Live engine
A&R Venues Co
Artist acquisition and premium audience experience.
- Food and beverage
- Tickets and showcases
- Showcase packages
- Private events
- Sponsorship
- VIP memberships
The problem
The music industry is drowning in supply
The volume of new music released globally has roughly tripled in the last five years, and AI-generated tracks now flood the same distribution channels as human artists. Spotify alone receives an estimated 120,000 new tracks a day, and roughly half of them are AI-generated.
Labels' A&R teams are smaller than they were a decade ago. The cost of finding and developing genuine talent has never been higher, and the ratio of signed to released artists has never been worse.
The industry needs a way to identify human performers who can actually hold a stage, not just a TikTok feed. No infrastructure does this today.
The system
The venue is not the business. It is the supply engine.
A&R Bar turns live performance into verified artist data, protected premium content, industry discovery and genuine talent empowerment.
Premium hospitality finances the artist intake. Every performance becomes verified data, distributable content, and a long-duration asset.
How the loop closes
Artists apply
Showcase package
Venue captures
4K video, lossless audio, 3D scan
Profile goes live
Verified on the platform
Buyers discover
Subscribe, book, sign
Revenue and holdings
Commissions and portfolio
Quality compounds
More artists want in
The structure
Three engines, one shared artist pipeline
One company, three asset classes. The venue creates supply. The platform monetises demand. The asset portfolio compounds over time.
Discovery engine
A&R Software Co
A two-sided marketplace: verified supply, paying demand.
- B2B buyer subscriptions
- Booking commissions
- Talent membership tiers
- Promoted placements
- Data and analytics
Asset engine
A&R Holdings Co
Name, image and likeness assets, captured at the discovery stage.
- Venue self-use deployments
- Third-party licensing
- Media integration
- Digital performance fees
- Revenue share with artists
Why now
The window opens once
- AI-generated music is structurally undermining the traditional A&R model. Labels need new sourcing infrastructure now.
- Immersive venue technology has matured. Multi-layer laser projection now delivers true perceived depth at 450-seat scale.
- Name, image and likeness administration is already an established business. ABBA Voyage, Tupac at Coachella, Whitney Houston touring: demand is proven and supply is structurally constrained. Capture at the discovery stage is the unexploited adjacency.
- Las Vegas is the global capital of premium experiential entertainment.
- Modern engineering compounds team velocity. A four-person platform team delivers what previously required twelve or more engineers.
The experience
Live artists. Digital collaborators. The next-gen music experience.
Pro-am musicians paired with immersive technology, delivering epic performances, all fully protected and optimized for A&R distribution.
The launch
Two cities at launch: Las Vegas, then Bangkok
Las Vegas is a purpose-built 450-seat showroom with a broadcast-grade capture stack, a multi-layer holographic stage and an integrated F&B floor, in the city that has become the world capital of premium experiential entertainment.
Bangkok follows as a 400-seat venue in a premium nightlife format, at the centre of a Southeast Asian discovery flow that Las Vegas alone cannot serve. A two-city network is a materially different proposition from a one-city promise.
Host partner, lease terms, build costs and opening timeline are shared under NDA.
- Las Vegas visitors, 2025
- 38.5MLas Vegas visitors, 2025
- Sq ft, flagship venue floor
- 11,500Sq ft, flagship venue floor
- Seats, intimate sightlines
- 450Seats, intimate sightlines
- Cities by 2032
- 6Cities by 2032
The vision
From launch pair to network: six cities, six years
Las Vegas and Bangkok open the network. Four cities follow.
- Las Vegas 2028
- Bangkok 2029
- Budapest 2030
- Hong Kong 2031
- Barcelona 2032
- São Paulo 2032
Cities chosen for capital efficiency and artist flow, not postcode prestige.
The platform
B2B SaaS for music discovery, artist development and protection
Labels subscribe to access curated artist catalogues, backed by verified live-performance video and audience data. Every artist agreement, subscription and licensing deal is anchored on Hedera, a public distributed ledger, giving both sides tamper-evident proof of date, parties and terms. Disputes resolve in minutes rather than months.
Two payers, one shared artist funnel
Demand pays for output; supply pays for development. Talent enters free and climbs a five-tier ladder, unlocking more bookings, more development services and lower commission at every step.
Understudy
Free entry. Profile plus a first booking.
Opener
Emerging performers.
Headliner
Working performers.
Resident
Established acts.
Star
Headline talent, premium flow.
On the demand side, B2B buyer seats give labels, agencies, festivals, publishers, brands, bookers and venues access to the verified catalogue. Membership pricing and commission rates are shared under NDA.
Differentiation
From passive search to controlled intake
- Talent scouts search manually
- Verified artists enter through a live-performance funnel
- Venues pay artists upfront
- Artists qualify for premium discovery infrastructure
- Platforms rely on self-uploaded content
- Every performance is professionally captured and verified
- Likeness rights fragmented across estates
- 3D performance assets created at onboarding
- Holograms are a celebrity-only format
- Digital performance assets scale across emerging artists
- Contracts opaque and disputed
- Hedera-anchored contracts, tamper-evident
Platform benefits
Built for artists. Designed for the industry around them.
A&R Bar gives human performers a verified, protected path to development, booking and discovery, while giving labels, agents, managers and industry partners trusted access to live-performance talent, secured engagements and actionable market intelligence.
For Artists
A verified path to development, booking, protection and industry access.
Verified Human Profiles
Professional artist profiles backed by authorized A&R Bar performances and real performance history.
Protected Creative Assets
Creative work, gig agreements and engagement records secured through Hedera-backed infrastructure.
Development & Wellness Access
Access to development teams, educators, coaches, professional services and complimentary wellness support.
Booking Credibility
Certification for third-party bookings, agent and manager guidance, and secured gig contracts.
Career Growth
Marketing booster campaigns, VIP equipment rental rates and preferred access to partner services.
For Industry Partners
A trusted discovery layer for labels, agents, managers and the teams around artists.
Curated Talent Access
Direct connectivity to verified artist profiles built around human performance, not algorithmic noise.
Performance Intelligence
Performance synopsis sheets, live-performance records and eligibility data for selection panels.
Direct Booking Pathways
Streamlined session, audition and engagement booking with artists and their representatives.
Protected Engagements
Hedera-secured contracts and tamper-evident records for professional, transparent collaboration.
Market & Platform Data
Global market analytics, cross-segment service access and integrated A&R Conduit APIs.
Trust architecture
The asset layer only works if artists trust the system
Seven structural protections designed into every artist agreement. Across every licensing tier, the majority of revenue stays with the artist or their estate.
- Likeness misuse
- Explicit consent, with every approved use case enumerated.
- Artist exploitation
- Transparent revenue share, audit rights and annual review.
- Territory
- Rights separated by geography, opt-in by territory.
- Term
- Fixed duration with negotiated renewal terms.
- AI abuse
- No unauthorised voice, face or performance cloning.
- Brand safety
- Approval workflows and a full content audit trail.
- Revocation
- Time-limited revocation with defined termination paths.
Drafted with experienced US music and entertainment counsel. Final terms are set out in the artist agreement and remain subject to multi-jurisdiction enforceability scoping.
The team
The people building this
David Obad
CEO
20 Years as President of NCompass Executive Recruiting, Founder of Jam Junkie Radio, and Co-Creator of A&R Bar Ventures.
Lance Stacy
COO
30 Year Hospitality Ops Journeyman, Director of Gourmet at LivingSocial, Founder of Barfly Social Club and Co-Creator of A&R Bar Ventures.
Joshua Ochoa
CTO · Head of Immersive Content
Former Tencent Motion Research and Watchmen VFX. Immersive performance-technology specialist. Los Angeles.
Stefan Rakoczi
CIO · A&R Software Co
30 years building fintech, IT and hospitality businesses across 10 countries on 4 continents. Architectural leadership. Chiang Mai.
Anibal Fernandez
CGO
Two decades scaling global hospitality and entertainment. Senior Vice President of Hard Rock International's Cafe Division.
Curtis Schlaufman
CMO
Brand and growth marketer across crypto, fintech and deep tech. VP of Marketing and Communications at DeFi Technologies and Valour.
Scott Carlson
Board
40 Year Entertainment Industry Veteran serving as an Executive Producer, Talent Manager, Record Label Founder and a Genuine Raconteur.
Jason Mandel
Strategic Advisor
Co-founder of LaunchSquad (100+ person PR and go-to-market firm; prior brands include Uber and Netflix).
Strategic counsel: an experienced US music and entertainment law firm, engaged from inception. Firm name shared under NDA.
Register interest
See the full picture
The full deck, financial model and unit economics, the host-resort partner, build costs and the milestone calendar are available under NDA. Register your interest and we'll be in touch.