Marcie Allen has no trouble taking charge and running the music industry on her own terms. She has been on Billboard’s list of top Women in Music since 2010 and her company, MAC Presents, brings some of the biggest corporate sponsorship deals to the music industry by partnering clients like Citi with The Rolling Stones and Southwest with Imagine Dragons. Her unique vision for the music industry and corporate America creates a special niche where she is the leader.
To get a better sense of her work ethic and commitment to music, just look at her career history. The Tennessee native started out in the music industry as early as she could, booking bands for her prom at the age of sixteen. From there she went to Rhodes College in Memphis, TN and used her booking experience to secure talent as social chair for her sorority Tri Delt. The summer before her senior year she went to Washington, D.C. to do an internship at what would become Live Nation. The experience was so great she “was offered the position of Director of Marketing at the end of the summer,” which lead her to decide to “not to go back to my senior year in college and stay in D.C. and accept the position,” she says - a great example of how she was able to make a great impression and build relationships at a young age. The next two years were spent in D.C., after which she went to work at William Morris Endeavor back in Nashville. “Then in 1999 [I] started my first company, MAD Booking & Events,” she notes. “We booked colleges and festivals. My first client was the Voo Doo Music Experience in New Orleans.” She had a lot of success with MAD. “I had that company for five years, [with] offices in Nashville and Atlanta. We did [a festival] in Nashville, Memphis Jam in Memphis, TN, and then DC Sessions in Washington, D.C.. I did hundreds of festivals with artists performing such as Kanye West, Alanis Morrisette, John Mayer, John Legend. They were all free and funded by corporate sponsorships, so I had sponsors like Vanilla Coke, McDonald’s was my sponsor in Washington D.C., Bridgestone was my sponsor in Nashville, General Motors.”
Though MAD Booking & Events continued to expand and bring in clients, Allen grew tired of events and getting a taste of the sponsorship world inspired her to take on a new venture. She sold the company and started another one, MAC Presents, “as a bridge between the music industry and corporate America.” With her dining room as her first office space, she already knew a great deal about sponsorships and working with artists. Her first official client for MAC was Cracker Barrel Old County Store, with whom she did a sponsorship deal with Alison Krauss and Union Station. From there the big name clients kept on coming, with deals with Chrysler, Victoria’s Secret, and Microsoft just to name a few.
As if running a new company was not enough, in 2006 Allen took on another job in addition to CEO. She joined Creative Artists Agency in Nashville to create the music sponsorship department. During her year in that position she “absolutely fell in love with really doing brand partnerships with artists,” she says.
Her next big change came in 2010, when she moved MAC Presents from the Gulch in Nashville to New York City. When looking at the differences in the music industry in the two cities, she notes “in Nashville [it] is very much like one big family. It’s a little bit more fragmented up in New York, but for what I do with brands, it’s where the brands are located or their agencies are or they come here.” The increased presence of brands had a large impact on MAC, as she says her “business quadrupled in revenues when I moved to New York.”
Some of her more recent deals have included the partnership between Imagine Dragons and Southwest, where they teamed up to do four concerts in small venues across the country, as well as an in flight performance 35,000 feet in the air from Las Vegas to Atlanta. The idea of “creating harmony between brands and music,” as stated in MAC Present’s mission statement, is something that truly sets the company apart from any other in the industry. Not only do they focus on bringing two parties together, but they create events, license music, and create unique content. So in a case like the Imagine Dragons and Southwest partnership, they were able to create a special event for fans, the band, and the corporate business to experience together - something that is beneficial and exciting for everyone involved.
When it comes to day to day activities in the office to get these deals made, Allen has a lot of responsibilities. You may think she would be tied up writing emails all day, but in fact most of her time is spent doing “phone calls, phone calls, phone calls, phone calls. I always say I hate being attached to my computer, so I’ve now been in the office for three hours and as you can see my computer’s not even on,” she says, pointing to an unused Dell on her desk across the room. “To me I think that a lot of people these days get stuck in email wars, and I don’t believe in that. I think it’s still about face-to-face meetings and having a phone call, a conversation with someone. This industry, I’ve been in it 21 years, and it’s all about relationships. It’s the most important thing. So you have to be able to hear the other person’s emotions, and you can’t hear that through an email.”
The importance of relationships comes up a few times during our conversation. When asked about advice for young people trying to get a start in the industry, she points to her desk where there is a large bowl filled to the brim with business cards - noting those are just from the past six months, and she has binders filled with more in her cabinets. “Keep in touch, whether it’s a Christmas card, birthday card – show that you care. Remember that it’s not just about what people can do for you in this industry, it’s about what you can do for them. So when I get calls about jobs or hey my daughter wants to go to camp and I know you sent your step daughter there can you help me get her in, that’s what it’s about. It’s about taking care of one another and looking out for one another.” She also points out the importance of internships, saying “it’s the most important thing. If you’re in college or in high school, you need to have internship every summer, every fall, every spring.”
Giving advice to young people in the industry is not the only form of mentorship she has on her mind. She also makes sure to be a great role model for her two step daughters, aged seven and ten. Allen splits her time between New York and Nashville, putting in a lot of effort to make sure she is there for them. “I married my seventh grade sweetheart,” she says. “I went to Ensworth and he went to Harding Academy [in Nashville]. We dated in seventh grade, and then lost touch, and reconnected after we both got divorced and I had moved to New York. I am there whenever he has our girls, so that’s every other long weekend. Then when he doesn’t have the girls he comes up to New York and we have an apartment in Greenwich Village.” She notes that she wants to “show them that women, even though we’re the minority in the music industry, you can do anything you want if you put your mind to it. I think if there’s one quality I want to instill in my step daughters, it’s that.”
Being a strong female leader seems to be incredibly important to Allen. When talking I note how I appreciated her Gloria Steinham reference in this Huffington Post article last year, and she immediately makes it clear her favorite quote is “by Madeline Albright: ‘There’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help other women.’” She says there are definitely challenges faced by women in the music industry, including “Being recognized as an equal. Being paid as an equal. Being respected as an equal. I think that women now more so than ever are demanding the equality, and there are many female pioneers in the industry from Cara Lewis to Marsha Vlasic. Cara Lewis is at CAA, Marsha Vlasic is at Artist Group International, Debra Rathwell at AEG. It’s really a way for the younger women and the female leaders of tomorrow to learn and to not put up with it and to show the men in the industry that we’re not going to tolerate it.
Any advice for changing the inequality? Simply put, she says “Not put up with shit – from the guys.”
It is clear that Allen never would. When working with not only the male dominated music industry, but also corporate America, it is likely she has had to deal with many male counterparts. With all of the success she’s had with MAC Presents, hopefully there is no question in anyone’s mind that she is a capable, strong leader in the music industry. If there is any doubt, all you have to do is talk with her for a half an hour to easily see she knows how to lead and get things done - after our conversation I can now easily say she is a great female to look up to in the music industry.