Gaetano Fazio: 'It's a dream for soundtrack composers to see their music rightfully recognised'

How did you become a producer specialising in gaming music concerts?

After graduating from university in Italy I moved to the US to pursue a career in the music industry, and my first job was to work for a small concert promoter in New York City. The promoter occasionally worked on video game music concert and, as music and video games are two of my biggest passions, working on those concerts was a dream combination for me.

You launched SOHO Live in 2016, could you tell us more about the idea behind the company?

I launched the company in New York City in 2016 with a business partner (who later left the company in 2019), and we continued to other full-time jobs in other industries – in my case advertising – while we built up a portfolio of projects and clients with SOHO Live.

With SOHO Live, we of course wanted to work on concerts of the gaming and anime (a style of Japanese film and television animation) music we were passionate about, but we also saw how much demand there was in the market for these types of concerts, so we thought this industry had good potential for growth. However, we didn’t want to act only as their promoter, as I had done in my previous role, instead we wanted to become the actual producers behind them. This way, we worked directly with the owners or original creators of this intellectual property (IP) to create concerts from scratch, controlling both the creative and the business sides of each project.

As for the name, we wanted something connected to New York, the city in which the company was created, so we thought of the neighbourhood of SoHo. Since we work on concerts all over the world, we liked the fact that there are many Soho neighbourhoods that can be found in cities across the globe, but they all have different origins (South of Houston in NYC, for example, and South of Hollywood in Hong Kong and even an old hunting call in London). In short, it has both a local and global appeal and we thought it very fitting for the type of company we wanted to create.

How has SOHO Live grown across the last nine years?

At the beginning we were primarily offering a range of services to the producers of other video game and anime concerts, such as finding and booking local orchestras for their shows, handling their social media advertising to help them sell more tickets and booking them to perform at video game or anime conventions. Gradually, we gained more experience in various aspects of the industry, until I realised that we had all the knowledge in-house to actually develop our own productions rather than simply assist other producers.

So, after a few slow years during COVID, in late 2022 I left my advertising job to dedicate myself to SOHO Live full-time and re-launched the company in Japan in partnership with event company Empire Entertainment Japan. I am happy to say that after a few short years we have already managed to create some of the biggest video game concert tours ever made (our 2025-26 Stardew Valley: Symphony of Seasons tour will have more than 100 shows), and that we are working with some of the biggest names in the gaming industry such as Hideo Kojima, with whom we have just announced the DEATH STRANDING Strands of Harmony tour which will premiere later this year at the Sydney Opera House.

Having grown up in Italy and launched SOHO Live in the US, what made a move to Japan the right next step for a company of this kind?

Most of the world’s most popular video games – which also have great soundtracks – are made in Japan, and all the anime companies are here as well. Our goal is to create the official concerts of these popular IPs by collaborating with their rightsholders, but these Japanese companies are (rightfully) very protective of their IPs and how they are handled by third parties like us. To gain their trust it’s important to have a close relationship with those companies, by being physically here and speaking their language.

In your recent feature with Games Industry.biz you describe the current period as a ‘golden age of video game concerts’ – what do you think makes the current cultural climate so perfect for this genre?

I don’t think there have ever been this many game or anime concerts in the market, it’s really great to see that. I think it comes from a combination of different factors. Firstly, the massive size of the video game industry today and the anime boom that happened as a result of the Covid pandemic. Fans now want to connect with other people in their community, experiencing their favourite anime or game together, in the same room, as opposed to on their phones or consoles. IP holders are also looking for new ways to monetise their properties through concert licensing and related merchandise. Most importantly, today many of the producers in charge of these concerts actually grew up playing those games and watching those anime series. We are actual fans of these IPs and we put a lot of dedication in creating these experiences, as opposed to seeing it purely as a business opportunity.

When putting together concerts you’re often working alongside the game's composer – what do you think is key to making this collaboration a success?

It’s crucial for the composer to be willing to support the project (sharing with us, for example, the original materials used to record the music) while at the same time being open to having another arranger or orchestrator re-work their music for a tour. Luckily, all the composers we have worked with have been extremely helpful and enthusiastic about our tours. It’s often a dream for them to have their music played by orchestras all over the world, and to see their music rightfully recognised as something that lives on its own rather than solely existing in the background of a game or anime.

You manage everything from IP issues to orchestration – how do you balance navigating both the practical and creative sides of producing these concerts?

Yes, there are many aspects to handle, and we are still a small team where everyone wears many hats. In our office we focus primarily on IP licensing, tour booking and marketing, but we are not professional musicians or engineers, so we have a trusted network of partners all over the world that we hire to write arrangements, for example, or to to run the technical side of the productions, or hire orchestras in each market.

I think there is always a benefit in having some separation between the business and the creative side. Ultimately these are our productions, and we are in charge of final decisions, but we do our best to find a balance between the two and compromise whenever it’s feasible.

You have managed media campaigns across a wide range of industries, from tech and tourism to pharmaceutical and financial services – how does your experience in these fields inform your work in concerts and performance?

I worked with those clients back at my advertising jobs, while I was still running SOHO Live on the side, and I learned a lot about advertising and market research which turned out to be a great set of skills to have in the concert industry as well. You can create the best show in the world, but if it’s not properly branded and advertised then nobody will buy tickets.

How does the classical music industry compare to your work in these other fields?

The classical music industry is very different indeed. During my advertising years I worked in a very structured corporate environment with its own set of rules and, while some of those rules still apply to the large video game companies we work with, it’s often the complete opposite of the way venues and orchestras work, which are run by smaller teams where roles are less defined.

In large organizations everyone specialises in a very specific role and often doesn’t touch other departments at all. Personally, I am glad to have left the corporate world behind for this more flexible style of work, where every day we touch a myriad of different aspects, from licensing contracts to art direction and from PR to logistics. 

SOHO Live uses game sales numbers, streaming data and surveys to decide when and where to present concerts – why is this data-backed approach so important?

All that data is vital to plan a proper tour that touches all the right markets. Simply put, it tells us where there is demand for our shows so we can make sure to cover those markets in our tours. Of course, places like the US or UK will always have a solid demand for tickets, but before planning something in less-established markets we always want to make sure there are enough potential audience members there who will be interested in buying tickets. Looking at sales data you can find out that a game is surprisingly popular in a country you weren’t planning to include in a tour.

As well as these pockets of unexpected popularity for your projects across the globe, how else has the video game genre surprised you?

There have been a lot of surprises in dealing with an audience of gamers who are not really used to attending concerts, let alone orchestral ones. Every time we announce a new tour, a question we get asked often online is: ‘What is the dress code for this type of venue?’.

Our Stardew Valley tour has definitely been a very unique one, it has a fanbase that is extremely dedicated to the game and has built a very strong sense of community. Some highlights from last year’s tour include the multiple proposals we’ve had in the middle of our shows (the person who wants to propose always reaches out to us in advance to help prepare for that special moment), or being told by multiple pop or rock venues that ours was the most polite and respectful audience they have seen in a long time.