Trailblazers is an MBW interview series that turns the spotlight on music entrepreneurs with the potential to become the global business power players of tomorrow. This time, we meet Juan Carlos Dominguez, founder and CEO of Latin America-focused concert powerhouse Feel The Club and Feel The Tickets. Trailblazers is supported by TuneCore.
Last November, Feel The Club (FTC) partnered with Live Nation on the biggest live music event in Ecuadorian history: three nights of Shakira at Estadio Olímpico Atahualpa in Quito. But getting there required a calculated gamble: FTC founder and CEO Juan Carlos Dominguez faced a dilemma familiar to every promoter. His deal was for two shows — and when the second sold out, he had to decide whether to stick or twist.
“I had to make the decision to do a third one or not,” he says. “If I get another date, I might lose everything that I’m doing on the other two dates.”
The gamble paid off.
“It was amazing,” Dominguez says. “We sold out the same day that we went on sale.”
More than 105,000 tickets were sold across the three nights, grossing $14.4 million, according to Pollstar Boxoffice. The concerts also generated an estimated economic impact of tens of millions of dollars, reinforcing Ecuador’s credentials as a serious market for international tours.
For Dominguez, the achievement validated a theory he’d been pushing for years: that Ecuador, long treated as a market artists routed around, could support the kind of demand usually reserved for the region’s established stadium stops.
“It gives us more confidence and gets into fans’ minds that Ecuador is open for bigger things than just one show,” he says. “Now, I’m sure Ecuador is on the same level for big tours — Bon Jovi, Bad Bunny, Shakira, Karol G, Adele, Justin Bieber — high-tier artists. I’m sure that we can sell two, or even three shows.”
The strength of Dominguez’s conviction is rooted in two decades spent immersed in Latin America’s touring landscape. Born in Panama, he moved to Ecuador at 11 — his stepfather is Ecuadorian — and entered the business in 2001 through dance music, booking electronic acts such as Tiësto and Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike in Latin America while working on Ultra festival shows in the region. He later expanded into arena and stadium touring, where he worked with artists including Metallica, Maroon 5, and Bruno Mars.
This year, Ecuador welcomed Ed Sheeran for the first time (presented by Move & Sight Concerts), while FTC brought Steve Aoki back to Quito and gave The Lumineers their Ecuadorian debut.
Dominguez, who has also lined up Def Leppard in October, and The Strokes’ first-ever Ecuador show for November, says Ecuadorian crowds bring a particular intensity, which he puts down to the fact that seeing major international acts is still a relatively new experience for many fans.
“Crazy,” he says. “For example, Chile, Argentina — of course, their fans are amazing. But this is a little bit more special because it’s the first time.”
UN-based estimates placed Ecuador’s population at around 18.3 million people in 2025, but the country’s touring boom has unfolded against a tumultuous backdrop. In January 2024, the government declared a nationwide state of emergency to tackle escalating violence between drug gangs. That measure was scaled back to regional states of exception within a few months, though Ecuador’s government has renewed localized emergency measures repeatedly since. Dominguez says the security situation has improved.
“Knock on wood, this year has been much better,” says Dominguez, who also runs ticketing platform Feel The Tickets. “We’re in a really good position compared to two years before.”
While Ecuador remains FTC’s flagship market, the company’s 2026 calendar stretches across Honduras, Costa Rica, Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Peru and, for the first time, Mexico, with repeat tours by Ozuna, Hugel, Romeo Santos & Prince Royce, and Martin Garrix.
On August 29, the company will launch its first “original property”: FTC Live al Parque, a one-day festival at Quito’s Parque Bicentenario headlined by Maroon 5, with Yandel Sinfónico, Myke Towers, salsa legends Fruko y sus Tesos and Lost Frequencies filling out the bill. Plans for 2027 are already well in motion.
Here, speaking to MBW from Miami, where he splits his time along with Panama and Ecuador, Dominguez talks through promoting economics, the trouble with rebooking Anglo acts, and why the time is right to launch Ecuador’s next chapter.
SHAKIRA’S THREE NIGHTS SOLD MORE THAN 105,000 TICKETS. HAD ANYTHING CLOSE TO THAT BEEN SEEN IN ECUADOR BEFORE?
Never. After the pandemic, we did Bad Bunny — I’m sure I could have sold three stadiums. We did Daddy Yankee, we sold out. We did Feid, we sold out. We did Aventura the year prior to Shakira, and sold two stadiums in the same city for the first time ever — that was our first thermometer. Usually, we did one stadium in Quito, one stadium in Guayaquil. But for the first time, the same artist sold out two stadiums immediately back to back. Then came Shakira.
WHAT’S CHANGED IN ECUADOR TO MAKE THAT POSSIBLE?
To be honest, the way we produce the shows, because the standard has been very high since the pandemic. We work a lot with Live Nation, with Loud And Live, with Move. So we need to deliver the best production possible. I was like, listen, we need to raise the bar, and that’s what we’ve done. Every single production manager that goes to Ecuador leaves and says it has been the best surprise of the whole tour — no problems, perfect production, the artist is happy. Even though we don’t have the venues that other countries have, we work it out.
HOW WOULD YOU CHARACTERIZE ECUADOR’S VENUE INFRASTRUCTURE?
Terrible. Terrible, terrible. I just bought the biggest structure in the country, it’s like the Yuma Tent in Coachella. We inaugurated it at the FIFA Fan Fest in Quito recently for the World Cup. We have a festival with Hugel on October 16, we have Camilo on December 4, and from December forward our pipeline of events of less than 15,000 people is going to be done there. The rest, we go to the stadium. We have the Coliseo, which is supposedly an arena, but it’s not an arena — it’s a gym, because you cannot hang anything from there.
WITH THE GROWTH OF ECUADOR AND THOSE CENTRAL AMERICAN MARKETS, HOW DIFFERENT DO YOU THINK WORLD TOURS ARE GOING TO LOOK IN A FEW YEARS?
Much bigger, because we’re doing things the proper way. I studied here — I’m American in my thinking, and how I work – you need to give people show business. The thing is, in Ecuador, the production was usually shitty. You would buy a ticket, and nobody would respect your seat. The show started, and people would still be outside. It was very disorganized. And promoters were not promoters — they were people that would get into a casino. If it sells, perfect; if it doesn’t sell, then bye, you won’t see me again. That’s why a lot of fans didn’t trust it — they’d wait to see if the artist actually showed up. That was the modus operandi before. It was a mess until we basically did it the American way. Yes, it’s more expensive, but I’m seeing the results.
I go to the Kaseya Center, American Airlines Arena, Barclays Center, whatever, and there are food and beverage stands everywhere. As soon as you get there, you spend money. It should be the same [in Ecuador] — remember, Ecuador is a dollar economy — but we don’t have that. You have the worst service. It’s a terrible experience. You end up thinking the artist is great, but the whole surrounding is terrible. We’re trying to improve the service, so we can attract more clients. That’s my main goal.
HOW DO COSTS IN ECUADOR COMPARE WITH MARKETS LIKE BOGOTÁ OR MEXICO CITY?
It’s a bit more expensive, because we have to sometimes import the production — certain equipment that we don’t have in Ecuador that we have to bring from Colombia or Peru. That doesn’t mean higher ticket prices — in fact, we need to be a little bit lower than the main markets because of the economic power of the country.
It’s a tricky balancing act. This new government put a 15% tax on top of the ticket price, plus the service fee of the ticket company. Taxes in Ecuador are super high — there’s also a 25% withholding tax on the artist, and 5% for [royalty collection body] SAYCE. It’s tricky, but we find ways to do it.
WHAT CONVINCED YOU THE TIME WAS RIGHT TO LAUNCH A FESTIVAL?
Ecuador was always out of the picture. Then I saw the beginnings of Estéreo Picnic in Colombia — a good friend of mine [from promoter Páramo Presenta] does that. They started to grow, and their leverage and their pull was basically because of the festival in their market — such is the case that Live Nation came and bought them [in 2023]. I remember we would try to get an artist, and they would tell me, “No, we have the Picnic, and we want to work with them,” so they would give priority to the festival, because it was well done.
My idea is to do exactly the same in Ecuador. Maybe not on such a big scale as Colombia, because it’s a bigger market, but a proper scale — a two-day festival, from here to three years, of around 20,000 to 30,000 people per day, that becomes an important festival. We are the number one promoter in Ecuador, so we, as a brand, need a festival.
THIS YEAR’S CALENDAR HAS FTC IN FIVE DIFFERENT CENTRAL AMERICAN COUNTRIES. WAS THAT COORDINATED, OR OPPORTUNISTIC?
That was coordinated. I’m doing Ozuna — he hasn’t toured in ten years, so I’m doing his tour in Central America. I recently did Hugel in Panama, Costa Rica, and Guatemala. I did Feid recently as well. I work a lot in Central America.
WHAT ABOUT PANAMA, BOLIVIA AND VENEZUELA?
Bolivia, I just had Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike in Santa Cruz, and I’m doing Steve Aoki in Santa Cruz and La Paz. I focus more on Anglo acts there. It’s very rare to see big names going to Bolivia — they don’t have the infrastructure, the equipment, and you have problems with money, doing wires from there, it’s very, very complicated.
In Venezuela, I had Andrea Bocelli at the stadium [in Caracas in 2025]. That was massive. I did Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike and I had Gordo, a well known DJ, confirmed for September, but that was before [Venezuelan president Nicolás] Maduro went to jail [in January 2026]. Because of what happened, we are on hold.
Panama, I do very small things. It’s a very complicated market — first, because of the population, it’s very, very small. And second, because it’s a salsa tropical driven market, you can take Marc Anthony and it will sell out, but we lost money when we had Maroon 5, Duran Duran, so it’s a complicated market.
YOU’VE SAID IN THE PAST THAT LOCAL ACTS DON’T SELL, SO YOU FOCUS ON INTERNATIONAL TOURS. IS THAT STILL THE CASE?
Yeah, that’s still the case. It’s not like Colombia. You don’t see many artists coming out of Peru. You don’t see many artists coming out of Ecuador. Go to Colombia, crazy. So yes, local acts don’t sell tickets, to be honest.
HOW’S BUSINESS BEEN OVERALL THIS YEAR?
I would say ticket sales have slowed for the past two years. You have the big tours that, of course, sell out — but it’s one or three tours, no more than that. The rest, we have to work. Tickets are not selling as before. That’s the reality, 100%. I would say it’s always a curve: 2022, ’23, ’24 and ’25 was a peak. Now, I think things are stabilizing a little bit more. The economy is not as [strong]. There’s a saturation of shows as well that you didn’t have before — I don’t know if it’s because everything you promoted these past three years would sell well, but there are promoters and artists everywhere. I think that has also affected ticket sales, because you have too many options.
HAVE YOU LEARNED ANY HARD LESSONS FROM SHOWS THAT DIDN’T WORK?
Yes. My lesson learned: When you book an Anglo act in Ecuador, it usually always works the first time. But if you book it again – let’s say three years after – it doesn’t work. You’ll sell half. That’s not the case with the Latin artists — they go and they go next year and they still book them. I don’t know if the concept is that I already saw them, or if it’s too expensive. But I’ve learned from experience the hard way: don’t book an Anglo act twice in Ecuador. I don’t know why, but that’s been my journey.
IF YOU COULD CHANGE ONE THING ABOUT THE MUSIC INDUSTRY, WHAT WOULD IT BE?
The artist fees, because not all tours are profitable. Yes, you can have three, four, even five profitable tours, but you also usually do some events that don’t sell. We are very, very tight on promoter-artist margins — if you don’t sell 90% of the show, you lose money, and they’re getting more expensive every time.
WHERE DO YOU SEE FTC IN FIVE YEARS?
Being in the top three independent promoter companies in Latin America. We’re starting to move forward on that.
WHAT ARE YOUR AMBITIONS FROM HERE?
To keep on growing and try to close the best tours possible for the country. When we got The Strokes, [the government tourism body] said, “We love it, how can we help? You can have billboards, you can have buses.” For the first time we are working together. For example, when I do a show, the city opens the metro for one more hour. It’s quite interesting because there were a lot of articles about [the economic impact of] Shakira’s concert: hotels, restaurants, bars, flights… It was incredible what Shakira left in Quito for those three shows.
ARE PEOPLE GOING TO START LOOKING AT ECUADOR DIFFERENTLY?
After the success of Shakira and Aventura, people are already looking at Ecuador. I would say the confidence of Live Nation and managers has gone to the limit. I’m talking about bringing the biggest tours to Ecuador. So yes, Ecuador is going to change, trust me.
Trailblazers is supported by TuneCore. TuneCore provides self-releasing artists with technology and services across distribution, publishing administration, and a range of promotional services. TuneCore is part of Believe.Music Business Worldwide
