Impresario Pat Egan tells Conall O Móráin about his hits and misses during more than 50 years in the music industry, and reveals why he’s had to move away from promoting major acts

Even though I like being referred to as a business commentator, I never read business books. I find most of them self-serving ego dumps. I don’t really care if some entrepreneur gets up before they go to bed, or that they claim the secret of their success is a 25-minute cold morning bath.

The real key to business success is to get lucky, as I was told recently by top venture capitalist Brian Caulfield. And if you want to know the secret of luck, well you’ll have to pay me.

During my many years presenting Today FM’s Sunday Business Show, and now with a year and a half of That Great Business Show podcast under my belt, I have interviewed thousands of business people. One person I never met but always wanted to interview was music impresario Pat Egan.

Back in the day, Pat was synonymous with the top end of the music industry in Ireland. He is closely identified with Billy Connolly tours here, and he also brought Eric Clapton, Queen, Elton John and many other top acts to these shores.

If you wanted to show true devotion to your ‘to die for’ musical favourites, then ‘Pat Egan’s Sound Cellar’ record store on Nassau Street in Dublin was the subterranean house of worship.

In Association with

Pat recently wrote a book. It’s more a memoir than a ‘how to’ business book, so I felt it was safe for me to read Backstage Pass, A Life in Show Business (Red Stripe Press).

Every good book has a matching promotion tour, so I could catch Pat Egan if he would join me on my podcast. Backstage Pass is a lovely, self-effacing, memoir of his life, warts and all, and not a cold morning bath in sight.

Pat Egan has a Mona Lisa smile, with eyes to match. Part of the interviewing process is to ‘read’ the interviewee’s face.

Pat came into studio wearing his obligatory (for a rocker) leather jacket, sat down, exchanged some pleasantries and stared at me.

That smile, or is it a smile? – I couldn’t figure it out. I wasn’t sure if those eyes were saying, ‘what am I doing here, I don’t need to be doing this’, or, ‘if this prat says anything stupid, I’m straight out the door’.

In the event, during our podcast chat he was charming. His facial look was resigned, enigmatic, world-weary. I’d say there’s very little in the business world that Pat Egan has not seen or experienced.

Promoter margins

One of my favourite Sunday reads is the Renatus Capital Partners’ weekly email that, among other things, analyses the accounts data of selected private companies. Based on sector and business, I try to guess what the profit margin percentage is.

When I turned to page 216 of Pat’s book, I read what was a true eye-opener in terms of what margin a music promoter might make.

In my mind, big events should carry big margins. Eh, no! In his book, Pat outlines a profit and loss sheet for an imaginary event, where gross sales are €1,620,000 (18,000 tickets at €90). He shows that if he’s lucky and the live event is a sell-out, he’s left with €55,000.

Pat reminds the reader that the promoter will have paid an upfront guarantee to the act of c.€750,000 against 95% of the net box office. At €90 a seat, a couple of hundred empty seats makes music promotion look more like gambling than business.

In Backstage Pass, Pat Egan is candid about his business ups and downs. Even though it was decades ago, I’m sure I saw him wince as he told me about the €185,000 he dropped on a Julio Iglesias concert.

Pat believed the Spanish crooner was ‘box office’, but he found out that he was just ‘a Hollywood star’ and ‘well past it’. Ouch!

Market concentration

These days, Pat Egan would find it difficult to repeat that mistake, even if he wanted to. Staging live music events has become concentrated among a few players, and in Dublin Live Nation controls most venues.

Pat related to the podcast audience: “There are very few independent promoters left in Ireland, and you can't start a new business as a concert promoter. If you want to hire a theatre or venue in Dublin, such as the Olympia, the Gaiety, the Academy, Bord Gáis Energy Theatre, or the Three Arena, they're all owned or managed by Live Nation. Years ago, I could go to the Gaiety, and if they were asking too much I could go to the Olympia. There was a variety of choice.”

For all the music promoters, margins have tightened over the years. According to Pat: “In the early days you were allowed to make money. When I started off with Billy Connolly, I was on an 80/20 split, but over time the real money disappeared. The squeeze on promoters started with Peter Grant, Led Zeppelin’s manager, who insisted on 95/5 split in the band’s favour.

“Even when promoting middle of the road acts now, who might attract 1,000 to 1,500 people, it’s difficult to turn a profit. Venue rents have increased and there are more restrictions. For an outdoor concert, compliance now costs a lot of money.

“I remember a concert we did in Dalymount Park when all I had to do was drop into Mountjoy garda station. The desk sergeant took out a big book and asked how many people we were expecting. I said about 20,000, and all he asked me for was a few tickets for the lads.”

From NCH to UCD

In recent decades, Pat Egan has pivoted away from rock to the type of act that suits salubrious surroundings like the National Concert Hall. The veteran promoter has had to move on from that venue too after a falling-out a few years ago.

“I was just very upset because in 2018 I had requested dates for various weekends and whenever I could get them, but the Concert Hall was closed for 101 nights that year. My business was there, and they didn't want it, but why? Well, they had a new management team in place, and they had new plans for the venue.”

Pat raised a public fuss over the issue. The result, he says, was that he was sent “to the back of the queue”. Arising from all of the above, Pat decamped to the suburbs where he has struck a deal with University College Dublin to host scores of middlebrow events per annum at the college’s O’Reilly Hall.

+ Photo: Pat Egan with Billy Connolly and Phil Coulter and back in the day with Elton John.

+ Conall O Móráin produces and presents the weekly That Great Business Show podcast.