| Course | BMB 670 Music Business Leadership and Ethics |
|---|---|
| Module | Module 6 |
| Paper type | graduate milestone analyzing ethical issues facing a music company |
| Length | About 1,080 words, 6 pages |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Southern New Hampshire University |
| Program | MBA in Music Business |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for BMB 670 Module 6
Ethical Issues Analysis: Crowd Safety, Fees and Sponsorship
[Student Name]
Southern New Hampshire University
BMB 670: Music Business Leadership and Ethics
Milestone Two
[Instructor Name]
[Date]
The organization, setting and figures below are a composite written as a model document. No real employer, client, colleague or patient is described.
Ethical Issues Analysis: Crowd Safety, Fees and Sponsorship
Introduction
Milestone One analyzed the company's leadership and succession. This milestone turns to the ethical issues the company's leaders must manage. Three were chosen because they are specific to the company, affect large numbers of people and require policy rather than one-time decisions: crowd safety at the festival's main stage, the way ticket fees are presented and a sponsorship offer that conflicts with the company's audience. Each is analyzed through its facts, the stakeholders affected, ethical principles and research, and ends with a recommended policy. The company's own stated values, written by the founder in 2015, are to treat artists, fans and crews as it would want to be treated and to run a festival that feels safe for everyone, and each issue is tested against them.
Issue One: Crowd Safety
During the 2024 Saturday headliner, crowd counts from overhead cameras estimated about four people per square meter in the front third of the main stage field, and two surges forced a pause in the set. No one was seriously hurt. The field has one front barrier, no crowd pens and no density monitoring beyond the stage manager's view. Helbing and Mukerji (2012) analyzed a festival disaster and concluded that it arose from systemic failures, where planning, layout, communication and crowd behavior interacted, rather than from a single mistake. That finding is relevant because no one at the company thinks of the main stage as dangerous; the risk lies in how ordinary decisions combine.
Fans in the front area bear the risk, along with security staff and medical crews. The company controls the conditions: layout, barriers, ticket numbers and how quickly it can pause a show. Its duty of care is therefore strong, and its own value of a festival that feels safe for everyone is directly at stake.
Recommended policy: a written crowd management plan reviewed by an outside crowd safety specialist, a second barrier creating front pens with controlled entry, density monitoring with a threshold of three people per square meter that triggers announcements and, above four, a mandatory pause, and annual training for security and stage managers. The measure is the number of surges requiring a pause, with a target of none.
Issue Two: Fees
The company's ticketing contract adds a service fee and a facility fee that together average about 24 percent of the face price, and until 2025 they appeared only at checkout. Customer complaints about fees were the largest single category of complaints. Haws and Bearden (2006) found that buyers react strongly against prices they consider unfair, especially when they learn of them late or compare them with what others paid. Federal rules adopted in 2025 now require live event sellers to show the total price up front, so part of this issue is now a legal obligation.
Fans bear the cost, artists are blamed for prices they do not set and the company receives part of the fee revenue under its ticketing contract. Its value of treating fans as it would want to be treated is hard to reconcile with a price buyers discover only at the last step.
Recommended policy: all-in pricing everywhere the company advertises, a published explanation of what fees pay for and a target of reducing total fees on club shows to under 18 percent at the next contract renewal. The measure is fee complaints per thousand tickets.
Issue Three: Sponsorship
A vape brand has offered $150,000 for three years of festival sponsorship, including a branded lounge. The festival is all ages, and about 18 percent of attendees are under twenty-one, the minimum age for buying tobacco and vape products in the United States. The offer would cover the cost of the crowd safety improvements twice over. Organizations show their real values when money and principle collide (Treviño & Nelson, 2021), and staff are watching this one.
Young fans and their parents are the stakeholders most affected, along with the company's reputation. Accepting the offer would place marketing for a product illegal for part of the audience inside the festival.
Recommended policy: a written sponsorship policy excluding products that are illegal for any part of the audience, with a review panel of three staff to assess every sponsor against clear criteria. The measure is the number of sponsors reviewed under the policy and any exceptions granted, which should be none.
How the Issues Connect
The three issues share a cause. In each, a practice grew up by habit rather than by decision: the main stage field was laid out in 2015 for crowds half the current size and never redesigned, the fee structure was accepted with the first ticketing contract and never revisited, and sponsorship has always been handled by the founder case by case. None reflects a choice to put fans at risk or mislead them. Each reflects the absence of a process that would ask the ethical question before the problem became visible. That pattern matches the leadership analysis in Milestone One, where decisions centered on one person and few written policies existed.
The pattern also points to the remedy. Each recommended policy moves a decision from personal judgment to a written rule with an owner and a measure: the head of production owns crowd safety, the box office manager owns pricing transparency and a review panel owns sponsorship. This does not remove judgment, which will still be needed in new situations, but it makes the company's values operate when the founder is not in the room.
Costs and Trade-Offs
The crowd safety plan will cost about $90,000 in its first year for barriers, monitoring and training, then about $30,000 a year. All-in pricing may reduce ticket sales slightly, because a total price looks steeper beside rivals who keep quoting the face value alone. Declining the vape sponsorship gives up $150,000 over three years. Together, the policies cost roughly $140,000 a year at first, about 2 percent of revenue, which the company can afford and which is small beside the cost of a single serious injury or a public sponsorship controversy.
Conclusion
Each of the three issues tests whether the company's stated values guide its decisions when money or habit points the other way. Crowd safety requires investment, fee transparency requires giving up a pricing practice and the sponsorship requires refusing money. Written policies with measures will make the right choices routine, and Milestone Three will plan how to build the culture that sustains them.
References
Haws, K. L., & Bearden, W. O. (2006). Dynamic pricing and consumer fairness perceptions. Journal of Consumer Research, 33(3), 304-311. https://doi.org/10.1086/508435
Helbing, D., & Mukerji, P. (2012). Crowd disasters as systemic failures: Analysis of the Love Parade disaster. EPJ Data Science, 1, Article 7. https://doi.org/10.1140/epjds7
Treviño, L. K., & Nelson, K. A. (2021). Managing business ethics: Straight talk about how to do it right (8th ed.). Wiley.
What the BMB 670 Module 6 instructions ask for
Milestone Two in BMB 670 usually asks you to identify the major ethical issues facing the organization in your final project and analyze them in depth. You typically describe each issue, identify stakeholders and their interests, apply ethical principles or frameworks, consider legal and industry standards and recommend how the organization should respond. Strong submissions choose issues that are real and specific to the organization, use evidence about their scale, and propose policies rather than one-time fixes. They also consider how each issue relates to the organization's stated values and leadership, since Milestone Three will build a plan for changing culture and practice, and they estimate what each policy will cost.
How this BMB 670 Module 6 milestone two example is built
The paper analyzes three issues. For crowd safety, it reports crowd counts of about four people per square meter at the main stage during the 2024 headliner and two surges that forced a pause, and applies research showing that crowd disasters grow from systemic failures. For fees, it shows that service and facility fees add about 24 percent to the face price and appear only at checkout, and uses research on how buyers judge fairness. For sponsorship, it weighs a $150,000 offer from a vape brand at an all-ages festival against the company's values and young fans' interests. It recommends a crowd management plan with density limits, all-in pricing and a sponsorship policy that excludes products illegal for part of the audience.
Where the BMB 670 Module 6 rubric puts the points
The Milestone Two rubric generally covers the identification and description of ethical issues, stakeholder analysis, application of ethical principles, use of research and standards, the quality of recommendations and writing. Top papers describe each issue with facts and numbers, show how it affects different groups, apply principles carefully and recommend policies with clear rules and measures. They connect the issues to the organization's values and to its leaders' responsibilities, naming who will enforce each policy. Papers lose credit for issues that are vague or generic, for analysis from the company's viewpoint alone, for recommendations without a way to tell if they worked and for ignoring relevant standards or law.
BMB 670 Module 6 help: the mistakes that cost points
A common misstep is choosing broad themes like honesty or inclusion that fit every firm and come with no facts attached. Choose issues specific to the organization and show their scale: how many people, how much money, how often. For each, name the stakeholders, including those with no voice in decisions, and apply at least one principle carefully. Propose policies rather than one-time decisions, because policies change behavior after the leader who adopted them moves on. Finally, connect each issue to the organization's stated values, which makes the gap between what it says and what it does visible, and note which leader owns each policy.
Get BMB 670 Module 6 written to your instructions
Send the BMB 670 Milestone Two guidelines and your organization. The paper will analyze each ethical issue through facts, stakeholders, principles and research, and recommend a policy with a measure. Usually two days; a first milestone is free. The paper above is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official Southern New Hampshire University document.
More BMB 670 papers and related MBA in Music Business samples
- BMB 670 Module 1 Discussion: What Makes a Music Business Leader Effective
- BMB 670 Module 2 Leadership Approaches Assignment: Three Ways to Lead the Same Company
- BMB 670 Module 3 Milestone One: A Founder Hands Over the Keys
- BMB 670 Module 4 Discussion: Booking a Fair Lineup
- BMB 670 Module 5 Ethical Decision Assignment: Day Two in the Heat
- ACC 646 Module 10 Final Project: A Fraud Prevention Program for the Company
- ACC 691 Module 10 Final Project: A Program to Prevent It Happening Again
- BMB 630 Module 10 Final Project: An Integrated Marketing Plan With Measurement
- ACC 693 Module 9 Milestone Three: The Timeline and the Findings
BMB 670 Module 6 questions, answered
Where can I find a free BMB 670 Module 6 Milestone Two sample?
The full BMB 670 Milestone Two analysis of crowd safety, ticket fees and sponsorship at a Columbus concert promoter is on this page.
What are common ethical issues for concert promoters?
Crowd safety, fair treatment and pay of artists and workers, transparent pricing and fees, sponsorship choices, harassment prevention and effects on neighbors and the environment.
Why is crowd density an ethical issue?
Because organizers control the conditions that make dangerous crowding possible, so failing to manage density exposes people to foreseeable harm.
Are hidden ticket fees unethical?
Fees revealed only at checkout can mislead buyers about the true price; many regulators now require the total price to be shown up front, and fairness research shows buyers resent such fees.
How should music companies decide which sponsors to accept?
With a written policy based on their values and audience, excluding products that are harmful or illegal for part of the audience and reviewing each sponsor against clear criteria.