Rock n’ Roll Indians

If you’ve tried to go to a concert or show lately, chances are you’ve ended up buying your tickets through an increasingly ubiquitous website called Live Nation. It turns out that they’re actually the world’s largest live concert promoter, a fact I learned this morning when a press release from the Seneca Nation of Indians popped up in my inbox. The release announced that Live Nation had just inked a deal with the New York tribe to remain the exclusive booker for shows at the Seneca casinos in Niagara Falls and Salamanca, NY.

The reason, I’m willing to bet, that the email made its way north from upstate New York is not so much because the Seneca tribe is worried about drumming up tourists from Boston. Rather, having partnered with the Aquinnah Wampanoag of Martha’s Vineyard in hopes of opening a casinio here in the Bay State, the Seneca were serving notice of their bona fides.

Live Nation, after all, has a huge online presence and that type of pre-existing partnership that could only help pump up the Seneca-Aquinnah group as an increasingly viable option come license bidding time.

Supposing Gov. Deval Patrick’s casino bill passes, the Seneca-Aquinnah group will be able to squawk about their ability to immediately lure high profile music acts. Given how much emphasis Patrick has placed on the resort aspect of building three resort casinos in Massachusetts, that advantage could help the two-tribe alliance stand out.

In the grand scheme of things, though, that’s only a small advantage. The real take away point from the Live Nation deal is that the Seneca know what they’re doing. Big names like Donald Trump have a way of hogging the spotlight (we’re guilty too), but in the gaming world the Seneca tribe is known for being exceptionally competent, experienced, and professional.

They should not be ignored, and The LiveNation deal is indicative of that.