter. Michael Rapino is confident that these Summer deals will prove their worth in the 3rd quarter. “We believe that any reduction in margin that we sacrifice on the ticket purchase will be more than made up for in incremental ticket sales and additional onsite spending,” he said.

A second major filesharing trial is getting underway in Boston, MA.

Little over one month has passed since a jury handed Jammie Thomas-Rasset a $2 million verdict. Today, 25-year old grad student Joel Tenenbaum finds himself in court to defend allegations that he used Kazaa to download and distribute 30 songs without permission.

The trial begins at 9AM and is expected to last until 4-5PM EST. The judge hopes to wrap up by July 31st.

For those wishing to stay updated, several commentators and bloggers will be onhand, twittering throughout the proceedings. These include Ben Sheffner, Marc Bourgeois, and the Joel Tenenbaum defense team.

It should prove to be an interesting trial. Both sides have been arguing more substantial points about filesharing in general then what was seen in the Thomas-Rasset trial. And when Harvard law professor Charles Nesson joined the defense team, the pretrial proceedings took on an almost circus-esque tone.

For background and details of what has been going on in the weeks and months prior to the trial, I highly recommend the following sites:

• Copyrights and Campaigns – Tenenbaum posts
• Recording Industry vs. The People
• Joel Fights Back

Copyrights and Campaigns author Ben Sheffner will also be posting daily dispatches of the trial at Ars Technica. Once the trial concludes, I will post up my own thoughts and analysis.

Over the past few weeks Live Nation have been running a “No Service Fee Wednesday” promotion where they cut service fees on lawn tickets for all Live Nation-ticketed amphitheaters. However some customers felt mislead when they found out they still had to pay parking and venue fees.

Live Nation responded today by announcing that this Wednesday they will be offering an exclusive “all-in” ticket which will include all fees, parking, a hot dog and a soda – all for $29.99.

The concert promoter claim this will be the first ever one price concert promotion.

“Over the last five Wednesdays, music fans have saved millions of dollars on concert tickets at LiveNation.com,” says Michael Rapino, President and Chief Executive Officer of Live Nation. “Now fans have asked that we take it one step further and give a truly all-in price and so this week we’re offering a $29.99, one price deal that includes the ticket, parking, all fees and a concert meal.”

This all-in $29.99 concert experience will be available only at Live Nation amphitheaters in the U.S. and Canada and will be available for artists such as The Killers, No Doubt, Aerosmith, The Allman Brothers Band, blink-182, Nickelback, The Fray, Rod Stewart, Depeche Mode, Coldplay, The New Kids On The Block and many more.

The thinking behind this promotion is; instead of paying $15 for a concert ticket and then $15 on fees, customers will be able to pay a one time price of $29.99 and just enjoy the concert with no further costs. Unless of course you want another hot dog!

Tickets for this week’s installment of “No Service Fee Wednesday” go on sale at 12:01 a.m. local time on July 8, 2009 at www.LiveNation.com.

AEG Live CEO Randy Phillips sat down with media outlets yesterday (July 2) to discuss the ticket refunds for, what would have been, the highest grossing single concert engagement ever.

More videos after the jump in which Phillips talks about a possible tribute concert, the hundreds of hours of rehearsal footage they possess and the pressure of booking the 02 Arena for their Summer dates.

More videos from the final day of NARM courtesy of Billboard. After the jump are full video interviews with A2IM president Rich Bengloff, Topspin CEO Ian Rogers and Tommy Boy Records founder/owner Tommy Silverman.

A2IM president Rich Bengloff

Topspin CEO Ian Rogers

Tommy Boy Records founder/owner Tommy Silverman

Billboard have been covering the National Assn. of Recording Merchandisers convention. Video interviews with Universal Music Group Distribution president Jim Urie, Newbury Comics COO Duncan Browne, Tenth Street Entertainment and Eleven Seven Music founder/CEO Allen Kovac, and Hastings Entertainment chairman/CEO John Marmaduke, plus speeches from Guitar Hero president and CEO Dan Rosensweig and NARM president Jim Donio all after the jump.

While the National Assn. Of Recording Merchandisers convened in San Diego June 7-10 to try to solve the dilemma of a marketplace where music has never been more popular (yet its revenues keep falling), Guitar Hero president and CEO Dan Rosensweig told attendees that the intersection of content and technology will be the largest growth industry going forward.

He also pointed out that things move quicker nowadays. Three years ago, nobody had heard of “Guitar Hero,” but nowadays 11 million games have been sold and those buyers pay a subscription fee every month to play games.

In his opening keynote interview, Rosensweig explained that there isn’t a culture that won’t adopt technology and there isn’t a culture without music, so the industry should be able to capitalize on this.

He says his company uses music for its video games, but also gives back in that artists included in Guitar Hero see catalog sales increases. Also, the video game helps sell tickets when the bands are on tour.

He pointed out that the video games themselves also pay royalties for the music they license, but he sidestepped a question on whether music owners and bands should receive better compensation, as suggested last year by Warner Music Group chairman Edgar Bronfman.

Earlier on June 8, NARM president Jim Donio pointed out that while about 2,500 record stores closed between 2005 and 2008, the consumer connection to music is as strong as ever. As Internet connection speeds get faster, it will foster different opportunities, said Donio.

Besides store closures, another trend hurting music sales has been the downsizing of music space in stores so that merchants can bring in other profitable product lines. Acknowledging that in-store music space is at a premium, Best Buy’s Chris Smith said his chain was focusing on right-sizing its music selection. Some stores may have 5,000 titles when they should only have 2,500 titles and other stores maybe should have more than 5,000 titles. “Our charge, moving forward, is to right-size our stores,” he said during a “Music Business Crash Course” the day before staged by A2IM.

In marketing music, retailers stressed that getting music in advance of the release is still an important tool to reach consumers. Criminal Records store owner Eric Levin said that when he gets a CD, it gets played in the store, and customers get turned on. When the labels send links, “they get deleted,” he added.

As for the NARM convention itself, Donio noted that like other business conventions, attendance is down at NARM (though he didn’t actually say what the total number is). But he did point out that employees from 350 companies are attending NARM, “seventy of them for the first time.”

Many say that because the industry didn’t move quick enough to grasp the opportunities presented by the Internet, the industry left the back door open for unauthorized file-sharing. While it is easy to look back on the mistakes, Donio urged the convention attendees to make a commitment that as “we leave this decade, we need to reinvent the industry.” In that task, he said, there should be no limits to the questions that the industry asks itself.

Billboard caught up with four top executives at the convention — Universal Music Group Distribution president Jim Urie, Newbury Comics COO Duncan Browne, Tenth Street Entertainment and Eleven Seven Music founder/CEO Allen Kovac, and Hastings Entertainment chairman/CEO John Marmaduke – for their thoughts on how music specialty retail adds value to the artist-fan connection, what music retail will look like in five years, and more.

Tenth Street Entertainment and Eleven Seven Music founder/CEO Allen Kovac

Newbury Comics COO Duncan Browne

Universal Music Group Distribution president Jim Urie

Hastings Entertainment chairman/CEO John Marmaduke

Source: Billboard