Buku Musc + Art Project. Photo by Maxwell Rasche

AEG Live, the concert-world offshoot of Los Angeles-based entertainment-business juggernaut AEG, announced its acquisition of New Orleans-born Winter Circle Productions (WCP).  Winter Circle has proven to be an ambitious and wildly successful promoter that filled what proved a most profitable void locally in EDM music with their widely-celebrated Buku Fest + Art Project, filling a market niche that had never quite been captured before in New Orleans.

Founded by Reeves Price and Dante DiPasquale in 2009, WCP rode EDM’s wave from a freaky fringe to status as among music’s hottest (and highest-earning) style, most notably its formation in 2012 of Buku Music + Art Project, now an insta-sellout mega-fest drawing global talent in house, hip-hop, jam-rock and EDM. In 2013, WCP opened its New Orleans office in 2013 in a former Lower Garden District industrial space, including a back area re-purposed as home studio for its non-profit Upbeat Academy, which provides area high-school students hands-on applications for making it in the music industry. WCP was the recipient of OffBeat’s Best of the Beat Award for Best Concert Promoter in both 2011 and 2014.

“Teaming up with AEG will give us the stability and support we’ve been craving … and allows us the creative freedom to develop new projects and ideas,” Price stated in a press release. “Looking at the innovators and entrepreneurs who are already a part of the AEG Live family, there’s really no other place we’d rather be. AEG Live is no stranger to the local scene; they produce of New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, Bayou Country SuperFest in Baton Rouge (both in conjunction with Festival Productions New Orleans), and Hangout Festival in Orange Beach, Alabama. As part of its acquisition, AEG Live announced plans to establish its Gulf Coast regional office here and will now hold a stake in Buku, which WCP will continue to co-produce with Huka Entertainment and now with Goldenvoice, an AEG Live festival outfit with Coachella on its resume, hired as ‘strategic partner.'”

“We are excited to be expanding our business activities in the Gulf Coast region through this new association,” Shawn Trell, chief operating officer for AEG Live,” stated in that same release. “With our growing presence in the region’s music scene through our touring business as well as our partnership with the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival and Hangout Music Festival, it made perfect sense to further expand our regional booking presence while adding a home base for us in New Orleans.”