Alex Kroke | billboard.com
On Thursday, June 4, Madonna surprised crowds in New York City’s Times Square with a concert. Emerging from secret doors within a billboard three stories above Broadway, the acclaimed pop star debuted the city’s new concert venue: The Square.
Up on the towering stage, Madonna put on a brief performance featuring fan favorites from Confessions and two singles from her new album, Confessions II.
The performance, in partnership with Grindr to celebrate Pride Month, not only promoted her upcoming album, but also acted as the official launch of The Square venue.
“We thought [Madonna] was the right person to talk across multiple generations of fans,” said Jeff Marks, CEO of Innovative Partnerships Group. “You don’t get someone better than her who can talk to anyone in the world.”
Innovative Partnerships Group contributed to the creation of the venue, investing billions of dollars in the project. Billboard reported that an exact number was not provided.
Residing beneath the Hilton Tempo Hotel, The Square features 10 floors of spaces designed for brand experiences and live performances. Brands will be able to bring in artists to perform on the stages located both inside the building and outside, where Madonna performed, while broadcasting the performance to the venue’s digital billboard.
“It was built for curators, content creators, influencers to create cultural moments,” Marks said. “The Square was built for a digital world.”
While Madonna’s show marked the venue’s official opening, artists such as Charli XCX, Shakira and Post Malone have also utilized the stage to promote albums in recent years.
“When an artist wants to do their album drop, they play here because you come on stage and it becomes global overnight,” Marks says. “And what we’ve been told by each artist that tested The Square to date is that, when they did their next album drop, it was the most successful launch of all their albums.”
After Thursday’s performance, The Square is now fully open, including an events space on the ninth floor, the second-floor broadcast studio and the Palace Theater, which was hydraulically moved up to the third and fourth floors on the back half of the property.
Due to city restrictions for open-air pop-up events, outdoor performances will be limited to a 15-minute window. Performers will be able to finish their concerts inside with a smaller group of fans behind the doors of the digital billboard. Also in line with city permits and to prevent too large a crowd, these surprise performances will not be announced sooner than 30 minutes in advance.
Fans can hear the rest of the concert happening inside by scanning a QR code and streaming the audio from their personal listening devices. In line with the venue’s extensive marketing tactics, the QR code also allows brands to know who is engaging with their content.
“Every single time, it fills up and goes all the way down to 42nd or 43rd [Streets],” Marks said. “It feels like millions and millions of people, and you can’t move. Three hours ago, no one knew this was going to happen.”
The Square also features broadcasting technology that allows artists to communicate to the masses in Times Square through the venue’s digital billboard, just by tapping their phones.
“It’s a safe place for artists to stay here and live in residency,” Marks says. “Your private backstage elevator drops you off at each floor. You can still communicate, because you’re interacting with your fans on the screen. You can [also] pop out and look down on them, but you’re in a safe environment.”
The Square acts as a uniquely spontaneous venue, with unticketed, surprise shows for thousands of Times Square passerby — also allowing for wide success across social media.
“The Square is a music venue, but it’s really for brands and advertisers to have a place to showcase a new product or service,” Marks says. “You could do a concert; you could bring your products on stage. [A company] can get all of their store vendors to be part of it as well. So, all of a sudden, you’re getting a $1 billion showroom, and you can choose your most critical days to do it.”
Outside of concerts, The Square will also generate revenue through product launches, event rentals, film/TV shoots and pop-up retail. The venue offers several options at different price points: smaller private events hosted on the ninth-floor outdoor terrace or 10th floor interior space; medium-sized events such as pop-up retail and brand experiences on the venue’s ground floor; broadcast and content studio rentals on the second floor; and speaking engagements or industry events on the third and fourth floors.
The Square is aiming to host 10 to 12 large events each year, and hopes to rival the cultural impact of the Las Vegas Sphere. Artists will also benefit from the venue’s structure by saving on usual concert production costs, as the billboards across Times Square include a livestream of the set.
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