Summary: Fame Kills Tour

1.) After Kanye backed out of the Fame Kills tour, the three touring options were to go on with the arena tour as a solo act, go on tour but in smaller venues than originally, or just straight up cancel the tour. Going on the arena tours would cost a lot more for advertising and stage equipment but has the greatest margin for profits. The smaller venue tour would cost less that it would to set up an arena tour but ticket prices would be lower and fewer tickets would be made available. The third option of canceling the tour is by far the most straight forward and easy to pursue however would result in a financial loss from prepaid expenditures I were Troy Carter, the touring option that I would choose would have to be stick with the arena tour. All three options had their pros and cons, but from a financial and business point of view, the arena tours would allow more of her fans to come out and see her which means good publicity, tickets are more expensive, and profits would be much higher despite a higher investment on stage setup equipment and the nature of a higher risk.
2.)
According to the article, an arena tour could seat 16,000 to 20,000 people at $100 to $150 per ticket.
Assuming all arenas booked sat 20,000 people and all tickets sold at the constant rate of $150 she would rake in $3 million a show and after all 25 concerts, she would have made $75 million minus the $12 million for gear and other costs generating a grand total of $63 million. At the smaller venues, she would be able to sell roughly 8,000 tickets at $100 each generating $800,000. After all shows had been performed and costs accounted for, Gaga could walk away with $14 million. Canceling the tour however would require no additional equipment costs, but the money she had already spent would not be returned and she would be $4 million in the
hole.
3.) In regards to Lady Gaga's main partners, Live Nation, WME (Willie Morris Endeavors), and Interscope Records, not all companies want necessarily the same thing. As a general rule of thumb, the more successful Gaga becomes, the more her partners will be able to utilize her success and make it profitable. Since Live Nation directly handles ticket sales, and makes money from that they would prefer her to take the arena tour offering more tickets to the general public giving them more room for income. WME and Interscope however, are able to profit from Gaga more so when her fame and reputation is at the highest. Because of that, their incentives are aligned with Gaga because her success directly correlates to theirs.
4.) When examining Gaga's launch and early career, it is easy to say that Lady Gaga had a phenomenal beginning. Lady Gaga has been able to show people over the years that despite the common culture of heavily electronically manipulated vocals to cover up some talentless singers, that there is hope and people like her truly have musical talent, not to mention her incredible range in music composition. After dropping her debut album The Fame, it was clear she was on the path to stardom once she had three incredibly successful songs from the album. Her presence in the gay rights movement has also brought in many additional fans that stand beside her on such controversial topics. Since Gaga clearly prefers to stay directly in touch with her fans, she likes to take the reigns of her own social media posts. Her team has successfully used her connection with fans and turned it into profitable tours across the US. Her team could further develop the touring schedules routine by more heavily promoting her current albums and using those as the foundation for new tour dates.
5.) In todays current music industry, it is nearly impossible for a recording artist to make a substantial profit from album sales alone, at least not while piracy is so prevalent and while labels take nearly every penny from the songs that actually to get sold. This leads to the growing importance of using the fame from album recording success to start a highly profitable tour. Because of this current trend, Gaga's team needs to focus on marketing her albums to gain publicity, which leads to sold out tours and ultimately a great deal of money. Once people go to her shows and see first hand her crazy antics and wardrobe, they will surely become hooked little monsters (little monsters is the name Gaga has dubbed her fans).

Works Cited
Elberse, Anita, and Michael Christensen. "Lady Gaga (A)." Harvard Business School 016th ser. 9.512 (2011): 1-28. Print.
Elberse, Anita, and Michael Christensen. "Lady Gaga (B)." Harvard Business School 016th ser. 9.512 (2011): 1-15. Print.