Live Nation Urban Says It’s In The ‘Black Audience Business’

NEW YORK, NEW YORK - MAY 11: Jill Scott performs during the Strength of a Woman Festival at Barclays Center on May 11, 2024 in New York City. (Photo by Astrida Valigorsky/Getty Images)Getty ImagesLive Nation Ur...

August 31, 2026

NEW YORK, NEW YORK - MAY 11: Jill Scott performs during the Strength of a Woman Festival at Barclays Center on May 11, 2024 in New York City. (Photo by Astrida Valigorsky/Getty Images)

Getty Images

Live Nation Urban is expanding beyond live events into content, IP, and global markets centered on Black audiences and creators, ultimately raising the question of whether scaling Black culture can also mean scaling Black ownership.

Roots Picnic entered London this summer. The company is expanding its Creator Network. It is developing new intellectual property and looking beyond the United States for both audiences and entrepreneurs.

And earlier this month, members of its leadership team were recognized on Billboard’s 2026 R&B/Hip-Hop Power Players list, an annual ranking of executives shaping the business behind the genres.

The recognition arrives as Live Nation Urban is trying to broaden what that business actually is.

Shawn Gee, who founded the venture with Live Nation in 2018, puts it more simply.

“Are we in the Black live event space or are we in the Black audience space?” Gee recalled one of his executives asking.

His answer now: “We’re in the Black audience business.”

Gee says Live Nation Urban has amassed “tens of millions of pieces of data and audience insights” through its festivals, tours and brands. Increasingly, he says, companies are approaching Live Nation Urban because they want to reach those audiences and not simply sponsor an individual festival.

There is plenty of money attached to that audience.

According to Nielsen, Black American buying power is projected to reach $2.1 trillion in 2026. They also found that 67% of Black consumers pay more attention to advertising in media that reflects their culture, while 52% are more likely to buy when brands partner with creators or organizations connected to their interests.

Live Nation Urban’s original premise was built around a related gap.

Before founding the company, Gee spent years working in artist management and touring. What he saw were entrepreneurs who understood the culture but did not always have the money, infrastructure or access to build their businesses at a larger level.

“Folks that are out there that have their finger on the pulse of culture, but really what they need is some capital,” Gee said. “Really what they need is some resources to really build and grow their business.”

That thinking still shows up in how Live Nation Urban is expanding today.

The company now sits behind a portfolio that includes Roots Picnic, ONE Musicfest, Strength of a Woman, and Broccoli City Festival, along with touring, investments, content and the Creator Network.

Gee compares the structure to Procter & Gamble: consumers may know the individual brands better than the company sitting behind them. He also compares Live Nation Urban to Intel—the infrastructure powering the brands people actually interact with.

Another way to look at it is as a flywheel.

Live events attract audiences. Those audiences create relationships and data. That audience intelligence becomes valuable to brands. Creators give those brands a culturally specific way to communicate. Content keeps people engaged after the festival ends. New intellectual property can then create another live experience and start the cycle again.

The creator economy makes that model even more interesting.

According to the Interactive Advertising Bureau, the U.S. creator advertising spending reached an estimated $37 billion in 2025, up 26% year over year. The IAB expects that figure to reach $44 billion in 2026.

Brandon Pankey, Live Nation Urban’s vice president of business development and operations, says the company is already thinking beyond the annual festival weekend.

Future properties may live in arenas, clubs or theaters.

“But it’s IP that we can continue to have year long,” Pankey said.

That could mean live programming supported throughout the year by creators, sponsors and storytelling rather than an audience relationship that disappears once everyone leaves the venue.

The economics of Live Nation Entertainment’s broader business help explain why that matters.

In 2025, Live Nation generated $20.9 billion in concert revenue and $687 million in adjusted operating income from concerts. Its much smaller Sponsorship & Advertising division generated $1.33 billion in revenue but $845 million in adjusted operating income.

Those are parent-company numbers, not Live Nation Urban’s. And neither Gee nor Pankey said those margins are driving the media strategy.

Still, they make one thing clear: the business around a live audience can look very different from the business of putting on the show itself.

Going Global In Two Directions

Roots Picnic London gave Live Nation Urban its most visible international expansion so far, but the company’s plans are broader than taking an American festival overseas.

Gee describes two ways the international strategy could work.

The first is straightforward: take an existing property into a market where it makes sense.

“We will take some of our brands that already exist and…export them to markets that make sense,” Gee said.

He named South Africa, Ghana, the U.K. and France as examples.

But the other part of the strategy may be more interesting.

Rather than only bringing American properties abroad, Gee also wants to find entrepreneurs who are already building businesses in those markets.

“My goal would be also to find…brands within these markets and regions that I can invest in and empower and help them grow and scale within their own countries,” he said.

There is an important difference between the two.

Bringing an American Black cultural property to Africa creates a new market for something that already exists. Investing in an African-owned business means backing someone who already has the local audience, cultural knowledge and intellectual property.

Live Nation Urban has already used that model in the United States.

ONE Musicfest existed before Live Nation Urban became involved. Gee says his role was to help founder J. Carter grow what was already there.

“I provided him capital. I provided him resources. I provided them access…to help him build and grow and scale his brand,” Gee said.

Black on the Block is another example.

The marketplace was built by two Black women around Black-owned small businesses and began in Los Angeles. After Gee invested, it expanded into Houston, Dallas, Atlanta, Chicago and Charlotte. Gee says the events feature roughly 100 to 150 vendors and believes the concept could work in the U.K. as well.

That kind of expansion raises a bigger question as Live Nation Urban looks toward Africa.

Afrobeats and amapiano have already proved that Black cultural movements do not need to originate in the United States to become global businesses. So the opportunity is not simply for an American company to arrive once those scenes become commercially valuable.

The more interesting question is what happens when capital and infrastructure meet businesses that are already locally owned.

Asked whether Live Nation Urban’s expansion into African markets could include both existing properties and new ventures with African artists, promoters and cultural institutions, Pankey said it could.

“I think it’s a combination of both,” he said.

He also made a broader point about how the company views Black culture internationally.

“It’s Black culture around the world,” Pankey said. “So, yes, we are going to be deepening our relationships everywhere.”

The challenge will be doing that without making every market look the same.

“Being international doesn’t necessarily mean that you change the DNA of who you are,” Pankey said. “Growing does not mean that you change the DNA of who you are.”

Roots Picnic offers an early example.

Gee says the Philadelphia, Los Angeles and London editions share the same basic ideas, discovery, creativity and collaboration, but are built differently around the people and culture of each city.

Who Owns The Growth?

That brings Live Nation Urban to another issue: ownership.

There has never been a shortage of money moving through Black culture. The more useful question is who gets to own the businesses, intellectual property and long-term revenue created around it.

That distinction matters even more if Live Nation Urban wants to become an international media business.

Pankey says some of the company’s previous relationships with younger promoters have included ownership.

“We’ve partnered with…younger promoters and they absolutely have received equity, some ownership,” he said. “We’re not about taking your ideas.”

He did not say every creator or entrepreneur working with Live Nation Urban will receive equity. But he did say the company is interested in co-developing intellectual property and building relationships that can produce revenue beyond a one-time check.

That may ultimately be the more meaningful test of this expansion.

Live Nation Urban can sell more tickets. It can take festivals into more countries. It can connect more brands with Black consumers and add more creators to its network.

But if the company is building infrastructure around Black culture, growth can also be measured by what happens to the people producing that culture: whether their businesses become larger, whether their intellectual property remains valuable to them and whether access to a global company translates into lasting economic leverage.