Rataj-Berard
The Frank family (from left): Aaron, Renee, Larry, Herb, Fred, Holly and Marla.
Minutes before Johnny Cash was to play the Dane County Coliseum in 1982, Madison-based promoter Herb Frank was busy backstage when the Man in Black summoned him.
“That worried me,” recalls Frank, who often went on the road with Cash. “I asked him if he was okay. He said, ‘I sure am, Herb. Come on over here.’ And he pushed me into a chair and tied me down with nylon straps and duct tape. Then his band members each picked up a chair leg and carried me onto the stage.”
A strapped-in Herb (left) with Johnny Cash at a Dane County Coliseum show in 1982.
“Hello, I’m Johnny Cash,” the singer proclaimed to the crowd, before pointing to Frank. “And that’s Herb Frank. Tonight, after all these years of working with me, he’s going to see the whole show.”
Herb Frank, now 81 years old, had a well-earned reputation as a tireless worker. He did go on to see countless shows over the course of his career as patriarch of Frank Productions, the Madison-based, third-generation, family-owned concert promoter that celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2015. The company is one of a handful of independents remaining after years of industry consolidation, during which global giants Live Nation and AEG Live swallowed up or shut down smaller competitors.
Frank Productions boasts a long history of working with some of the biggest artists in the business — from Cash to Eric Church, from Metallica to Muse, and from Five Finger Death Punch to Cage the Elephant. It will bring Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band to Milwaukee on March 3 and Mumford & Sons to the Coliseum on April 22. The company hosted the Avett Brothers at historic Breese Stevens Field last fall, and has plans for three new concerts there later this year.
Fred Frank (right) greeted comedian Steve Martin backstage at the Coliseum in 1978.
The company has offices in Madison, as well Nashville and Boise, Idaho, where Frank Productions promotion partners CMoore Live+ and National Shows 2 are located.
It took over Freakfest in 2007 and recently ventured into artist development and business management. The company is also expected to open by late 2017 its own live music venue in the 800 block of East Washington Avenue. The venture will reap financial rewards for Frank Productions in the form of booked shows, alcohol sales and potential private event rentals. But the development is controversial, sparking concerns about neighborhood impacts from nearby residents and competition from other live-music operators.
The Franks say the space will fill a gap in the market, attracting acts that currently bypass secondary markets like this one. It will do what the company has always done for Madison, says Charlie Goldstone, the 35-year-old president of Frank Productions Concerts and the only non-Frank to hold a leadership stake in the company.
“For its size, Madison punches way above its weight class,” he says. “The main reason for that is that since the late ’60s, this city has had a local family dedicated to bringing in major acts.”
Herb Frank’s move to Madison in 1962 was reported by The Capital Times.
Although Herb Frank is still involved in Frank Productions, the company today is in the hands of his sons, Larry Frank, 58, and Fred Frank, 55 — along with, respectively, their spouses, Marla Frank and Holly Frank, and two of their children, Renee Frank and Aaron Frank. Herb’s wife, Sylvia, passed away in 2006, two weeks shy of celebrating her 50th wedding anniversary with Herb.
“I thought all families got along, because we always did,” Fred says. “If we had a disagreement or an argument, we’d work it out with a lot of give and take. It wasn’t until later in life that I realized there are families that are dysfunctional. I know that sounds corny, but it’s the truth.”
Adds Larry: “I think we spent many years fighting consolidation, so we didn’t have a chance to argue with each other.”
On a square table in the conference room overlooking the 100 block of Wilson Street, in the colorful, trendy industrial headquarters Frank Productions has called home for the past three years, sit stacks of huge, well-thumbed binders.
The binders are stuffed with 8½-by-11-inch black-and-white photographs of almost every major rock, pop and country star from the 1960s through the 1980s: the Bee Gees, the Carpenters, Cheap Trick, Bob Dylan, Glen Campbell, Waylon Jennings, KISS, Buck Owens, Dolly Parton, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, Queen, REO Speedwagon, Rush, Styx, Van Halen and Frank Zappa & the Mothers of Invention. There also are photos of more easily forgotten acts such as Air Supply and Quarterflash. Nearly every single one is autographed by the artist specifically to Herb Frank.
There’s even a “Certificate of Insanity” from Alice Cooper issued to Herb “in appreciation of...prolonged, strange, erratic and otherwise twisted behavior.”
David Michael Miller
O.A.R. performs at Freakfest in 2007, the year Frank Productions took control of the annual Halloween celebration.
You could easily argue that type of behavior is a prerequisite for entering the music promotion business. The hours can be long, the travel harsh, the financial risk high, the temptations great, the politics demanding and the future uncertain. Relationships can be solidified or destroyed in an instant.
Herb Frank left the theater district of his native Chicago in 1962 to bide his time in Madison while planning a move to California for greater opportunities. Instead, he never left Madison, opening Madison Ticket Agency in 1965 with Sylvia at what was then known as the Dane County Coliseum. Eventually, Herb Frank Enterprises was born to promote live music (primarily family entertainment and country acts). The name officially changed to Frank Productions in 1975, and the business was built on Herb’s motto: “Let’s put an ass in every seat.”
Herb says he fell in love with Madison, and the opening of the Dane County Coliseum, along with brisk business at other local theaters, convinced him to stick around and make a go of it here.
Today Frank Productions employs about 20 full-time people and dozens of part-timers. Together, they oversee production, logistics, ticketing, marketing, sponsorship, security and merchandising of live events. And Madison Ticket Agency still exists, as the Alliant Energy Center’s Ticketmaster outlet.
As a family unit, Frank Productions has survived five decades of rampant change and industry turmoil. According to the Grand Rapids, Mich.-based Family Business Alliance, about 30% of all family-owned businesses in the United States successfully transition to a second generation, while only 12% make it to the third generation.
“My mom and dad had a pretty simple principle, which was: You work,” Fred says. “So as soon as we were old enough to sell tickets, programs, T-shirts, cotton candy or popcorn, we were expected to work.”
Frank Productions established its reputation by building long-term relationships with country acts like Cash and later Alan Jackson and Springsteen — becoming their primary promoters for years. The company also brought hundreds of acts to Madison and surrounding markets.
The brothers Frank, who attended Madison Memorial High School, learned the concert promotion business — and the lifestyle that went with it — early on and integrated into it seamlessly. Their wives say they knew what they were getting into when they joined the family. “It was very apparent that when you’re married, you sell tickets, you go to shows, you’re part of the culture,” says Holly. “So we put in a lot of weekends and evenings. If you wanted to spend time with your spouse, that’s what you did.”
Holly is a contract specialist with the company, and Marla is the chief financial officer and also runs Yellow Silo Business Management, an independent entity that manages the business affairs of Baraboo’s alternative folk/indie rock darlings PHOX.
These days, Larry and Fred work at abutting desks, facing each other. They’re in the office a lot more now, having done their time on the road for most of their lives, going back to their childhoods.
As chief executive officer and chief operating officer, respectively, Larry and Fred co-manage the day-to-day operations of Frank Productions. (A third and younger brother, Michael Frank, lives in Madison and works in genetics at the University of Wisconsin.)
“What Larry and Fred have done with Frank Productions, I would never have been able to do,” says Herb, who transitioned the business to his sons between 2000 and 2004. “I was getting older and tired and was on the road a lot with a couple of acts. They grabbed it and made it what it is today by building partnerships and expanding the business to Nashville and Boise.”
David Michael Miller
The Avett Brothers concert last fall was the first major concert at Breese Stevens Field.
Larry and Fred Frank took over Frank Productions when the concert industry was in the midst of an upheaval that Billboard magazine claimed would “wipe independent promoters off the map.” Frank Productions was hanging on — although not as tightly as it once did.
Staff was cut way back, and many independent promoters gave in or gave up, allowing Live Nation and AEG Live to control about two-thirds of the marketplace today.
“We’ve had conversations [with potential buyers] over the years,” Larry says. “It’s always been very interesting, because they figured since we were operating out of Madison, Wis., it would be easier to put us out of business than to buy us.
“What we had to figure out was this: How do we become No. 3, as an independent, as an option,” he continues. “Our goal is not to be No. 1 or No. 2. Our goal is to be an option for acts out there that are looking at doing things differently.”
Doing things differently for Frank Productions means beefing up its efforts to build lasting relationships organically with artists — a strategy that can be traced back to the early days.
“The idea of what we do now, how we treat acts and what we present to them goes back to then, but the way we go about trying to explain it to the acts is much different,” Larry says. “The younger acts have to make a choice; the acts back then didn’t. Do you want the large money right now and hope for the best? Or do you want to try to have a 10-, 15-, 20-year career? We’re out there saying we can help you have that longer career.”
“Because if it’s just about the money, we’re really not your guys,” adds Fred, who often finishes sentences that Larry starts, and vice-versa. “But if it’s about becoming one of those legendary acts that can tour for the rest of your life, we can help you go down that road. We’ve done it a number of times.”
“We’re finding the younger bands are looking for that,” Larry concludes.
Frank Productions recognized the viability of promoting package tours — an idea with roots in the company’s 2000 Summer Sanitarium Tour featuring Metallica, Korn, Kid Rock, Powerman 5000 and System of a Down, which played 21 stadium shows in 18 cities in about six weeks.
The company soon found other opportunities in the active rock market and created a niche with co-headlining tours featuring up-and-coming bands playing 6,000- to 8,000-seat venues in secondary markets hungry for hard rock and heavy metal acts. Tickets prices are kept around $40. Today, California-based metal band Avenged Sevenfold, which has exploded in recent years, wants to tour exclusively with the company, Goldstone says.
Five Finger Death Punch, seen here with Renee and Fred, are among Frank Productions’ major current acts.
“I think the Franks are uniquely positioned, because of their ability to recognize artists on the ground level and take them to the next level,” says Tag Evers, 59, a longtime local street promoter who’s brought more than 300 shows to the Barrymore Theatre since 1993. His company, True Endeavors, merged with Frank Productions in 2012 and helped Frank Productions expand into more indie rock, world music and underground hip-hop shows at both the local and national levels.
Of Larry and Fred Frank’s five children, two — Renee Frank and Aaron Frank, both 28 — followed their parents into the family business. Renee is the company’s marketing manager, and Aaron is an artist manager with ABI Management, a Nashville-based affiliate of Frank Productions working with such artists as Australian guitarist Tommy Emmanuel (who played Shannon Hall in December) and SIMO, a fast-rising Nashville-based blues band that performed at Atwood Fest last summer and is scheduled to play the High Noon Saloon on March 24.
“I definitely considered other options,” says Renee. “But I always knew that I wanted to be part of Frank Productions. After graduating college, I did take a job working for a company in Reedsburg that manufactures water softener parts for a company in China. That’s not very interesting — at all. But it was important to do that and try something else to see if I still felt drawn to this business, and I did.”
Much of the focus of Frank Productions in the near term will be on its new 35,000-square-foot music venue, which is part of the $69 million Gebhardt Development project known as the “Cosmos.” Construction is expected to start this summer.
The Franks say their goal for the 2,300- to 2,700-person venue, which would average eight to 10 shows per month, is to attract the kind of artists who would otherwise play the Riverside Theater or the Rave in Milwaukee.
“This is something that is on the top of our list and something we’ve given great thought to and done an enormous amount of research on,” Fred says. “And this is something that Madison’s missing. We truly believe by building this venue at the size we are proposing, we’ll be bringing acts to Madison that are currently skipping us. Yes, Madison gets a lot of shows. But let me tell you: Madison is also missing a lot of shows. This could easily bring in another 100 shows to this market.”
Owners of other venues in the city have privately questioned the scalability of the new venue. The bigger the seating area, the better, they say. But if acts that might be best served in an existing smaller room are booked into the new space, politics within the local concert scene could get sticky.
Gebhardt Development
A rendering of the “Cosmos” project, which includes the Frank Productions’ music venue as an anchor tenant.
When asked last summer by Isthmus if the new venue’s capacity would pose a competitive threat to such venues as the Orpheum Theater or the Capitol Theater, Larry Frank said “definitely not,” adding that the company was building the space “for 10 years down the road. As Madison grows, we want to make sure we’re the right size.”
The Franks stress how intimate the new venue will be. With only a few hundred actual seats, the room will be designed to create a friendly and informal standing environment.
The space originally was slated for two blocks away, but city officials pulled their support in 2014 — citing parking and traffic concerns in the nearby Tenney-Lapham neighborhood. The Franks considered moving the project to Nashville before striking a local deal last summer with developer Otto Gebhardt, who had earlier announced plans to partner with a different promoter.
“We’re going to build something that bands are going to walk out of and say that was the best night of the tour — not only from the fan experience but from behind the curtain: dressing room, catering, bus parking, lounge area, everything,” Fred says. “When bands have a good time, word spreads like wildfire.”
“The arena shows are slowly disappearing, and to stay active in the business, we needed to start looking at building a room like this,” Larry adds. “If it works in Madison, we hope to expand into other secondary markets.”
Says Fred: “That’s the next chapter for this family.”
