Exclusive: Live Nation, Ark Group seek naming rights deal for entire $165M Music Factory development

View Photos

Courtesy of Aerial Photography Inc.

Construction is already underway on The Music Factory, a $165 million entertainment-anchored development in Las Colinas near the Irving Convention Center. Live Nation has signed on as the project's lead tenant.

Candace Carlisle

Staff Writer- Dallas Business Journal

Email  |  Twitter  |  Twitter  |  Google+

With a big party at the House of Blues, Live Nation Entertainment Inc. announced to the world its plans Wednesday evening to operate a $40 million convertible concert venue in Irving near its convention center that will round out the company's entertainment portfolio in North Texas.

The new concert venue — known as the Pavilion at The Music Factory — will help Dallas-Fort Worth become an entertainment destination hub. Now, it could be a big opportunity for one North Texas business.

The Beverly Hills, Calif.-based live entertainment company, along with Charlotte, North Carolina-based developer Ark Group, plans to begin marketing the naming-rights to the entire $165 million development, The Music Factory.

"Based on what I know about the target development, what the marketplace is and the tangible assets we're going to have in place and what we're going to have with our media partners, I think the value of a (naming-rights) sponsorship opportunity could be $5 million a year," Bob Roux, president of North American concerts for Live Nation, told the Dallas Business Journal, in an exclusive interview.

Live Nation is working with New York-based strategic partnership firm Legends, which helped secure the AT&T naming rights of AT&T Stadium in Arlington. Legends is an affiliated company of the Dallas Cowboys.

The new naming-rights sponsor will benefit from the Pavilion — which converts easily from an intimate 4,000-seat concert hall to an 8,000-seat amphitheater — as well as Live Nation-programmed development with a large plaza area and multiple stages, much like Fort Worth's Sundance Square.

Live Nation helps market and sell the naming-rights for a number of the 55 venues it owns or operates throughout North America, including Gexa Energy Pavilion.

"I think it's important from our branding standpoint that we have the right partners that understand what we are doing and make sure everything is complementary to the branding we want for the overall project," Roux told me.

"This is a great market, the economy is doing well, it's a top five metro area in the United States and it's a market that a lot of companies want to test products and raise brand awareness," he added.

The naming rights will be actively marketed in mid-2015. Construction on The Music Factory is underway in Las Colinas off State Highway 114.

The Pavilion at The Music Factory is scheduled to open on April 1, 2016.

Candace covers commercial and residential real estate and sports business.