Research into an Entrepreneur: Harvey Goldsmith

Harvey Goldsmith is a producer and promoter of rock concerts, charity events and television broadcasts. He has produced, managed and promoted shows with most of the world’s major artists, including Led Zeppelin, The Bee Gees, Rod Stuart, U2 and more.

Strengths

The strengths that I have managed to find of Harvey Goldsmith were that he was a great organizer.

He has a long list of events that he has managed to put together dating back to the late 1970’s.

These events couldn’t have been put together without the help of other people. Therefore he would have had help from both Artiste Management Productions Limited – which he had formed in 1973 to produce and manage Artists in the music industry, and Harvey Goldsmith Entertainments Limited – Which was formed in 1976 and became the UK’s leading promoter of concerts and events.

These 2 companies alone would give him the experience that he would need to work with major artists and promote then through concerts and events. The success of both the artist and events that Harvey had been involved in would attract more media attention and more artists wanting to work with him.

Finally, we have found that Harvey has hosted or helped in some way organize a lot of charity events. This is definitely a big strength for him as it brings all the other strengths together. Artists want to promote their music and by performing at a huge charity event, it will not only raise a lot of money for charity, but it will also boost the Artists reputation. Therefore attracting more attention from charities, artists and the media to Harvey Goldsmith.

Weaknesses

After struggling to identify any weaknesses for Harvey Goldsmith, it starts to raise a debate to whether he is a man or machine?

However, there was one incident that I had found that happened back in 1999 involving his company Harvey Goldsmith Entertainments LTD. In an interview a few years later, Harvey specifically mentions this event and blames himself for not being in control of the company.

In the same interview with the daily mail, Harvey Goldsmith admits he can get aggressive easily. In one meeting he had apparently flipped a table full of spaghetti over 2 executives for Earls court. He did however manage to secure their business deal after the outburst, however, I’m certain that this approach in a business meeting will not always have a successful outcome for Harvey.

Failures

There are 2 main failures that I’ve found for Harvey Goldsmith.

The first was an event that he had organized for the total eclipse in 1999. The festival took place in Devon and Cornwall. Only 7 thousand people turned up out of the 25 thousand that were expected, which resulted in a loss of 8 hundred thousand pounds.

The loss of this event had resulted in the failure of Harvey Goldsmith Entertainment LTD. The company had organized the event and had ended up going into liquidation because of it.

Successes

Harvey Goldsmith’s success mainly comes from the events that he has been involved in. A few examples include:

His promotion of the first major global TV event, The Concerts for Kampuchea in 1978 at Hammersmith Odeon in London. The event raised over 2 million dollars from the worldwide sales and featured artists including Paul McCartney, Queen and The Who.

He produced Live Aid with Sir Bob Geldof in 1985, which raised 140 million pounds for the starving in Africa.

In 1991 he produced Pavarotti in Hyde Park, which was the first concert in 20 years to be held in Hyde Park.

In May 2005, the Band Aid Trust asked Harvey to produce Live 8 worldwide. The even took place on July 2 2005 and presented the biggest collection of artists (225) all on one day in eight locations around the world. The TV coverage set world records with 160 TV networks around the world showing the even live, plus 400 radio stations. In addition, Harvey secured the partnership of AOL and Nokia. AOL’s coverage of the five key events were ground breaking and have become a benchmark for global events.

Unique Talents

Finally, Harvey Goldsmith has a few unique talents. Most of the ideas and events that he puts on have never been done before and are new to the industry. One of many examples of this was shown in 1990. Harvey produced the first of three major Arena Opera Productions – Aida, Carmen and Tosca.

He is also heavily involved in a lot of charity events. After his involvement in producing Live Aid, he had joined the Princes Trust in 1982 and produced the first Princes Trust Rock Gala. Harvey then became a member of the Princes Trust Board and Vice Chairman of Princes Trust Trading Limited.

Harvey is also a big risk taker when it comes to developing his companies and reputation. In an interview online, Harvey talks about a risk he took for an event called the Garden Parties at Crystal Palace Bowl. He had agreed to pay one million pounds to get Bob Dylan and Eric Clapton to perform even though he didn’t have the full amount. However, the event was successful and he managed to pay for both artists using the money made from ticket sales.

Finally, other than the fact that Harvey Goldsmith has received a number of awards for his hard work – one of which being a Diamond award presented by the Queen for his contribution in the arts, Harvey Goldsmith’s most unique talent is once again, the ability to seal a deal with 2 executives after flipping a table full of spaghetti over their suites!