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Inside the Lucrative World of Corporate Concerts: From Morality Clauses to Multi-Million-Dollar Paydays

From Beyonce to The Beach Boys, corporate shows are a growing business for artists. But how do they get in the room and what's involved in saying yes?

Corporate performances like these occupy a small but flourishing niche of the live events industry, with companies of all sizes lining up to book current superstars, legacy acts and emerging artists to play their conferences, retreats, holiday parties and more. Leaf once produced a Super Bowl party for a media company at a private residence in Malibu, so it made perfect sense when she and the client booked The Beach Boys to sing “Surfin’ Safari” and other beachy hits while the crowd gazed out at the Pacific. Jones of EMPIRE recently played a robotics conference, an offer that gave him the chance to perform for “a room filled with people who are so ambitious and whose brains work in ways I’ve never thought of,” he says.

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