Computer Simulation with Concert
Tour Entrepreneur
©1Creative Learning Systems
Becoming a Music Mogul – Level
www.creativelearningsystems.com
What You’ll Learn…
 The origin and meaning of the word “entrepreneur”
 The many business decisions involved in running a
business
 The difference between gross sales, net sales and profit
 How to use Concert Tour Entrepreneur to simulate a
music business
Stuff You’ll Need…
 Concert Tour Entrepreneur software
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www.creativelearningsystems.com
What You Should Know…
What does it mean to be an “entrepreneur”?
There’s no one “right” answer. The word entrepreneur
was coined by a French economist named JeanBaptiste Say in the early 19th century. It has its roots in
the Latin words entre, meaning between, and prendre,
meaning to take. So in French, the word entreprendre is
a verb meaning, to undertake. Say described an
entrepreneur as “one who undertakes an enterprise,
especially a contractor, acting as an intermediary
between capital and labor”.
Jean-Baptiste Say
More commonly, an entrepreneur is considered to be someone who
assumes personal responsibility for a business or enterprise. It often
implies identifying a market opportunity and developing a product or
service to address it. Entrepreneurship is often associated with
innovation, leadership, and a certain amount of personal,
professional and/or financial risk.
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What You Should Know…
Running a business…
Have you ever tried to run a business? Even
small ventures like baby-sitting or mowing
lawns probably turned out to be more
complicated than you thought.
You needed to decide what product or service
you would offer and how much to charge for it.
You had to get the word out to potential
customers. You may have had to purchase
supplies or find resources like equipment or
transportation. You probably found that other
people were also offering the same product or
service. You may have even had difficulties
collecting money on occasion.
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What You Should Know…
Running a business…
The complexity of running larger businesses grows quickly! A great idea, a
strong work ethic and a desire to succeed aren’t nearly enough.
Soon entrepreneurs need to hire employees. They have advertising and
marketing expenses. There are overhead costs for things like rent and
electricity. They may need to borrow money from a bank or investors (and pay
it back!). They have lots of suppliers – each of whom has their own business to
worry about. There are many customers (hopefully) with different needs that
need to be satisfied. There are complicated laws and regulations that affect the
way businesses must operate.
And wherever there is opportunity, there are sure to be
lots of competitors.
It’s no wonder that most new enterprises go out of
business in the first ten years!
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What You Should Know…
Running a business…
Almost everyone knows a little about
the music business. We’ve all
probably bought CD’s or MP3
downloads. Most of us have been to
concerts. You might have a t-shirt or
poster of your favorite band. When we
listen to the radio, we’re taking part in
an important part of the music industry.
The music industry is BIG business
and we’ve all participated in the
industry as consumers. But have you
ever thought about what it takes to
actually run a music business?
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What You Should Know…
Running a business…
Think about a concert you attended. Some company had to put on
that concert. They had to contract with a band to perform. They had
to schedule concerts (plus rehearsals and rest days) in many cities,
booking concert halls or arenas well in advance. They had to get the
band and all the equipment from place to place and arrange for
places to stay when they got there. They contracted with ticket
agencies to sell tickets. They had to advertise the concerts in each
city and work with radio stations to promote the band and its music.
They had to hire set and lighting designers, road crews, costume and
makeup artists, tour bus drivers, lawyers, accountants, marketing and
business managers, caterers…the list goes on and on!
It costs a lot of money to put on a concert, so it’s a pretty good bet that the tour promoter
had to borrow money from a bank to help with all the up-front expenses. Money the bank
will want repaid!
To pay for all the costs (and hopefully make some money), the promoter has to sell a
LOT of tickets! And band merchandise. They may have even contracted with a sponsor
like a soda company to pay for advertising rights.
It’s big business. Probably a lot more complicated than you ever thought, right?
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Finding
Concert Tour
Click Start >
Quick Access >
Concert Tour Entrepreneur
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What You Should Know…
Concert Tour Entrepreneur
Concert Tour Entrepreneur (CTE) is a business simulation program that puts YOU in the
role of a music industry executive! You will borrow money to start your business, contract
with a band, book concert venues, schedule rehearsals, invest in advertising, and sell
tickets and merchandise. And hopefully make some money in the process!
You can choose to either launch CTE and follow along with this tutorial, or read it first and
wait until the Do It! section to begin your game.
When you first launch CTE, you’ll select your name and be given the option of starting a
new game or continue an existing game. Unfortunately CTE does not save your game
day-to-day.
Select your name here
-orEnter a new name here
Select Old or New Game here
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What You Should Know…
Concert Tour Entrepreneur
Next, you’ll see a welcome message. Be sure to read it, and then click “continue”.
Since this is a new business, you’ll need to borrow some money. So the next screen will
take you to the bank where you will choose what kind of loan you’ll need to start out.
Remember that you’ll need to pay it back from concert earnings – with interest!
During your game, you’ll make frequent visits to the bank. Here, you can borrow and
repay money as well as use the ATM to make withdrawals and deposit money to your
account.
Be sure to click
Help if there’s
anything you don’t
understand.
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What You Should Know…
Concert Tour Entrepreneur
Your next task is to sign a band! There are 24 bands you can choose to represent. Each
band plays one of 8 different styles of music: Blues, Country, Jazz, Latin, R&B, Rap,
Reggae or Rock. You can also choose to create your own band, but we’ll save that for
another time.
You can scroll through each band to see their name, style of music, how many concerts
they’ve performed (and how often they’ve missed the concert or arrived late). You can
read a brief description about the band and listen to a sample of their music. You’ll also
see their proposed agent’s cut: the amount they are willing to give you to be their agent.
The agent’s cut is expressed as a percentage of net sales. Net sales is the amount of
proceeds from ticket and merchandise sales left over after deducting the cost of each
concert and the merchandise sold.
Once you’ve picked a band to
represent, you can either accept
their offer for your cut, or click the
negotiate button to see if you can
get a better deal!
The amount of
sales before
deducting costs is
often called Gross
Revenue.
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What You Should Know…
Concert Tour Entrepreneur
So you have some money, called capital, to start your business, and you have a
product, a band to represent. It’s time to test your business skills as a music mogul!
The screen shown below is the main screen for this business simulation. From this main
screen you will access all the activities necessary to run your business.
Look here for important summary
information about your business
Click here to check in with the band to see
how they feel or renegotiate your contract
Click the t-shirt to order supplies and
set prices for band merchandise
Click here to access spreadsheets for
important information about your business
Click here to visit the bank to borrow or
pay back money or use the ATM
You can listen to different types of
music on the radio. Tune in to station
107.1 FM to hear the reviews of your
last concert
Music magazine has lots of useful
industry information to help you
manage your business
Click here to schedule concert dates and
advertising, plan rehearsals and rest days,
and see what else is on the calendar
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What You Should Know…
Concert Tour Entrepreneur
Start out by doing a little research on the area music scene. Click the music magazine
and see what useful information you can find about where to book your band, how CD
sales are doing, etc.
Another source of useful information is the Info I Need pull-down menu at the top of
your screen. Here you can find how much people are willing to pay for tickets, when
advertising is most effective and access all your financial spreadsheets.
The Help menu tells you more about how
each area of the game works
Click here to find helpful hints for
succeeding in the music industry
“Info I Need” Menu
Music Style Popularity Chart
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What You Should Know…
Concert Tour Entrepreneur
Managing the schedule is a critical function in this business! Drag the icons from the
bottom into your datebook to schedule concerts, rehearsals, rest days and
advertisements. You’ll need to book a concert before you can schedule any advertising.
Whenever you
have booked a
concert, be sure to
click here to set
ticket prices. Free
tickets are popular,
but not very
profitable!
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What You Should Know…
Concert Tour Entrepreneur
When you book a concert by dragging the concert icon into your date book, you’ll
see the screen below. Click on a city to see the venue (concert hall) choices. As
you’d expect, bigger venues cost more money!
Click on a concert venue to see how many
people it will hold and how much it costs
to book. Then click “Place a Reservation”
to book it!
Be sure to plan ahead
or you might find all
the locations have
been booked by other
bands!
You can click the mileage chart to see
how far it is from one city to another. If you
make your band travel too far without rest,
they get tired and their performance
quality will suffer!
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What You Should Know…
Concert Tour Entrepreneur
Now that you have your band booked for a concert, you’ll want to purchase some
advertising to let people know where your band will be playing. When you drag the
advertising icon onto your datebook, you’ll see the screen below. TV and radio
advertising costs more but reaches more people!
And don’t forget to buy some merchandise and decide how much to charge. The
band’s fans will want some souvenirs from the show!
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What You Should Know…
Concert Tour Entrepreneur
Did you remember to schedule some rehearsals? You want to make sure the band is
ready for the big show. Otherwise, you’ll have some pretty unhappy fans. And give
the band a little rest to keep them happy too.
When you’ve got everything planned, click the Play next concert button and see how
your business decisions play out!
Be ready for the unexpected problems
and opportunities that can arise in any
business!
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What You Should Know…
Concert Tour Entrepreneur
Now sit back and enjoy the show. The two indicator bars at the top show
you how sales are doing and how much the audience is enjoying the
concert.
Audience Reaction
Ticket Sales
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Questions/Research
Concert Tour Entrepreneur
So how did your concert do? Answer these questions for at least
three (3) different concerts.
Did you sell many tickets? How were merchandise sales? Were you able to cover all
your costs and maybe make a profit?
You can review your ticket and
merchandise sales here.
This chart shows how the proceeds from
the concert are divided. You are
reimbursed for your costs (assuming
there’s enough sales). Any remainder,
Net Sales, is split between you and the
band according to your contract. Your
share is your profit!
What can you conclude from this concert experience? What decisions do you think
contributed to the concert’s success (or lack of success)? What might you do differently
for the next concert to try and improve your results?
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Do It!
Concert Tour Entrepreneur
Are you ready to try running your own music business?
In this activity, your challenge is to learn as much as you can about running
a successful concert tour business using the Concert Tour Entrepreneur
simulation program.
Start a new game. Schedule a minimum of one concert a week and play for
at least three months, or as long as it takes to pay down your first loan,
whichever is longer.
Keep a daily log of what you learn from
your concert experiences and how you
might use that knowledge to improve
the results of your next concerts.
© Creative Learning Systems
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Questions/Research
 Create your own band by clicking the “create a band” note on the band
selection page.
 Concert Tour Entrepreneur is a business simulation game. How do you think
it’s similar to a real concert tour business? How do you think it’s different?
 Create a tutorial or list of helpful hints for other students in the STEM Lab.
But don’t give too much away - everyone needs to learn their own lessons
about the music business!
© Creative Learning Systems
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