Interview with Scumeck Sabottka, Founder of MCT Agentur

Scumeck Sabottka moved to West Berlin at the age of 18 and joined the local punk scene. He hired himself as Abwärts' driver in 1982, then became tour manager for Einstürzende Neubauten. He promoted his first concert at the SO36 Club in Berlin with the group SPK.

In 1984, he founded MCT together with two partners. Over time and with different partners, MCT promoted the Ramones, King Kurt, John Cale, R.E.M., Lenny Kravitz, Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Cramps, Celine Dion, Tom Waits, Tanita Tikaram, Marilyn Manson, Melissa Etheridge, Sheryl Crow, Velvet Underground, Patti Smith, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Kraftwerk, Robbie Williams, Nick Cave, and many others. For many years, Sabottka was an agent for Kraftwerk, and since 1991 to date, for Rammstein.

In 2005, he founded the ticket portal 'tickets.de', which he sold in 2010.

In 2017, filmmaker Sobo Swobodnik made a documentary "The Concert Dealer" about Sabottka. It depicts the tough, globalised business behind the concert industry. At the end of last year, MCT partnered with Live Nation's global rival, AEG.

"I first met Scumeck in the mid-80s when we were both starting our 'careers', he as promoter, me as agent,” comments Nick Hobbs who will interview Sabottka at the TMW conference. “He became much more successful than me, so my envy has no bounds. On the way, I became a promoter and he an agent. We both do both. I've always liked him personally as a true character: intelligent, curious, with good taste, provocative, dogged in the extreme, sometimes exasperatingly so, who does his own thing his way and mostly makes a success of what he does. Success notwithstanding, he's never turned into a boring suit. I'm looking forward to throwing questions at him, hopefully without bloodshed (especially mine),"

Interviewed by Nick Hobbs, Founder of Charmenko, Charmworks & Charm Musics Turkey, Serbia, Croatia-Slovenia, Hungary, Czechia-Slovakia and Poland