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Key Brand Entertainment, Inc. (KBE) is a producer and distributor of live theater in North America, as well as an e-commerce company, focused on theater. KBE was founded in the UK in 2004 by John Gore who is the company's CEO and Owner.
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KBE’s assets include Broadway Across America (BAA), the premier theater touring organization in North America, six theaters in Boston, Baltimore, and Minneapolis; interests in NETworks Presentations and The Booking Group, as well as the e-commerce website Broadway.com.
History
Key Brand is a successor to a number of theatrical production and distribution companies acquired through acquisition and/or merger. These include: Livent, Clear Channel Entertainment, PACE Theatrical Group, Magicworks and others. As such it retains interests in a large number of Broadway productions and various related rights. The company was amalgamated into Broadway Across America under Clear Channel Communication's ownership.
Broadway Across America became a business unit of Live Nation, Inc. following the spin-off of Live Nation from Clear Channel Communications on December 25, 2005. Clear Channel acquired the assets of Live Nation, which principally consisted of live concert venues and amphitheaters devoted primarily to rock music in February 2000. Clear Channel acquired the company under the name SFX Entertainment which was owned primarily by Robert F.X. Sillerman.
SFX Entertainment, in turn, was founded by Sillerman in order to "roll up" businesses associated with live entertainment, principally rock music. He began by acquiring Delsner/Slater Concerts in 1996 and a number of acquisitions followed rapidly thereafter. Sillerman's entry into theater began with the acquisition of PACE Theatrical Group in October 1997. In September 1998, SFX acquired Magicworks Entertainment, Inc. This Miami-based company promoted concerts and managed touring events such as magician David Copperfield and musicals Jekyll & Hyde and Evita. It had been a partner of PACE unit PACE Theatricals for some time. PACE, in turn, was controlled by Texas-based theater veteran Allen Becker. Also acquired was production company American Artists, which controlled several theaters in the Boston area including the historic Colonial Theater. Magicworks had been controlled by Lee D. Marshall and Joe Marsh (Lee and Marsh later reunited in the company Magic Arts & Entertainment). The summer of 1999 saw court approval granted for a purchase of the bankrupt Livent (then controlled by Canadian entrepreneur Garth Drabinsky and CAA founder Mike Ovitz), a deal that had been initiated a year earlier. Livent, once one of the premier theatrical production companies, owned such touring shows as Ragtime and Fosse, as well as a number of venues in Canada and the United States. Its bankruptcy had been attributed to widespread accounting fraud. In early 2000 SFX acquired Jujamcyn Productions of Minneapolis, a touring theatrical production company. SFX already owned half of Jujamcyn, acquired through PACE Entertainment.
In addition to the above companies and assets, SFX also acquired (and then sold to Clear Channel) a large number of theatrical and other venues in the UK from Apollo Leisure Group.
On December 16, 2010, Key Brand completed the acquisition of Theater Direct International from Hollywood Media Corp. for an announced price of $43.1 million in cash and other consideration, which owns and operates the following content-driven e-commerce websites: Broadway.com, Theater.com, Theatre.com, and Theatre.co.uk. Broadway.com is the premier theater website for US theater news, exclusive content, and ticket sales. It has been the most influential source for obtaining Broadway information since 2009, according to The Broadway League Audience Demographics report. In May 2012, Key Brand completed the acquisition of BroadwayBox.com, the leading website for discount theater tickets in New York. In December 2012, Key Brand completed the acquisition of Group Sales Box Office (GSBO), the largest group sales agency on Broadway.
Awards
Key Brand Entertainment was awarded several awards: