Michael Chugg’s Still Up For The Fight

25 November 2014 | 3:44 pm | Scott Fitzsimons

How his 50th anniversary year turned into a watershed twelve months for the veteran promoter

He’s pretty adamant that he’s happy to let Michael Gudinski and others fight it out for the top spot, but Michael Chugg is undeniably one of the modern industry’s great pioneers.

Celebrating 50 years in the industry in 2014, it’s been a year of new horizons for Chugg and his company Chugg Entertainment. Finally, after all these years, he is a label owner, and Chugg Music is surpassing all expectations.

"We’re pretty happy, things are tough out there"

A record breaking number one single for Brisbane band Sheppard, followed up by a number one album. Released in conjunction with MGM Distribution, they’ve done it independently and now they’re taking it to the world. With a host of other promising bands on the roster and alongside interests in the Laneway, CMC Rocks and Deni Blues & Roots (now Big Sky Blues & Roots) festivals and tours from Bob Dylan, Keith Urban, Robbie Williams and Gary Allen, it’s been a mammoth 12 months for team Chugg.

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But success on this level never comes easy.

“We’re pretty happy, things are tough out there,” Chugg says. “There’s a lot of tours not doing that well, it’s good still to have loyal clients who don’t necessarily take the stupid money that people are throwing around and stay loyal. In the end they end up making more money because they get promoted properly.”

It’s no secret what Michael Chugg thinks of certain multi-national concert promoters and he’s not been one to mince words during his career (“I think it’s been a disaster for the whole world”). But now he’s content with the direction of his empire.

“It’s a challenge, it just means Matthew [Lazarus-Hall, Chugg’s business partner] and I have to say ‘no’ more than we used to – which is okay too, you know? …We don’t lose too may [tours]. We were quite sad to lose Coldplay, but they took a worldwide deal with Live Nation – I suppose the money was just too great to knock back. So about 20 promoters who’ve been with Coldplay since the beginning are all no longer involved, so that was quite sad [but] you take these things on the chin and you go out and you look for the next big one. You get involved with them and you hopefully build them into something.

"That was quite sad [but] you take these things on the chin and you go out and you look for the next big one."

“But we’ve got a lot of loyal clients, we just had one of the most successful Bob Dylan tours ever… we sold out everywhere and as we went across the country from Perth every review just got better and better. To sell seven/eight thousand tickets while the tour was on tells the story of how good it was.”

Although there may have been a few opportunities, Chugg has never honestly entertained the thought of leaving an industry he’s been so pivotal in shaping.

“No, never. Obviously there are times when it becomes a real challenge, things don’t go right. But I’ve got a fantastic team, my partner Mathew Lazarus-Hall, Susan Heymann the General Manager of our touring department – the back-up here is incredible and everybody works together.

“Sometimes you announce tours and they don’t look too good, some organisations give up. We never give up and we work hard, and harder, and everybody gets into it and puts their back into it and nine times out of ten we bring tours that looked like they might be dogs, we bring them home. It’s great satisfaction and a great reflection on the team I've got.”