issue 229 FEBRUARY 2019 UK £6.25 Europe €9.40 ROW $12.25
English rose Jessie J takes it to Europe
AEG-SMG merger awaits approval Court clears Italian promoters Ed Sheeran’s Iceland record
We are seeing a lot of young rap artistes attracting 6,000 to 20,000 people to their concerts Sergey Podgorny at TCI, Russia
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Contents
Essential reading for live music industry professionals across more than 80 countries worldwide
4-16 World News Industry news from around the globe 20-27 Feature: The Big Debate Topics leading figures attending the International Live Music Conference hope to discuss, and panels they plan to attend.
30-37 Market Focus: Russia Review of a touring market for international artistes
Perspective
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38-45 Feature: Claudio Trotta Reviewing the 40-year career of Italian promoter Claudio Trotta and how his grandparents being professional comedians may have helped. 48-55 Feature: Florence & The Machine The remarkable success story of Florence Welch and the power of her touting machine.
56 City Focus: Berlin, Germany 61 Industry Events
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62-65 Production News Developments in live show equipment and infrastructure 66-73 Tour Plans Artistes, tour periods, agents
74 Festival News International festival activity
74 Danger In Numbers The trials and tribulations of tour manager Terry Tucker and his crew
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It is that time of year when promoters and agents across the world who attend the International Live Music Conference (ILMC) in London, prepare for several days of frantic meetings, conference sessions, catching-up with old comrades and perhaps indulge in a drink or two. When agent Martin Hopewell had the crazy idea of bringing the international industry together in one place 31 years ago, he had only planned for the first one. Apart from new magazine venture Applause at the time, there was nothing else to unite the industry, although a couple of US business magazines circulated among the upper echelons. Bringing those promoters and agents together was a revelation for the live music business. Previously it was rare for a promoter to meet one in the neighbouring country and the only people who travelled around were agents. ILMC created a focal point that was worth the trek from Australia, Latin America or Eastern Europe, still emerging from communism. Promoters found they often shared the same experiences, including ones with interesting artistes – it’s amazing how many stories there are about a certain rock ‘n’ roll legend. While the first few years were more like gatherings of old associates, today’s conference has a more serious side, which is helping to bring through new generations to inevitably fill the shoes of the early pioneers. But there’s still time for a beer or two.
ISSUE 229: February 2019 AUDIENCE is published monthly from the UK by: Audience Media Ltd, 26 Dorset Street, London W1U 8AP, United Kingdom T: +44 (0)20 7486 7007 F: +44 (0)20 7486 2002 info@audience.uk.com www.audience.uk.com The opinion expressed by contributors to this publication are not always a reflection of the opinions or the policy of the publishers. Information on services or products contained within editorial sections does not imply recommendation by AUDIENCE. No responsibility can be accepted for errors or omissions. No part of this publication can be reproduced in any form without the written authority of Audience Media Ltd.
audience • issue 229 • February 2019
6 • World News
Newsbite FINLAND Ed Sheeran continues to set records around the world and this time it’s in Helsinki. In what is promoter Fullsteam’s biggest event so far and also the largest crowd-gathering to ever take place in the country, Sheeran will play two 60,000-capacity shows at Malmi Airport. “The airport has only hosted a few significantly smaller events, so this is the first time the venue will be used at 60,000 capacity,” says Fullsteam’s Aino-Maria Paasivirta. USA United Talent Agency (UTA) agent Ken Fermaglich whose artistes include Guns N’Roses, Muse, Bush, A Day to Remember and Paramore, is one of eight staff members elevated to partner status. Fermaglich joined UTA in 2015 as part of UTA’s acquisition of The Agency Group (TAG) and is a member of UTA’s music leadership team. He had been with TAG for 18 years. BULGARIA Promoter Ivan Nesterov of Sofia Music Enterprises (SME) is launching what is being hailed as largest club in the capital, Sofia. The 1000 –capacity Music Jam will open on 26 March. “We’ve already booked artistes like UDO, Kazka, Whigfield, Grandmaster Flash to appear there, ” says Nesterov. Other SME-promoted concerts feature Lenny Kravitz, Sting, Michael Bublé, Tom Jones and Bullet For My Valentine. FRANCE Live entertainment cashless payments specialist Yuflow has been acquired byBelgium-based PlayPass, which recently secured €1.9m ($2.21m) of funding from VC Newion Investments in the Netherlands (see Audience 224). “Yuflow has established strong commercial and operational footprints in France and Switzerland which are key European markets in our global expansion programme,” says PlayPass CEO David de Wever.
Venue giants AEG and SMG plan merger to form global behemoth group’s chairman, with SMG president and CEO Wes Westley on the board. “We plan to accelerate innovation he merger between venue management companies AEG Facilities by combining our expertise to deliver increased value and offer and SMG to form ASM Global enhanced capabilities to muis subject to the deal undernicipalities and venue owners going “regulatory reviews” worldwide,” says Westley. and awaiting approval from “At the same time, we exconsumer protection agency pect that this transaction will the US Federal Trade Comoffer employees at both our mission. corporate headquarters and The companies anticipate field operations tremendous the process will take several Bob Newman new opportunities.” months. Newman, who was formerly a reIf approved, the deal will see each company owning 50 per cent of new gional vice-president at SMG, adds, venture ASM Global, which will be “This transaction draws upon the based in Los Angeles where AEG Fa- depth of our combined talent and recilities parent company Anshutz En- sources to create an organisation that tertainment Group (AEG) is headquar- will deliver value and long-term suctered, and have a combined portfolio cess, as well as innovative services to our clients around the world.” of 310 venues across five continents. The new company will control a No financial details of the merger have been revealed. “It’s a bit early to discuss specifics,” SMG spokesman Steve Patterson of the Res Publica Group tells Audience. “This is the beginning of a process that involves regulatory reviews and approvals and none of that has occurred yet.” AEG Facilities president Bob Newman will be the new Dubai Arena WORLD
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combined venues portfolio that includes AEG owned and/or managed venues such as France’s AccorHotels Arena (cap. 20,300) in Paris, the UK’s The O2 (21,000) in London, Germany’s Barclaycard Arena (16,000) in Hamburg, the US’s Staples Center (20,000) in Los Angeles and Prudential Center (19,500) in New Jersey. Among SMG’s venues are the UK’s Manchester Arena (21,000) and First Direct Arena (13,750) in Leeds, and Germany’s König-Pilsener Arena (12,650) in Oberhausen, Also part of the deal is AEG Facilities’ Australia-based AEG Ogden joint venture which owns and/or operates venues such as the Suncorp Stadium (52,500) in Brisbane, ICC Sydney (9,000) and Perth Entertainment Centre (8,000), as well as the United Arab Emirates’ Dubai Arena (20,000), due to opening later this year (see also page 12 - ‘AEG Ogden wins Te Pae contract’). AEG Facilities and Ogden IFC formed AEG Ogden in 2010 Neither AEG or SMG would comment on the arrangement, how venues in the same country would work together or whether ticketing might be consolidated, as Audience went to print.
The O2, London
Staples Center, Los Angeles
Manchester Arena
ICC Sydney © Guy Wilkinson
audience • issue 229 • February 2019
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World News • 7
Promoters cleared of charges ITALY
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eading Italian promoters accused of colluding with Viagogo to remove tickets from the official market and sell them on at inflated prices, have been cleared in a Milan court. A two-year investigation concluded with the acquittal of Live Nation Italy’s MD Roberto De Luca and director general Antonella Lodi, Di and Gi’s Domenico d’Allesandro, Corrado Rizzotto, who was at Vivo Concerti at the time of the accusation but is now head of Indipendente Concerti, and Charles Roest of Viagogo. The five defendants were accused of ‘fraud against the state’ for not having paid taxes and performance royalties in full, in what has been described as insider trading (see Audience issue 226). They were also accused of selling tickets at extortionate prices and spreading “false information causing an alteration of the market”. The case related to events includ-
ing concerts by Bruce Springsteen and Coldplay, with prosecution lawyer Adriano Scudieri calling for custodial sentences of up to 16 months. Di and Gi’s Mimmo D’Alessandro told Audience, “We always kept our trust in the course of justice. Now justice is done and I am very happy for me and for our company. “We’ve been always dedicated to the promotion of music to the greater number of fans possible and we’ve been always against any form of secondary ticketing”. De Luca told Italian news outlet Il Sole 24 Ore, “Two very difficult years have now come to an end, but I am happy because our group has always worked with integrity. “The worst part has been the attempt of some of my competitors to take advantage of the media hype surrounding the investigation and take artistes from me. Luckily, our artistes understood the situation and stood by us.” Scudieri declined to comment when approached by Audience.
Feldman sells to his two presidents in 1993 and became president in 2013. Kemp has been with the gency pioneer Sam Feld- agency since 1998, and was apman has sold his company, pointed vice-president in 2015. Feldman is becoming increasThe Feldman Agency (TFA), to president Jeff Craib and vice- ingly involved with A&F Music, the full service artiste managepresident Tom Kemp. Terms of the deal were not dis- ment group he runs with manager Bruce Allen. closed. “Our management Founded in 1971 companies, which are inand with 19 agents ternational in nature, are in its Toronto office growing at a pace that – where Craib and requires more hands-on Kemp are based – and time,” Feldman tells Audieight in Vancouver. ence. “Our intention is to TFA’s roster of Canacontinue to expand efdian artistes includes forts in that area of repreBryan Adams, Bare- Sam Feldman sentation. naked Ladies, Diana “Therefore, it seemed timely Krall, April Wine, David Foster, Michael Bublé, Paul Anka and to repurpose some energy while leaving the agency in good Our Lady Peace. International acts represented hands.” A&F Music companies manfor Canada include Elvis Costello, Midnight Oil, Everlast, Nick Carter ages acts such as James Taylor, Elvis Costello, Diana Krall, Bryan and John Fogerty. Craib joined the agency, then Adams, Sarah McLachlan, Michael called SL Feldman & Associates Buble and Lyle Lovett. CANADA
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Jessie J big in China WORLD
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inning Chinese talent show Singer last year has led to sell-outs across the country, including shows at Hong Kong’s AsiaWorld–Expo (cap. 14,000), the Shenzhen Bay Sports Center (13,000) and the Cadillac Arena (19,000) in Beijing.
COVER ARTISTE
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Thje dates were part of 12 shows in South-East Asia as part of her R.O.S.E. tour. “Jessie is an outstanding and engaging performer,” says her agent Paul Franklin at Creative Artists Agency’s UK office. “She has an incredible energy on stage and there aren’t many artistes who can compete with her vocally. “She continues to impress me with her focus and drive to perform to the highest level for any show she plays, whether it be an intimate underplay or an arena.” Shows this year include Germany’s Columbiahalle (3,500) in Berlin, Luxembourg’s Den Atelier (1,200) and the Czech Republic’s 3,000-capacity Forum Karlin in Prague. Jessie J is managed by Doug McVehil at MDDN and her North American agent is Jbeau Lewis at United Talent Agency.
audience • issue 229 • February 2019
8 • World News
Millions more claimed as Fyre smoulders on UNITED STATES
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illy McFarland, jailed promoter of the disastrous Fyre Festival venture in 2017, has been ordered by New York County Judge Joel H Cohen to pay back $3 million to defrauded festival investor EHL Funding, a figure that includes 30 per cent interest, as stipulated
in the contract. The investor is also asking for reimbursement of legal costs. McFarland, who pleaded guilty to fraud last October and is currently serving a six-year sentence in a New York prison, already owes $24m following a settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and put money into
the event. In addition, two festival-goers were awarded $5m in damages against McFarland last year. Fyre was billed as a luxury “oncein-a-life-time” event on the island of Grand Exuma, with headliners including Blink-182, who pulled out days earlier, but collapsed and was cancelled as attendees began
arriving. The site appeared to still be under development with little shelter or provisions. Tickets cost up to $12,000 for a four-person package (see Audience issue 209). The full story has since been exposed in two documentaries –Fyre: The Greatest Festival That Never Happened on Netflix and Fyre Fraud on Hulu, with a third due shortly.
Ticketmaster cleared Change in Athens in TradeDesk inquiry GREECE
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ompetition authorities have ruled that Ticketmaster (TM) has not broken federal competition law by promoting its TradeDesk platform. The investigation followed an exposé of TradeDesk activities by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and the Toronto Star newspaper at the Ticket Summit trade event (see Audience issue 224). A TradeDesk representative had told interested parties, “I have brokers that have literally a couple of hundred [ticket resale] accounts,” which TM later said is contrary to is rules for use of the software. The software enables professional ticket buyers to manage their own inventory of tickets and upload their stock onto TM’s resale platforms, TicketsNow in the US and TicketExchange in Canada Canada’s Competition Bureau says it reviewed public allega-
tions, complaints and evidence including videos, websites and marketing practices and concluded that TM’s use of TradeDesk did not contravene the Competition Act. But the watchdog is continuing its litigation against TM, its owner Live Nation Entertainment and affiliated companies, after finding that TM uses a “drip pricing” mechanism to inflate its ticket pricing. The bureau claims that the companies advertise tickets at a lower price while introducing mandatory charges throughout the purchasing process, which can increase the buyer’s eventual fee by up to 60 per cent. “This legal action seeks to stop the companies from allegedly making deceptive claims to consumers when advertising prices for sports and entertainment tickets,” it says in a statement. Proceedings are scheduled to begin this autumn.
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ne of the country’s top promoters is now “inactive” after its co-founders decided to focus attentions on their own separate companies. Di Di Music’s Nana Trandou has formed High Priority Promotions and insists Di Di is merely “taking a break”. High Priority events include two shows for Bullet of My Valentine at the Piraeus Academy 117 (cap. 2,000) Nana Trandou in Athens and Thessaloniki’s Principal Club (2,000) in April, and two with Dropkick Murphys at Athens’ Gazi Music Hall (4,000) and the Ioannis Vellidis Congress Center (2,100) in Thessaloniki in June. “High Priority Promotions was
Live Nation acquires Blockfest FINLAND
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Believing in the show Claudio Trotta See page 38 audience • issue 229 • February 2019
launched in January with a very dynamic series of shows,” says Trandou. It also runs the Athens Rocks (20,000) festival, headlined this year by Slayer for their last Greek show, at the Leoforos Alexandras Stadium. Meanwhile, Di Di Music co-founder Nikos Lori is focussing on his Xlalala company, but was unavailable for comment. Meanwhile, Trandou tells Audience that from 1 January, the VAT rate for concert tickets was cut from 24 per cent to six per cent. “This reduction was of vital importance for the live music sector, since it gives the opportunity to have more shows taking place in more reasonable ticket prices,” she adds.
he largest hip-hop festival in the Nordic region, Blockfest, has been acquired by Live Nation Entertainment and will become part of Live Nation Finland (LNF). Terms of the deal have not been revealed. Started in 2008, the event is held in the central of Tampere at its Ratina football stadium, with last August’s event claiming more than 75,000 admissions across two days. Among the 26 artistes booked for the 16-17 August festival are A$AP Rocky, Tyga, Saweetie and
Ski Mask the Slump Dog. Past line-ups have featured Wu-Tang Clan, Snoop Dogg and lce Cube. “This deal cements Blockfest’s position in the festival calender and assures it attracts the hottest international acts going forward,” says Blockfest founder and CEO Kalle Kallonen, LNF head promoter, Zachris Sundell adds, “We’ve always had a great relationship with Blockfest and look forward to pooling our resources into bringing more of the world’s leading hip-hop, R&B and grime artistes to the festival.” Day tickets cost €79 ($89) and two-day passes €149 ($169), with VIP packages available. www.audience.uk.com
World News • 9
New law welcomed - but Viagogo eyes appeal IRELAND
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iken Promotions head Peter Aiken has welcomed a new bill to outlaw the resale of concert and sports tickets at above face value. Under the Prohibition of AboveCost Ticket Touting Bill, it will become illegal to sell or advertise for sale any ticket to a music, sporting or theatrical event at above the face value, although there are exemptions for charity events. Offenders face fines of up to €5,000 ($5,683). Noel Rock, a deputy in the Irish parliament and one of the bill’s sponsors, believes the legislation could complete its passage
through the Dáil (first legislative house) by 17 March, according to a report in the Irish Times. “Promoters take big risks to bring in shows,” says Aiken. “At Christy Moore over Christmas, people were turning up from England with tickets that didn’t exist, which they’d bought on a secondary ticketing site. Viagogo seems to be the main one – their name always comes up first on [internet] searches. “This new legislation is not perfect and there are loopholes, but at least someone in Ireland is doing something about it.” Meanwhile Viagogo is fighting the proposed legislation, claiming it is a retrograde step and could
Newsbite
WORLD Facebook has launched new features encouraging event organisers to follow how many people have viewed ticket pages over a defined period of time. This follows recent moves by the social media giant to make it easier for users to share events they are attending, such as live music concerts.
lead to a loss of jobs in Limerick, where the company employs a substantial number of staff. A spokesperson tells Audience, “Should the proposed bill move forward, it would hurt fans by turning the clock back to an inefficient black market with resale tickets moving from secure online platforms to the streets and inPeter Aiken formal social media groups.” The law change follows antitouting developments throughout Europe including the launch
of FEAT, the Face-value European Alliance for Ticketing, a coalition of concert and festival promoters aimed at lobbying governments to regulate the resale sector (see Audience issue 228). Aiken is a founding member. “We welcome this legislation, which marks a huge step forward in the battle against touts,” says UK-based FEAT director Sam Shemtob. “Ireland joins other progressive countries such as Belgium, Denmark and Norway, where the practice is illegal.”
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audience • issue 229 • February 2019
10 • World News
Fifteen per cent of population Government supports live music laveces a promoter Move Concerts expected for Sheeran shows Colombia. COLOMBIA
and that must be some sort of a world record.” Standing tickets start at 15,990 n estimated 15 per cent of the population will be in at- krona ($134), with seated tickets tendance at Ed Sheeran’s first live ranging between 19,990 and 29,990 krona ($167-$251) appearances in Iceland. But, despite his success with He will perform two shows on 10 and 11 August at 30,000-ca- Sheeran, Thorhallsson admits that there are pacity national clouds on the hofootball stadium rizon. Laugardalsvöllur in “The problem Reykjavik. in our market is The country popa constant overulation is made up supply of events of just 338,349 peoand that has finally ple so with the first started to kick in,” night having sold he says. “Things out and the second are selling less well on its way, protickets and more moters Sena Live is slowly than before, predicting between Isleifur Thorhallsson all over. 50,000 and 60,000 “The cold truth is that probfans will attend. “Even one full show would be ably nothing will combat this the biggest ever, but that is sold- over-supply, other than promotout and the second one is selling ers having a hard time, learning well,” says Sena’s Isleifur Thorh- their lesson and cutting down. “I think everyone is pulling allsson. “More than 50,000 is about back now, doing less shows, and 15 per cent of the population, that includes us.” ICELAND
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“This year is looking better, as the ncertainty over the Columbian economy caused a downturn government has an orange economy support policy, which in ticket sales in last covers all creative inyear, according to one dustries.” of the country’s leading But Ayala says suppromoters. port for the live enterHowever, it is hoped tainment sector was that a new government almost undone by anmove in support of the other government decreative industries is an partment. important step towards “Paradoxically, the recovery. same government was “Given the uncertainproposing a tax review, ty around presidential which among other elections in Colombia Alfredo Villaveces things, threatened to last year, the general economy was not great and people put a VAT on event tickets, which were not spending,” says Alfredo Vil- would have caused us to struggle financially. Fortunately it didn’t go through.” Among Move Concerts Colombia shows are Passenger at Bogotá’s Estadio El Campín (cap. 36,000) in March and Slash with Myles Kennedy and the Conspirators at the city’s Movistar Arena (14,000), which opened last OctoMove Concert with Roger Waters at Estadio el Campin ber, in May.
Economy challenge to live music shows TURKEY
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espite shows with Joe Satriani, The Vaccines and Liam Gallagher last year, promoter Zeynep Boyner of BKM International Events is concerned at the negative impact the country’s worsening economy is having on the live entertauinment industry.
audience • issue 229 • February 2019
“As ticket prices are in Turkish lira and most artiste fees are in US dollars, it is hard to keep up with the [currency] devaluation,” she says. “The descending consumer index and lack of sponsor availability doesn’t help either, and overall look for the entertainment market this year is much
worse.” One highlight was last summer’s concert by Liam Gallagher at Maçka Kücükciftlik Park (cap. 13,000) in Istanbul. “It was his first time in Istanbul and he seemed to be very touched by the audience reaction and he loved the city,” notes Boyner.
Zeynep Boyner
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12 • World News
AEG Ogden wins Te Pae contract Festivals go green for awards
activation by ensuring its complete integration into the city fabric,” says AEG Ogden chairman and egional venue manCEO Harvey Lister. agement company AEG “We intend to apply our Ogden has won the conglobal expertise to showtract to operate the new case Christchurch’s worldTe Pae events centre in class innovation, techChristchurch. niques, research and best The multi-function compractices in the city’s key plex, set on the banks of industry sectors of Earth the Avon River, will include Harvey Lister Science, Health Science, Ina 1,400-seat concert auditorium, exhibition space and 24 ternational Education, Agriculture, meeting rooms, It is set to open in ICT and Building Technology. Other venues managed by AEG October 2020. “The positioning of Te Pae as a Ogden include Australia’s Sunboutique, authentic, international- corp Stadium (cap. 52,500) in standard events and meeting hub Brisbane, Brisbane Convention & will act as a catalyst for the city’s Exhibition Centre (cap. 4,000), ICC Sydney (9,000) and Perth Entertainment Centre (8,000), as well as the United Arab Emirates Dubai Arena (20,000), due to opening later Ta Oae Christchurch, artist’s impression this year. NEW ZEALAND
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audience • issue 229 • February 2019
he inaugural International A Greener Festival (AGF) Awards will take place at the International Live Music Conference (ILMC), held at London’s Royal Garden Hotel next month. Taking place during the Green Events and Innovations Conference on 5 March, then event seeks to highlight “a single best-in-class event across 11 categories”. “The significance of the International Greener Festival Awards is that, for the first time we are crowning the top winner as the greenest festival in the world,” says AGF co-founder Claire O’Neill. “We also shout about the festivals with the best transport, waste, power and innovation to
making the whole industry greener and those using their influence and reach for good. “The purpose is to accelerate positive change by shining a light on the best ideas us humans are coming up with to solve our collective conundrums.” Award categories will include the Greener Transport Award, Greener Catering Award, Greener Pioneer Award, Greener Creative Award and Circular Festival Award. In January, AGF announced the winners of its ‘Outstanding’ award, which included Portugal’s bi-annual Boom Festival (cap. 33,333), Cambridge Folk Festival (14,000) in the UK, DGTL Festival (5,000) in the Netherlands and Norway’s Oya Festival (15,000).
Newsbite NORWAY The metal-orientated Inferno Music Conference will focus on social media marketing, touring in South America and artiste management when it returns to The Hub in Oslo between 18 and 19 April. Founded in 2004, the event is organised since in conjunction with the Inferno Metal Festival at the Rockefeller Music Hall (cap. 1,350).
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huge success a s wa lia ra st Au al iv st Fe gs in The first ever Good Th u to all the yo k an Th e. an isb Br d an ey dn Sy across Melbourne, at were involved. artists, agents and managers th ! We’ll be back in 2019 and beyond
World News • 15
Resident extraordinaire PledgeMusic suspends UNITED STATES
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enue residencies used to have negative connotations for credible artistes, but Billy Joel has taken the concept to new heights. On 24 May he will return to the 43,035-capacity Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia for the sixth year in succession. To mark the event, venue management will open a Billy Joel merchandising kiosk for the whole month. It is actually his seventh show at the stadium, the others includ-
ing two with Elton John. Last year drew 40,381 people and grossed $4.56 million. “Billy Joel’s past performances at Citizens Bank Park have been exceptional which is why his fans in Philadelphia return year after year,” says stadium executive vice-president David Buck. Joel also has a residency at New York’s Madison Square Garden (18,600) that stands at 67 consecutive monthly concerts, starting in 2014, and an all-time concerts record of 113 performances at the
funding campaigns WORLD
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rowd-funding platform PledgeMusic has suspended activities after admitting falling behind in payments to projects undertaken by artistes, who had raised concerns. The suspension of all music crowd-funding campaigns had been in place for more than a week, as Audience went to print.
A statement from the company says, “The situation that PledgeMusic has found itself in is unacceptable and to all of the artistes, managers, labels and fans who have put their trust in us, we are deeply sorry.” “All of us at the company are working around the clock to address everybody’s concerns and are hopeful of reaching a positive resolution soon.”
EDM-inspired ballet hits the road UNITED STATES
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he Magic Reality Group’s EDM-influenced production Sleeping Beauty Dreams had concurrent world premieres in Miami and New York last month. Exploring the Tchaikovsky story,
the production uses a mixture of contemporary dance with realtime Avatar projection and electronic music. The show had its world premiere at the Adrienne Arsht Center (cap. 2,400) during Miami Art Week and consecutively in
New York at the Beacon Theatre (2,724). “Electronic music is a core part of how much of our production same as the technology behind, is the perfect complement,” production manager Nick Assunto tells Audience.
“Avatar for us is the natural evolution of performing arts we see a fusion between body and technology and the unlimited possibilities.” Magic Reality Group’s is planning a world tour of the production in the autumn.
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audience • issue 229 • February 2019
16 • World News
Live Nation in close Embrace “Embrace has grown to become one of Toronto’s most influential ive Nation Entertainment (LNE) leader in live events,” says Live Nahas acquired a majority stake in tion Canada (LNC) chairman Riley mid-size venue operator, concert and O’Connor. “We will work with them on new events and utilise festivals promoter Embrace their ingenuity and proPresents, which operates in motion tactics to further the Toronto area. strengthen our presence Founded in 2001 by in the marketplace.” Adam Gill, Embrace started LNC’s venue portfolio as an electronic music proin the city includes the moter, and now has a ven20,000-capacity Budue portfolio that includes weiser Stage, formerly the 1,425-capacity Dan- Riley O’Connor known as Molson Canaforth Music Hall and Velvet dian Amphitheatre. Underground (cap. 400). CANADA
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Artistes to face hundreds of promoters and agents ue’s Venue and Partnerships. Among Futures Forum sessions, he annual International Live aimed at live industry under-30s, Music Conference (ILMC) is will be Meet The New Bosses, breaking new ground by featuring which features speakers United two established artistes taking the Talent Agency’s Olly Ward, Kilistage at the biggest gathering of manjiro Live’s Karma Bertelsen promoters, agents and venue op- and Mike Jones from The MJR erators on the planet. Group. Dua Lipa will give a “By additionally invitkeynote speech at the ing 200 younger profesFutures Forum part of the sionals along for Futures event, while The Who’s Forum, we want to build frontman Roger Daltry a platform that promotes will take the chair for the and encourages that next Ed Bicknell interview. generation of industry Greg Parmley Takes place between 5 leaders,” says ILMC head and 8 March at London’s Greg Parmley. Royal Garden Hotel, the event inMore than 1,000 delegates are clude panels such as Ticketing: expected to attend the conferSelling out is losing out, The Ven- ence from over 50 countries. UNITED KINGDOM
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Mixing talent in Tallinn unique talent and fresh ideas.” “We bring together the most ore than 200 artistes will per- interesting music and arts from Nordics, Eastern Europe, form at showcase and Russia and mixing it with conference Tallinn Music programme from the Week (TMW) next month, rest of Europe, America, with combined audiences Canada, Asia and Middle expected to exceed 30,000. East.” The focus is on Eastern Meanwhile, the conEuropean acts, but the ference programme also event also welcome artistes Maris Hellrand has other aims. from around the world. “TMW is not just a fes“We are careful to make sure that the festival remains a tival, it’s also our contribution to platform for our region’s most ex- a better society,” Hellrand adds. “It citing talent,” says TMW’s Maris is in our power to promote these Hellrand. “There is lots of untapped to the world – and thus share taltalent out there, from Serbia to Si- ent, diversity and openness. We beria from Latvia to Lebanon, Esto- believe that the richness of the nia to Ethiopia. We want our festi- 21st century is cultural and ethnic val to be a celebration of diversity, diversity, based on equality.” ESTONIA
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Two arenas rebranded UNITED KINGDOM
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wo UK major arenas have undergone a rebrand, with Liverpool’s Echo Arena (cap. 11,000) becoming the M&S Bank Arena and Newcastle’s Metro Radio Arena (11,250) being rebranded the Ultilita Arena. Upcoming concerts at the M&S Arena include Boyzone, Tears For Fears and Rita Ora, while Kiss, Rod
Stewart and Little Mix are heading for the Utilita Arena. “Last year we celebrated the arena’s 10th birthday and the next decade is going to be equally significant as we develop the programme, working closely with M&S Bank, a major brand that shares our ambitions for establishing the venue on a truly national and international scale,” says ACC Liverpool Group CEO Bob Prattey.
M&S Bank Arena
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In December of 2018, Magic Reality Group (MRG, Inc.) presented the World Premiere of Sleeping Beauty Dreams, an EDM-influenced performance that explores one of the most iconic stories ever told, Tchaikovsky’s “Sleeping Beauty”. The premiere was held at the Adrienne Arsht Center during Miami Art Week and consecutively in New York at the historic Beacon Theatre. Sleeping Beauty Dreams takes the audience on a deep journey along Princess Aurora’s transformative dreams while she slept for 100 years through the power of an unprecedented mixture of contemporary dance with state-of-the-art projection technology and electronic music. International prima ballerina, Diana Vishneva, performs as Princess Aurora and Marcelo Gomes as Prince Peter. The classically trained ballet artists are reunited once again in a passionate performance never seen before on stage. This is not your normal Ballet!
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impressive international creative team assembled by producer and director Rem Hass included digital artist Tobias Gremmler (German-born, Hong Kong based), costume designer Bart Hess (The Netherlands) who has worked with Lady Gaga, choreographer Edward Clug (Slovenia), light artist Laurent Fort (French-born, U.S. based), technology art by fuse* (Italy), and music by famed EDM pioneer Thijs de Vlieger of NOISIA (The Netherlands), whose music has been featured in Hollywood films and has collaborated with some of the world’s biggest artists including Skrillex and deadmau5. Led by executive producer and international music promoter, Ed Ratnikov, MRG, Inc.is in preparation to launch a Sleeping Beauty Dreams World Tour startingin Fall 2019.
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14,000 capacity • Total audiences in 2018 of more than 900,000 • Central location • 4 conference rooms • 20 VIP Sky boxes • Sky Bar & Restaurant for B2B business 2018 was a record year for Papp Laszlo Budapest Sportarena (Budapest Arena), with a total of 144 event days, and audience numbers exceeding 900,000. Taking build-up, dismantling and changeover days into account, the occupancy level reached almost 75%. 60% of the events which took place were concerts, with the remaining 40% divided almost equally between sport events and expos. Among the stars who performed were Rod Stewart, Depeche Mode, Metallica, Emeli Sandé, Caro Emerald, Enrique Iglesias, Ricky Martin, James Blunt, Nick Cave, Nightwish, Roger Waters, and Lenny Kravitz, as well as many famous Hungarian bands.
food in advance, and find their seats with the help of an interactive venue map. The app also features an event schedule and lets users safely store purchased tickets. The app can be downloaded in Apple’s App Store or Android’s Google Play Store.
Last but not least, with high-quality guest experience being one of the cornerstones of our service, and with our belief that good-quality food is a big part of that experience, the venue was proud to launch the 70-seat Séf asztala (Chef’s table) restaurant as part of its offer. With a creative chef who is one of Hungary’s finest culinary stars, the restaurant welcomes guests with a selection of exclusive handmade sausages, Three major improvements were introduced at Budapest Arena in 2018. With the accompanied by the finest Hungarian and Belgian craft beers. aim of speeding up lines, the beginning of the year saw the Arena begin its new policy of only accepting non-cash debit or credit card payments at its food stalls. Looking to 2019, one of our aims is to promote mobile phone payment technologies, Anyone without a debit or credit card is now required to transfer money to a con- which we believe is the next step in the world of cashless and contactless payments, tactless prepaid debit card. It only takes 2 minutes to buy this card, which is valid at the Arena. Paying via mobile phone is a highly-convenient solution, as audience members do not need to bring cards with them, instead using a mobile phone with not only in the venue, but anywhere where Mastercard payments are accepted. a mobile payment wallet to make instant payments by simply placing their phone The Arena also introduced a new mobile application, which offers a number of con- on a terminal. We also plan to revise and update our mobile application based on venient features to its users. After downloading the Arena app for free, users can our operating experience as well as customer feedback received since the innovaaccess information helping them with entry to the venue and car parking, order tion was introduced.
Feature • 21
The Great Debate As promoters, agents and venue operators from around the world prepare to converge on London for the 31st International Live Music Conference, Christopher Barrett asks regular attendees, some of the most senior figures in the industry, what issues they expect and hope will be discussed.
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ne reason why so many of the world’s leading promoters gather each year in London is to share experiences and reassure themselves that they are not alone in the challenges they face. Whether you’re based in Bucharest or Bogota, Minsk or Melbourne, hiring an artiste from another country, sending a suitcase of cash to an agent you’ve never met, creating the environment for the show to take place and then facing the risk of selling enough tickets to cover your costs, can be a lonely task. People who have the courage to do that anywhere in the world, even just for local artistes, are among the world’s bravest entrepreneurs. For most, it’s their love of live music and seeing the audience reaction that justifies the risks. For a few it’s just the potential financial gains, but their risk is even greater, because they don’t have the same passion to overcome sometime www.audience.uk.com
seemingly impossible odds. A youthful veteran of the Russian live music business and founder of Matreshka Concerts, Vera Borina says she is hoping to come away from ILMC with some greater insight into the latest marketing innovations. “I would like to see discussions exploring new ways of advertising shows,” she says. “I want to hear some new creative ideas, because right now everyone is on the internet and maybe there are some cutting-edge marketing tools that we could benefit from. “We obviously use the internet, outdoor, TV and radio to promote shows, but maybe there are some new techniques we can explore, perhaps an advertising agency could share their ideas – that would be really interesting. “ Among the panels that UK-based CAA agent Emma Banks is pleased to see on the agenda is Security: The new threats, which will take place
on 7 March at 2pm. “Safety and security gets discussed every year at ILMC, but more in targeted groups than the wider event,” she says. “I think it is a very important issue that always needs to be addressed. After all, who cares how people bought their ticket if they are not safe when they get to the show?” “What has to happen, and what is so brilliant about the safety and security committees, is that real positive change, plans and ideas comes out of them. But I wonder sometimes how much comes out of the more general debates,” Banks notes. Claudio Trotta, founder and head of Italy’s Barley Arts Promotion, is also pleased to see security and safety on the schedule again this year. “It is clearly an important issue and has been for the past 10 years,” he says. “It has grown in importance because of terrorism and changing audience • issue 229 • February 2019
22 • Feature
Vera Borina weather conditions, there have always been storms and rain, but not as violent as we are seeing now.” The security panel is also among discussions most eagerly anticipated by Aline Renet at French live music industry trade association PRODISS. Last September the organisation won support from the European Commission, via the Erasmus + Program, to launch the European project SAFE, an initiative designed to help develop the skills of those in charge of safety and security at concerts. ILMC is among the nine partners involved in SAFE, which include MOM Consultancy, ISSUE, the European Arenas Association, the International Crowd Management and Security Group, BDV and Wallifornia MusicTech. “It is a 24-month project focused on developing a new safety programme, as well as exploring how technological innovations can help the sector,” she says. “It is important for me to identify what the expectations of the professionals are at an international level and what strategies can be put in place to collaborate, with the aim of increasing security and safety at events.”
Secondary issues
ILMC’s Thursday morning session, Secondary Ticketing - The Fightback, will likely see a packed room to discuss the successes and challenges in the battle against abuses in the resale sector. Veteran UK-based promoter Danny Betesh, founder and MD of Kennedy Street Enterprises and a regular attendee of the event, says secondary ticketing remains a serious issue. “I am very anti secondary ticketing, particularly when it leads to tickets being sold at vastly inflated prices,” he says. “There are usually valuable and interesting discussions about secondary ticketing at ILMC and it is great to see that we have made some progress to tackle it, particularly in the UK.” Trotta also feels the ILMC plays an important role in providing a forum where strategies to audience • issue 229 • February 2019
Carlos Geniso tackle ticket abuse can be forged. “Secondary ticketing and the way to beat this cancer is a major issue,” he says. “I am a true believe in the fact that the people working against it will win.” Among the positive steps that both Banks, Betesh and Trotta are pleased to have seen taken is the launch of (FEAT). Banks says that while the launch of FEAT (the Face-value European Alliance for Ticketing, see Audience issue 228) is an encouraging development it is important to remember that ILMC is a global conference. “We can talk endlessly about secondary ticketing and no doubt there will be more, but the business is so different around the world, there is not one single fix,” she says. “In the US, secondary ticketing appears perfectly acceptable, whereas in the UK it seems totally unacceptable on a moral basis. “The FanFair Alliance and all the work individual artistes, agents and promoters are doing is huge and as ticketing technology progresses, hopefully secondary ticking will become something that doesn’t need to be discussed, because there will be technological answers to stop people re-selling tickets.” John Meglan, a founding partner, president & co-CEO of Concerts West, a global touring division of AEG, says, “I don’t think you should call it secondary ticketing any more, just ticketing. “There are a zillion ways that tickets get sold now and it is hard enough for the people in the industry, let alone the artistes, to really understand how the system works,” he says. “Where we screwed up in our business is that we have an open ticket, so the second it leaves our hands the person who bought it can do whatever they want with it. We need a closed ticket and open distribution.”
Identity crisis
The number one issue that Trotta would like to see discussed this year is the impact that industry consolidation is having on the role of
Emma Banks promoters. “When many of us started in the live music business as promoters, we were entrepreneurs and it was very clear who was doing what — the companies selling the tickets were providing a service for the artiste, the audience and the promoters,” says Trotta. “Now it seems the majority of the promoters in the world, or at least in Europe, work for a company where the core business is selling tickets. I was at the Ticketing Business Forum in Manchester [UK] last year and heard someone from a ticketing company calling the promoter a content provider. “When we started, the ticketing company was working for us, now the majority of the live music industry is working for the ticketing company. For me, one of the main issues is the changing identity of promoters – I am not a content provider, I am an entrepreneur.”
Paying the price
Carlos Geniso, president of DG Medios in Chile, says that a major issue that needs to be addressed is the need to recognise regional differences and varying market conditions when setting ticket prices. “ILMC attracts agents from around the world and many of them are sensitive to the fact that different countries have different cultures and the markets work differently, with different economies and different ticket price requirements,” he says. “I believe that if we are going to maintain ticket sales growth we need to focus on price. Sometimes the price is impossible and sometime you have to massage the price in order to satisfy consumers. That is an important issue. “Every artiste has a different policy regarding ticket prices, but the number one global touring artiste, who is generating the most valuable business worldwide, is Ed Sheeran. His policy is to make the ticket price affordable and if that means playing five nights to meet demand, he will. www.audience.uk.com
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24 • Feature
Danny Betesh
Caludio Trotta
Lazslo Hegedus
“That is the way to reach out to as big an audience as possible, setting a sensible ticket price.”
how the technology is helping to build fanbases. The same day as Marshmello’s online show, concert discovery platform Songkick saw a 3,000 per cent increase in fans searching for reallife Marshmello concerts. “That is huge and for some artistes that could be the way they move forward, because not everyone enjoys the buzz of touring, there are a lot of people who cannot go to shows and there are a lot of countries where you can’t play a show for economic, political or religious reasons,” she says. “These things can be monitised, thankfully
there are more and more companies able to do that.” Another subject to be tackled at ILMC is the use of data and how to process it more effectively. PRODISS’s Renet says her organisation has launched what she describes as a “mission”, focusing on the use of data in the live industry. “The aim is to draw up an inventory of good practices, opportunities and concrete short and medium-term solutions related to the exploitation of data. “Data is a real asset for promoters, venues
Streaming hot
A Thursday morning ILMC workshop will examine how the live industry can take advantage of streaming services and the technology for artiste discovery, curation, marketing and promotion. CAA’s Emma Banks points to electronic dance music artiste Marshmello’s virtual concert on online video game Fortnite, which attracted a viewing audience of 10 million, as an example of
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Feature • 27 and festivals but the methods of collecting and using it are diverse,” she says. “We want to explore technological solutions and increase the competence of those working in the sector”. For Hungarian promoter Laszlo Hegedus of Multimedia Organisation, an early pioneer of concerts across Eastern Europe, his main concern is what he describes as “the mind-crushing rise in ticket prices” and the competition between large corporate entities that is pushing up artiste fees. He says, “This type of mega fee competition and greed is butchering the entertainment industry.” On a lighter noter, he is looking forward to The Breakfast Meeting and Ed Bicknell’s interview with The Who’s frontman Roger Daltrey. “It is great to finally see an important artiste speak about his side of this business. I am sure his views will be interesting and different. “It is also good to see the faces behind the emails and phone calls,” says Hegedus
The network
While there is no doubt that many of the conference sessions are valuable, for a large number of delegates, it’s the chance to network, discuss ideas with colleagues and even do deals that draws them to ILMC every year. Latin America regional promoter Phil Rodriguez of Move Concerts has ambitious plans to attend several conference sessions.
Phil Rodriguez “There are quite a few panels that call my attention, so hopefully I can make it to Partnerships, Ticketing, Destination Business, New Technology, Industry Investment, Touring Entertainment and Secondary Ticketing. “And of course, seeing Ed Bicknell interviewing anyone is always a hoot. “The main two things I’ve always liked about the ILMC is that it truly is international and it is always fun to see colleagues from other countries. It’s our yearly high school reunion.” Renet says that having attending conferences throughout Europe she finds ILMC stands head and shoulders above the rest. “What I really like about ILMC panels is the sense of freedom and openness of the
discussions, and the way participants interact with the audience,” she says. Betesh says that aside from the structured interviews, speeches and debates, the freeflowing exchange of information during the less formal moments are of equal significance. “The most important thing is that ILMC is a great place to network, to meet with people from overseas, especially agents from the US – people we don’t see that often,” he says. Matreshka Concerts’s Vera Borina agrees. “You have a great opportunity to see the agents in one place — you don’t need to run around London and the world to talk to them,” she says. For Concerts West’s John Meglan, the main reason for coming to ILMC is to network with contacts that are usually hard to reach. “The ILMC is a reminder of just how global our industry has become – you have people from all over the world,” he says. “The live business has become truly global and ILMC is where it all comes together.”
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Russia • Murmansk St Petersburg • Novosibirsk • • Nizhniy Novgorod MOSCOW
• Vladivostok
Where once major international artistes would only play Moscow and, maybe, St Petersburg, the growth of festivals and infrastructure across the country is enabling the country’s leading promoters to expand the touring map, as well as the range of venues from clubs to stadiums. Christopher Barrett reports he principle cities Moscow and St has done nothing to help the live music busiPetersberg have long been important des- ness either. “The political and economic situation is tinations for western touring acts. But on the back of the country hosting a major issue because it has led to the ruble the FIFA World Cup football tournament last being very volatile and obviously we pay year, it now has several new stadiums, spread artistes in dollars and euros,” she says. The throughout the vast country, that promoters ruble is worth less but the spending power of people has not risen.” are looking to use for live music. Solovieva is pleased that Russia One of Russia's longest-estabhas new stadiums but says major lished event organisers, Moscowwestern acts can prove reluctant to based SAV Entertainment tour outside of the country’s two promotes around 60 shows main cities. per year, with artistes such as “The problem is that the venues Roger Waters at the Olimpiyskiy are all far away and big bands like Stadium (cap. 28,000) in Moscow Metallica travel with a lot of equipand Guns N’Roses at the city’s ment — the distances are huge and Otkritie Arena (45,360). Evgeny Finkelshtein there is much less money in cities This summer SAV will promote shows by Bon Jovi and Metallica at Moscow’s outside of Moscow and St Petersberg.” PMI Show Concert Agency, part of the PMI Luzhniki Stadium (81,000), the largest of its Corporation and based in St Petersburg, was kind in the country. Russian military incursions into Ukraine founded in 1998. The promoter has worked in 2014 have led to western sanctions that with many of the world’s biggest artistes have hurt the country’s economy, by presi- including Depeche Mode, Madonna, Roger dent Vladimir Putin's own admission, and SAV Waters, Sting, Paul McCartney and Metallica. founder and owner Nadia Solovieva says they In an average year, the company stages
Population: 144.5 million
Language: Russian
audience • issue 229 • February 2019
GDP per capita (US$): 10,743.10
Currency: Russian ruble
around 100 shows. PMI Corporation president Evgeny Finkelshtein says the sanctions imposed on Russia over the past four years have hit the economy hard and resulted in reduced ticket sales. He says another negative impact of the political tension between Russia and the UK and US, is that it has become much harder to persuade artistes to come to Russia. However, while working with Russian stars including Loboda and Dima Bilan, PMI will also promote shows by international acts such as Chemical Brothers, Kiss and A-ha this year. Finkelshtein says that the fall in the number of international shows means the ones that are taking place, particularly in Moscow, are selling well. “Our economy is fragile because of the sanctions but Moscow still manages to thrive,” he says. “While the overall quantity of shows has decreased it allows us to sell more tickets for the gigs in hand, people are hungry for international stars,” he says. PMI has been promoting nationwide tours
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Market Focus • 31
VTB Arena, Moskow
director Borina. “We are not looking to specialise in one genre and instead work with the best acts across all of them.” She says that while the impact of sanctions has been felt on the business, the increase in the VAT (sales tax) rate from 18 per cent to 20 per cent has also been unwelcome. Working in Moscow, St Petersburg Sales tax blow and beyond, Borina says that while Matreshka Concerts was founded the new stadiums are great, there is in February 2017 by Vera Borina, a currently a lack of arenas in the two 19-year veteran of the live music Vera Borina main cities, as a result of the tempobusiness. Matreshka has grown rapidly, promoting rary closure of Moscow’s Olympiskiy for refurshows including Sting, Lorde and Hollywood bishment and SKK Peterburgsky (20,000) being Vampires at the Ice Palace (12,300) in St shut. “It’s a major issue as we do not have large Petersburg and The Prodigy at Saint Petersburg indoor venues for shows in the autumn and winSKK (20,000). “We are a young company,” says general ter in the cities,” she says. for many years but Finkelshtein says there is a “massive" shortage of venues in the regions. “Our company is interested in improving this situation,” he says. “We are discussing the possibility of building several venues in various Russian cities including Samara and Kirov.”
Indie scene surge
Founded in 2013 and based in Moscow, Pop Farm has worked with both Russian and international acts, including Lorde, Imagine Dragons, The xx and The Smashing Pumpkins. The company typically promotes 50 shows per year. General director Dmitry Zaretsky says the fluctuating value of the ruble makes long-term planning a challenge but the economic downturn has sparked a creative surge in the Russian indie and hip-hop scene. “It is booming, with a lot of exciting stuff going on all over the country,” he says. Among the international acts Pop Farm is working with this year are Interpol, The 1975 and Years & Years, sold-out concerts by Twenty One Pilots in Kiev, Moscow and St Petersburg, and Ed Sheeran at Otkritie Arena. Zaretsky says that while a lot of the action
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audience • issue 229 • February 2019
32 • Market Focus is concentrated in Moscow and St Petersburg, other major touring destinations include Novosibirsk, Ekaterinburg, Krasnodar, Samara, Voronezh and Kazan. “We have been able to build multi-city tours, including 12 dates with Hurts and 10 shows with The Prodigy,” he says.
Emerging stars
Another major Moscow-based promoter, Talent Concert International (TCI) has extensive experience of managing country-wide tours by acts such as Korn, Limp Bizkit and The Rasmus. Recent landmark successes include a soldout show by Kraftwerk at Kremlin Palace (5,600), Rainbow and Ozzy Osbourne each at Olimpiyskiy, and Nick Cave at Moscow’s Stadium Pop Farm, Imagine Dragons at Luzhniki Stadium Live (7,000). TCI CEO Sergey Podgorny says despite the economic difficulties, the live business, particu- company is also doing well. It’s forthcoming larly in Moscow and St Petersburg, is benefiting stadium shows by Rammstein, at VTB Arena from a new generation of music fans who are (33,000) in Moscow and Gazprom Arena (64,000) in St Petersburg, sold out in less demonstrating great enthusiasm for than two weeks, which is remarkshows by new artistes. ably quick by Russian standards. “The local scene has been developing rapidly in recent years, we are seeing a lot of young rap artistes Rapping up attracting 6,000 to 20 000 people to Moscow’s 3,000-capacity Glav Club their concerts,” he says. “Ten years ago hosts around 200 show per year, that was impossible to imagine.” many of them by international When it comes to established acts artistes. Recent visitors include at the other end of the scale, the Igor Tonkikh Cypress Hill, Noel Gallagher’s High
audience • issue 229 • February 2019
Flying Birds and Morcheeba. Glav Club CEO Igor Tonkikh says the venue is enjoying a burgeoning local rap scene, with some of the biggest local acts to sell-out shows recently being Basta, Oxxxymiron and Noize MC. Tonkikh says the majority of the acts have gained sizeable audiences by releasing music on hugely popular social network VKontakte. He says VKontakte (VK.com) and YouTube are the best ways of promoting local acts, while outdoor and radio advertising remains important for more established artistes. As well as self-self-promoting and
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Market Focus • 33 working with local promoters on shows in the visibility from any seat, and it’s easy to reach by ticket sales is that the secondary ticketing marclub, Tonkikh’s team recently began organising metro or car,” says business development exec- ket is minimal. utive Svetlana Bignova. “We don’t have anything like tours. She says that social Viagogo, there just isn’t the demand, He welcomes the proposed media has become vitally so it is limited to small local resale regulatory changes under the important when publicisoperators,” he says. Unified State Automated Information ing shows and her team While international artiste fees System (EGAIS) — a state system that has generated a followhave not fallen inline with the value traces revenues involved in all ing of more than 100,000 of the ruble, Bakeev says the comaspects of a product’s lifecycle, for tax across the venue’s chanpany works hard to try and ensure purposes. nels on platforms including tickets for its concerts are affordable “These days Russia is justly conIldar Bakeev Instagram and VK. for fans. sidered a cash country and the live Sergey Podrogny “The public is getting used to the music industry is not transparent for fact that concert ticket prices for big artistes are authorities or potential investors,” he says. “With Getting the price right the introduction [of EGAIS] the live industry bil- Ildar Bakeev, the founder of promoter Ildar very expensive,” he says. “People were shocked lions will become more visible for all, and serious Bakeev Entertainment (IBE) previously ran the by the drop in currency value a couple of years investors will come here. Kontramarka ticketing company, which was ago, but they are prepared to pay a high price “Investment is needed in the live music infra- acquired by German pan-Europe ticketing for a ticket to a show by a world-class artiste.” Recent successes for IBE include Sting at structure, technology and specialist education.” giant CTS Eventim in 2006. “In Russia we have a different mindset when the Olimpiyskiy and two shows by Theory Of A Deadman, while current projects Concert qualities include a 10-city tour by Finnish singMoscow’s 7,200-capacity Crocus City “There are 156 million people in the country – it’s er-songwriter Tarja Turunen. Hall is one of Russia’s leading concert Aside from the economy, Bakeev venues. The arena is owned by entrea huge market with many passionate music fans” says the frosty political relationship preneur Aras Agalarov and opened in Nadia Solovieva between Russia and Britain and the October 2009. US has also impacted visa procedures. Artistes playing the Crocus City Hall “Last year we did a tour with Theory include Lorde, Dua Lipa, 10cc, David Garrett and Nazareth. buying tickets, we tend to buy them much of a Deadman, they had difficulties getting “The venue combines an arena capacity with closer to the event — never way in advance,” visas not because they are a Canadian band, but because they live in US. That was never an the high comfort levels of a great concert hall he says. — a perfect acoustic, cosy armchairs, good Bakeev says a positive result of Russia’s slow issue in the past,” he says.
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audience • issue 229 • February 2019
34 • Market Focus Customary instability
president and CEO of Art Mania. “More than Michael Shurygin. “It has a roof, which is very Maria Axenova of the Moscow-based Melnitsa 300,000 people have visited the festival since its rare for a stadium here, and as a result I am lookConcert Agency (MCA) has much experience of launch in 2004, and around 800 musicians have ing to stage national and local act concerts there throughout the year.” promoting shows by major international artistes played on our stages.” NCA is also involved in festivals and is lookHeadlining the event this year will be The against a backdrop of economic uncertainty. “Economic stability has never been a virtue of Black Eyed Peas, Michael Kiwanuka and Jamie ing to reprise one-day, free, festival Rock Over The Volga this year. It last took place Russia, neither has it been in Ukraine, Belarus and Georgia, where we have “We are seeing a lot of young rap artistes attract- in 2013 in fields outside the city of Samara, with Rammstein headlining branches,” she says. ing 6,000 to 20 000 people to their concerts” and an audience of 691,000. As well as working on a Muse show Sergey Podgorny “We are also looking to introduce at Luzhniki Stadium in June and a new two-day festival, SKAZ.KA Hollywood Undead at the VTB Arena (100,000) in Kazan, one of the richest in April, a major focus for MCA is its areas of Russia,” says Shurygin. three-day summer festival Park Live (20,000) in Cullum. Headliners are currently being confirmed for Moscow’s Gorky Park, with tickets priced from “There is high demand for music festivals 8,000 roubles ($122). here, especially in Moscow – I hear about new the event, which is planned for late September at MCA also organises sister event UPark projects almost every season,” says Semushkina. the Kazan Expo International Exhibition Centre, (15,000), at the Sky Family Park in Kiev, and the “The outdoor concert season is short, so promot- walking distance from Kazan International Airport. two festivals share the same line-up. This year ers value every single weekend in the summer.” it features Thirty Seconds to Mars, The Prodigy, She says that despite the market challenges, Bring Me The Horizon and Rag’n'Bone Man. the live music market remains vibrant. Regional challenges “The festival market here is growing slowly “The economy is in decline, people’s incomes Established in 2006 and rebranded Eventation but steadily,” she says. “We launched UPark hav- are shrinking, so the overall trend is not posi- six years later, the Moscow-based promoter reging been inspired by the success of Park Live.” tive at all, but music venues are still packed, the ularly works with international artistes and local Meanwhile, Pop Farm has seen amount of shows by worldacts throughout the country. its reputation in Moscow expand famous artistes in Moscow Recent successes include Three over the four years since launch, and St Petersburg is compaDays Grace concerts at Stadium Live from a club event to a full three-day, rable to other big European in Moscow and A2 in St Petersburg. 6,000-capacity festival. Headliners cities, and our festival is still in Despite there fluctuating value this year include The Good the Bad high demand.” of the rouble, talent buyer Sergey and the Queen. National Concert Academy Muradov says his company is doing Festivals with a longer his(NCA) has promoted concerts well and is working on the launch of tory include Afisha Picnic, a one- Sergey Muradov since 1998 and in an average a new festival next year. day event that takes place at year it works on 100 shows Svetlana Bignova “This year is going to be the busiKolomenskoye, a former tsar’s estate on the ranging from club dates to music festiest yet for us,” he says. “We are honoutskirts of Moscow. The 50,000-capacity event vals. It also owns the 1,700-capacity Cosmonaut oured to host the first ever shows in Russia by has seen performances by acts including The Club venue in St Petersberg. David Duchovny and his band, and in March we Chemical Brothers, Kasabian and Hot Chip. Headquartered in the city, NCA promoted will do an 11-show arena tour for Manowar.” Madonna’s first concert in Russia, which took Muradov regularly works on regional tours place at Luzhniki Stadium in 2006. Current proj- but says it is not always easy persuading interCity connections Another well-established festival is the two-day ects include an eight-city Enter Shikari tour that national artiste agents to take the step. “Unfortunately, Moscow and St Petersburg are Usadba Jazz which takes place in Moscow, St will take in Moscow’s Adrenaline Stadium (8,500) Petersburg, Voronezh, Yekaterinburg and Sochi. and A2 Green Concert (5,000) in St Petersburg, a different world to the rest of Russia,” he says. With a daily capacity of 20,000, the event has along with a sold-out show by Rammstein at “We can promote shows in up to 20 markets in Russia, but it can be difficult to explain to agents been headlined by myriad acts including Bootsy Gazprom Arena. “The Gazprom Arena was built for the World why we are offering, say, $100,000 for a show in Collins, Tony Allen and The Brand New Heavies. “Usadba Jazz is well-known all over Russia,” Cup and is one of the biggest and most beauti- Moscow and only $15,000 for one in Novgorod says the festival’s promoter Maria Semushkina, ful stadiums in Russia,” says NCA owner and MD or Voronezh.
audience • issue 228 • January 2019
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Market Focus • 37
Glav Club
“These markets are around seven times small- The ABBA Reunion Tribute Show and a Crocus Hall concert with 10cc. er and people can't afford tickets as Kazykhanov says regional tours typexpensive as in Moscow.” ically take in cities with a population Founded in 1986 by Vladimir of at least one million, such as Samara, Kazykhanov, Razzle Wolf Concert Ekaterinburg, Novosibirsk, Ufa, Krasn Agency hails itself as one of the bigodar and Kazan. gest promoters in the Ural region and “Almost all the cities have a worldhas worked with artistes ranging from class arena venue with capacities of heavy metal bands to opera singers. around 10,000, but not all of them Razzle Wolf events include the Nadia Solovieva have enough music fans to provide Nazareth’s 50th Anniversary Tour and with Elton John
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sold-out shows,” he points out. Back in St Petersburg, since launching in 1993, SP Concert has promoted nationwide in venues ranging from clubs to stadiums and with international acts such as Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds and local acts including Aquarium and Mashina Vryemeni. Due to the economic situation, the company has recently focused primarily on domestic artistes such as Boris Grebenshchikov, Andrey Makarevich and Mikhaеl Efremov. SP chairmen Igor Grishin says that while the festival market is growing the wider concert market is not. “The current economic situation is not contributing to growth in the live business in general or our company,” he says. “Opportunities will appear when the overall economic situation improves.” In conclusion, SAV’s Nadia Solovieva says that while Russia’s scale may appear daunting to first time touring acts, there is a well-established touring infrastructure, ranging from venues to equipment and crews. “There are 156 million people in the country, it’s a huge market with many passionate music fans,” she says. “I don’t know any act that has come to Russia and not liked it, the audiences always give them a warm welcome. “It is just a matter of finding the right balance between what people are earning and the price of concert tickets.”
audience • issue 229 • February 2019
38 • Feature
Believing in the show It is possible that having grandparents who were comedians and a mother who was a contortionist and an opera impresario father may have helped the young Claudio Trotta get a start in the live music business, but his relentless passion for what he does still propels him along today, as he celebrates 40 years in the promoting game. Johnny Black reports
H
e was punched in the eye by the first international artiste he promoted, became friends with Bruce Springsteen and helped Muhammad Ali shake Bo Diddley’s hand on stage. He’s also been a radio DJ, taken to a British police station in a Saddam Hussein-related incident, after which a group of international promoters gathered outside and called for his release, and is renowned for instantly jumping to the defence of his homeland, Italy, at the slightest hint of disparaging remark during a certain annual conference. Most importantly, however, Milan-based Claudio Trotta was audience • issue 229 • February 2019
instrumental in helping to transform Italy from a chaotic no-go zone for international artistes into a lucrative and enjoyable destination. “I am, of course, mad,” he says, but really he means madly passionate about what he wants to achieve and the things in which he believes. “Claudio was the first of a new breed of promoters in Italy,” reckons veteran agent Carl LeightonPope, who now heads UK-based The Leighton-Pope Organisation. “Claudio and fellow promoter Roberto De Luca [now head of Live Nation Italy] changed the world of concert promotion in Italy.”
Thinking back to the early 1980s, Leighton-Pope recalls, “Italy, in those days, was really wild. I remember doing a show with Wishbone Ash in Milan and we had half the house sold, but the other half was in the car park smashing up cars, because they wanted us to open up the doors and let them in for nothing. In the end Claudio and his partner Franco Mamone, who were promoting the show, came over and said, ‘Look, we gotta let them in. They’re doing so much damage out there.’ “So we opened the doors and they literally ran all over us. It was mayhem.”
Having suffered a period of political turmoil, the youth of Italy was then undergoing an anarchistic fervour, partly expressed in demands for freedom of every kind of artistic endeavour. It was a crazy time, but it was precisely this chaos which had enabled young visionaries like Trotta to emerge. He was born into a theatricallyoriented family in Milan on 21 September 1957. “My mother Luciana’s parents had been comedians, and she became a show girl and contortionist. My father’s father was an opera impresario and also played violin at La Scala.” By his own admission, Trotta
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Feature • 39 “cannot play even a doorbell”, brother and I also sold secondbut the family always encour- hand books.” aged whatever career direction he chose to pursue and, during his In business early years, he pursued many. Throughout this era, he was beIn his mid-teens, for example, he ginning to realise that what he rehad a brief flirtation with acting, ally wanted to do was organise live appearing in the movie musical events and in 1979 he was able, Yuppi Du, which starred Charlotte through the support of his family, Rampling. He also spent several to take his first steps towards beyears playing basketball profes- coming a promoter. sionally, dabbled with “My mother gave me marathon running, a loan equivalent now to and had aspirations to€1,000 [$1,100], my office wards journalism, but it was my room in my parwas not until the midents’ home, and the first 70s that an opportucar I used to transport nity arose which would artistes was my dad’s set him off on his life’s Citroen.” main trajectory. He named his new venTraditionally, Italian Phil Banfield ture Barley Arts, because radio had been govof the well-documenternment controlled and heavily ed love of strong drink among censored, but in 1976 the Italian musicians. Supreme Court legalised commerThe biggest hurdle Barley Arts cial broadcasting and, as Trotta faced was that the international remembers, “every young man of music community still regarded my age was looking at that as a Italy as something close to the Wild possibility - talking on the radio West. was a dream. “Some of the organis“Suddenly there ers of concerts in Italy in were thousands of Free the ‘70s were not proRadio stations. I was a fessional,” he acknowlhuge fan of West Coast edges, but insists that sounds, like Jefferson the widely-held percepAirplane, Grateful Dead, tion of Mafia involveQuicksilver Messenger ment is wrong. Service, Moby Grape, “The Mafia was interbut when a friend asked Claudio with Martin ested in big money, and me if I was interested in Hopwell there was not enough doing a programme about Italian money involved in live gigs in Italy music on Radio Montestella, well, to make it attractive to them. In my I didn’t give a damn about Italian entire career I have never been apmusic, but I immediately said, proached by the Mafia.” ‘Yes!’.” But when, later in 1979, he flew Despite the fact that Montestella to London hoping to nurture usewas paying him for his DJ services, ful international connections, that when he was offered was precisely the sort a non-paying gig on of prejudice he had to Canale 96, he jumped overcome. at it. Canale 96 reflect“London agents ed Trotta’s left-wing laughed at me, laughed sentiments, about Italy. The agent “I stayed there for for Eddie Grant wanted three-and-a-half years, £30,000 [$38,700], completely unpaid, but when his regular fee it was one of the best ex- Steve Parker was £3,000 [$3,870], periences of my life, dursimply because he did ing which I learned so much about not want his artiste to go to Italy.” how the music business worked.” But undaunted, Trotta continued To support himself during this to pursue his dream, and his indetime, he was, “doing a lot of little fatigable Latin charm started to jobs. On Sunday mornings I sold pay off. “The first British agent who encyclopaedias in local cinemas. gave me an act was Steve Parker at Me and a friend were also do- Bron Agency, who let me have John ing 1,000 fly-posters a night. My Martyn.” www.audience.uk.com
Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band at Circo Massimo, Rome © Simone Di Luca
Parker recalls, “Like many London agents at the time, I’d had some dramatic experiences in that market. At least one promoter I knew carried a gun and incidents such as the tyres of a truck being shot-out to stop a band leaving a potentially dangerous show, a road crew having to break-out and run for the border after being locked in an unsafe venue – again to stop them abandoning the show, and a bank manager lying about an advance payment being sent – it hadn’t – were par for the course. “But I remember Claudio’s passion - he only wanted John Martyn and he knew exactly what kind
of venues were right and how to make it work.” Trotta wasted no time in exploiting this breakthrough. He remembers, “I then got a lot of acts from Paul Fenn and Paul Charles at UKbased Asgard - Van Morrison, Ry Cooder, John Lee Hooker, Rickie Lee Jones, Joan Baez. Others who helped me then were Carl Leighton-Pope, Rod MacSween, Martin Hopewell and John Jackson.” The John Martyn concerts, however, proved to be something of a baptism by fire. At their first encounter, Martyn physically demonstrated his dissatisfaction with the hotel into which Trotta had
CLAUDIO TROTTA – STAR OF „BARLEY ARTS“ GOES X-RATED THE 40 YEARS ANNIVERSARY YOU READ ABOUT IN THE PLAYBOY!
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audience • issue 229 • February 2019
40 • Feature 1979,” recalls Trotta, “when I did 11 booked him. “He punched me in the eye. I don’t shows with Bromberg which atrecall which one, but I certainly do tracted 35,000 people, and also with Bruce Cockburn, with recall the pain,” laughs whomwe did 10 shows Trotta. “John Martyn was for 25,000 people.” able to drink 17 cans of beer, a bottle of whisky and one and a half bottles Good connection of red wine, all during the Barley Arts was now maksame concert, while at ing headway, carving the same time creating out a niche for itself as a the sound of an orchesreliable promoter in what Rod MacSween tra using only his acoushad previously been a tic guitar,” he recalls with a hint of somewhat precarious market. exaggeration. Still, the money was Trotta now rates that hardly rolling in, so Trotta tour as “a discrete suchad to be imaginative in cess” but its real signififinding ways to keep the cance was that it led to business afloat. Dinners bigger things. “During cooked for artistes by this period I was associhis mother at the famated with Lucio Salvini, ily home were one way president of the record of keeping costs down, company Dischi Ricordi, Carl Leighton-Pope and in return for booking which helped me make acts into a local hotel, he contacts with Stefan Grossman and secured free use of the hotel’s Telex his Kickin Mule Records label, with machine – a teletape predecessor of John Renbourn, and with the man- the fax machine. agers of Bruce Cockburn and David “With our budget at the time I Bromberg.” could not afford to buy one.” “The boom started in November By 1981, Salvini had moved on
KISS at Arena di Verona
to become President of Caroselo Records where he started a new label, Blues And Rock, for which Trotta became label manager. “We were re-releasing blues albums by people like Bo Diddley and Muddy Waters, as well as rock LPs by Jon And The Nightriders and Ray Campi, all of which I brought to Italy for shows.” Trotta’s lifelong conviction that the show must go on was tested in 1981
when former Incredible String Band member Robin Williamson attracted only eight people to a 1,500-capacity theatre in Turin. “He asked me if he still had to do the show. I said, ‘Yes, of course.’ To me, an artiste without an audience might as well be playing to himself in a mirror.”
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We are seeing a lot of young rap artistes attracting 6,000 to 20,000 people to their concerts Sergey Podgorny at TCI, Russia
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What others say Barry Dickins, ITB, UK “Having worked with Claudio since the early 80s, we have done ZZ Top, Billy Idol and others together. He’s hard-working, has a great sense of humour and cooks a great pasta. He’s not a bad opera singer, but not as good as he thinks he is.” Jake Berry, production manager for U2, Rolling Stones, AC/DC “I first met Claudio when I was with AC/DC in the ‘80s. I remember Barley Arts was like a Mom and Pop organisation. When you went to their office, it was very family-orientated. Today there are huge, worldwide promoters, so it’s tough for independents. That means only the best survive, and Claudio is definitely one of those.” Jim Beach, manager of Queen “Claudio and I have done projects together for many years, notable Queen, Brian May and We Will Rock You, and in all that time, we have only ever had one row.” Loris Tramontin, president, Azalea, Italy “Claudio and I first collaborated in 1988, on the Norwegian band A-ha, since then we’ve done over 100 concerts, including AC/DC, Metallica, Bon Jovi, Bruce Springsteen, David Bowie, Genesis, Iron Maiden, Page and Plant, Pearl Jam. All our collaborations have been interesting and friendly, even the arguments.”
well-established, Trotta faced another setback when he was called up for compulsory National Service in 1982, a problem he overcame with classic cunning. “I was afraid that my contacts in the UK and the USA would be alarmed by this, so I did not tell them,” he explains. “Instead, I left my collaborator, Paolo Dal Bon, who could not speak a word of English, to run the office. Paolo told
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everyone who called that I was out, and I would call them back later, which I did by using the public phone at the army base. That way I did deals for artistes including Ry Cooder, Girlschool, Van Morrison, UK Subs and David Lindley.” Massimo Gramigni, founder of PRG Florence, who has worked with Trotta on Bruce Springsteen, Tom Waits and numerous Italian artistes, remembers how,
George Travis, production manager, Bruce Springsteen “Claudio understands that the real boss is the audience - equal to his responsibility to the artiste. He surrounds himself with great support who understand this, starting with the best representative any promoter could have, his sister Cristina.” Nigel Hassler, CAA, UK “Claudio is one of the good guys in our business. I first worked with him over 20 years ago with the Canadian artiste Loreena McKennitt, who he still promotes. He has always been a gentleman, a true professional, always smiling and has a larger than life personality.” Massimo Gramigni, PRG Florence, Italy “Claudio is a keen fisherman, and like all fishermen he has always a good story to tell regarding some great catch. In his spare time he listens to hours and hours of music, which gives him a great knowledge on emerging new talent.”
audience • issue 229 • February 2019
42 • Feature
Claudio Trotta’s artistes 1986 The Cramps The Jesus Mary and Chain Van Morrison Jackson Browne Elvis Costello Black Sabbath 1987 Peter Gabriel The Cure INXS Def Leppard Supertramp Judas Priest Metallica Bon Jovi 1988 Barry White Megadeth Judas Priest Frank Zappa Ziggy Marley John Cale 1989 Ozzy Osbourne Pixies The Stone Roses Motley Crue Aerosmith The Cult Marc Almond Anthrax 1990 Fish Robert Plant Phil Collins Faith No more Ry Cooder & David Lindley Fleetwood Mac Iron Maiden Ramones Billy Idol
1994 Primal Scream Sheryl Crow Santana Roger Taylor ICE T Whitesnake Blur Bob Dylan
2002 Pet Shop Boys Kylie Minogue Buddy Guy Roger Waters Coldplay ZZ Top Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
1995 Dave Mathews Band Boyz II Men dEUS Page & Plant Faith No More Megadeth Paul Weller The Cure
2003 Queens of the Stone Age The White Stripes King Crimson George Benson 50 Cent Sean Paul Nickelback
1996 David Bowie Sepeltura Cypress Hill Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds Sex Pistols Massive Attack Pearl Jam
2004 Dream Theater Limp Bizkit Muse Morrisey The Cure Faithless Rush Peter Frampton
1997 Simple Minds Joan Baez Alice Cooper The Prodigy No doubt Aerosmith Van Morrison
2005 Chemical Brothers Queen Ray Lamontagne Bruce Springsteen Bryan Adams The Strokes Prodigy
1998 Deftones Genesis Alan Parsons Deep Purple Jeff Beck Blondie Judas Priest
2006 Jack Johnson EELS George Clinton Massive Attack Jackson Browne Albert Hammond Mary J Blige Gnarls Barkley
1991 Iggy Pop David Lee Roth Herbie Hancock Bryan Adams Lenny Kravits AC/DC Scorpions Slayer
1999 Lord of the Dance Bruce Springsteen & The E. Street Band Patti Smith Grace Jones Chemical Brothers Earth Wind and Fire Art Garfunkel
1992 Public Enemy Pearl Jam Stevie Wonder Izzy Stradlin Def Leppard Guns N’Roses Toto
2000 Sting Yes King Crimson Alanis Morrissette BB King Lou Reed Rage Against the Machine
1993 Rage Against The Machine Alice in Chains Joe Satriani Dream Theatre Brian May Jeff Healey Band Iron Maiden Billy Joel
2001 Papa Roach Linkin Park Slipknot Limp Bizkit UB40 AC/DC Sting Jeff Beck
audience • issue 229 • February 2019
2007 Damien Rice Scissors Sisters MIKA Jeff Beck Gregg Allman Joe Bonamassa Rufus Wainwright 2008 Nightwish New York Dolls Killing Joke Robyn Queen Paul Weller Natalie Cole 2009 AC/DC Nightwish Bruce Springsteen & The E. Street Band Marc Almond Lily Allen James Morrison Rodrigo Y Gabriella
2010 Walking with Dinosaurs Foreigner The Prodigy Madness Paul Weller Gil Scott-Heron Steve Miller Band 2011 Kylie Minogue Peter Frampton John Mellencamp Bon Jovi Jack Johnson Hanson Rodrigo Y Gabriela 2012 Roger Daltrey LMFAO Snoop Dogg Crystal Castles The Heavy Kris Kristofferson 2013 Ellie Goulding Imagine Dragons Macklemore & Ryan Lewis Graham Parker Tom Odell Phosphorescent 2014 Rodriguez Television Cherub Jack Johnson The Boxer Rebellion 2015 Queen & Adam Lambert Public Service Broadcasting Primus The Chemical Brothers Counting Crows Kid Ink Gramatik 2016 Brian May Garbage Penatonix MIKA Counting Crows The Chemical Brothers The Cure 2017 Flaming Lips Tinie Tempah Anderson .Paak Anthrax Ben Harper Madness 2018 Milky Chance We Are Scientists The Chemical Brothers Kylie Minogue The Flaming Lips Tom Odell Slaves
Claudio Trotta with Elvis Costello
“Claudio would call me from a telephone booth near the barracks. He was so desperate to talk with someone outside the army that he would keep the conversation going up to the last coin in his pocket.” In later years, Gramigni and Trotta would work together to create the Italian national music trade organisation Assomusica.
Floating like a butterfly One of Trotta’s most cherished memories from 1982 is a Bo Diddley concert he promoted at Odissea 2001 in Milan. “A journalist friend of mine, Gianni Mina, rangup and told me he was in Milan with Muhammad Ali, who wanted to come to the concert and meet Bo Diddley. “During the show we arranged
for Ali to appear at the top of a flight of stairs leading down to the stage. Seeing him there, Bo immediately stopped playing, the hall went silent, and Ali walked down to shake hands with Bo. Then Ali left the stage, but even to have had him there for a couple of minutes in one of my shows was magical, one of the greatest moments of my entire career.” On leaving the army, Trotta struck up an association with veteran promoter Franco Mamone, during which he dramatically increased his network of international contacts. For example, Phil Banfield, now an agent at Coda Agency in the UK, remembers, “I first came across Claudio when he worked with the legendary Franco Mamone who promoted Sting for me in Italy,
Congrats Claudio Working together now for 15 years 12 tours 45 shows ... and still going!
Congrats and best wishes! Wayne Forte and everyone at Entourage Talent www.audience.uk.com
Feature • 43
What others say
Alex Hardee, Coda Agency, UK “I remember Claudio coming to see us at the office, and none of us young turks wanted to meet him. But Phil Banfield, the boss at the time, said we should pay him more respect, so I did the meeting and I am glad I did.” Stefano Peccatori, director general, Mondadori Electa, Italy “I met him in 2016 when he proposed to us that we should publish his autobiography - No pasta No Show. I was not so ready to publish a book like that, but he was so enthusiastic that in the end his exuberance, passion and optimism convinced me.”
Caludio Trotta and Lenny Kravitz
amongst other acts. Claudio is great because he doesn’t give you any bullshit and he is completely trustworthy.” The Trotta-Mamone association, however, survived just 18 months. Then head of Primary Talent International, Martin Hopewell points out that, “Claudio had a different style of working from the people who preceded him. “For one thing, his command of English was much better than Franco’s, which made him easier to deal with. He was also closer to my own age group which was great, because some of those older guys could be a bit intimidating.” According to Leighton-Pope, “I used to do all my Italian stuff with Mamone, but we had a massive showdown - he came after me very
aggressively, very threatening. So when Claudio left that arrangement I took Matt Bianco, Bryan Adams and others to him.” Another who switched from Mamone to Trotta was Rod MacSween of ITB, citing among his reasons the fact that, “He’s reliable, honest and a man of his word. He also has a good sense of humour and is an epicurean.” It was, reckons Trotta, his collaboration with MacSween which initiated the era of Heavy Metal shows in Italy. Trotta’s introduction to the metal hordes came on 5 September 1984, with the first Italian edition of the Monsters Of Rock festival, headlined by AC/DC, Van Halen and Gary Moore. “Rod and I also did a tour with Accept and Dokken in 1986,
Steve Strange, X-ray Touring, UK “I met Claudio at my first ILMC in 1994, since when, as well as Ash, we have worked together on Obie Trice, Foreigner and others including 50 Cent, who sold out Milan’s Fila Forum [cap. 10,000] in 2003. It was the biggest hip-hop show in Italy at that time.” Richard Zimmer, aka Paco, Tour Manager “I have had the pleasure of working with Claudio and Barley Arts for most of the past 40 years on acts including The Who, Robert Plant and Jimmy Page, Bon Jovi and KISS. Early on you could see that he would become a world class promoter. I can recall many late night meals after gigs, where I got to enjoy some of Claudio’s local friends and some of best food I have ever experienced.” Leon Ramakers, Mojo Concerts, Netherlands “Let me tell you just one story about the most passionate promoter in Europe, Claudio Trotta. A long time ago, he went through difficult financial times, so bad that he was unable to fulfill his obligations towards an act that we had sold him. He promised ,“I cannot pay you now, but in due time I will pay.” It took a while, but Claudio paid every last penny.” Tom Chauncey, Partisan, US “I’ve had the pleasure of working with Claudio for over 16 years. I think the first show was a Ben Harper gig back in 2003, but since then we have done a ton of successful and memorable Jack Johnson gigs. I’m missing the old ILMC days when you could always count on Claudio to be passionate about issues of the day and the changing business. He’d always be there ready to grab the mic and not let go.” Elio, artiste, Italy “My band, Elio E Le Storie Tese, did many major tours with Claudio in the ‘90s, which were always fantastically imaginative – including a 12-hour song with a half-hour encore, a for-women-only concert on International Women’s Day, and a Garibaldi tour, in which we conquered.”
ALWAYS READY WHEN YOU NEED IT! www.audience.uk.com
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44 • Feature
AC-DC ar Autodromo di Imola © Simone Di Luca
and then John Jackson and I did Metallica, Aerosmith, Def Leppard, Iron Maiden, Guns N’Roses and so on.”Fortunately, it seems, he can.
Iraq and beyond
In the years that followed, Trotta was able to promote many of his own personal favourites, from Frank Zappa (1988) to Phil Collins (1990) and Stevie Wonder (1992), but he was also becoming a wellknown figure on the international scene through his regular appearances at the annual International Live Music Conference (ILMC) in London, where his larger than life persona often landed him at the centre of some memorable moments. “In March 1991, at The Portman Hotel, a large group of promoters went off to a curry house and returned around midnight, completely hammered,” remembers ILMC-founder Hopewell. “In their inebriated state they decided that Claudio bore a strong resemblance to Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, so they marched him into the bar chanting ‘Saddam! Saddam!’ much to the annoyance of a group of Kuwaitis whose country had been invaded by Hussein’s forces, just months earlier.” Inevitably, police arrived to calm things down, and somehow Claudio ended up beneath a pile of London’s finest, before being carted off in a police van. “Not long after, a bunch of ILMC delegates arrived outside the local police station demanding to have Claudio released,” Hopewell recalls. “If you compiled a list of notorious anecdotes from the ILMC over audience • issue 229 • February 2019
the years, Claudio would feature prominently in quite a few.” The latter half of the ‘90s saw Trotta launch his own ambitious festival, Sonoria, which ran in Milan for three years, but despite featuring artistes as diverse as Aerosmith, Bob Dylan and The Cure, it did not achieve the commercial success he might have wished for. Nevertheless, he still regards them as “among the best events I have ever put together.” Although Trotta had known Bruce Springsteen on a personal level since 1996, they didn’t begin their working relationship until 2003. Hardly surprisingly, with Springsteen being a lifelong favourite of Trotta’s, it has resulted in some of the most unforgettable concerts of Trotta’s career. “At San Siro stadium [80,000] in Milan in 2003,” relates Trotta, “it poured with rain but he played such an astonishing set that noone in the crowd was seeking shelter. Every Springsteen show is special, but in moments like those you realise you are helping everybody involved to reach beauty.”
Fighting exploitation
Many of Trotta’s most celebrated achievements have featured major international acts but, as he points out himself, “The majority of tickets sold in Italy has always been for Italian acts, and over the years I have promoted and produced a lot of those.” It perfectly illustrates this aspect of Trotta’s work that when he staged a remarkable show on 10 September 2005, in Reggio Emilia for Luciano Ligabue, he sold 165,264 tickets, establishing
a record as the best-selling show by a single artiste which stood for many years. It’s also too easy, when confronted with his many concert successes to forget that Trotta has been one of the main adversaries of secondary ticketing, which he describes as “an ugly cancer”. In January 2017, for example, he launched the first International Conference Against Secondary Ticketing, during which he promoted the idea of what he calls Nominative Tickets, that is tickets bearing the name of the buyer, as
a means of combating inflated resales. He has already done concerts with such tickets for Queen, Madness, KISS and others, and reports that from July 2019, a new law will make it mandatory for any Italian concert with over 5,000 attendees to use Nominative tickets. These days, Trotta’s reach extends beyond traditional concerts to family-oriented events like Walking With Dinosaurs, Queen’s We Will Rock You stage show, and even his own “food truck” festivals under the banner of Streeat, where he also acts as DJ for the event. His first autobiography, No Pasta No Show, was published in December 2017, and he’s already planning a second volume. So what next? “I’ll always continue to do live concerts,” he says, “but another of my ambitions is to have a nice venue, where I can put on the live music that I love, and also have control over the food and the wine. It is always important to me to try to understand what is next. “We only have one life, so let’s try to make it work.”
What others say Wayne Forte, Entourage Talent, US “Since first working with Claudio in 2004 we’ve done Joe Satriani, G3, Tedeschi Trucks Band, The Derek Trucks Band, Oli Brown and others. He is passionate and loves music and when he focuses on a project or artiste he is generally very successful.” Luca Montebugnoli, Viva Ticket, Italy “Since 2015 Claudio and I have worked together at the AC/DC concert in Imola, with Queen and Adam Lambert in Milan and during the Little Steven tour in 2018. Claudio works with a strong ethical vision, and pays strong attention to the customers and the music fans. Starting with his great smile, he’s a big personality who always learns from the people around him.” Marc Lambelet, Mainland Music, Zurich “Claudio has been a model for me. He has shown that you can be successful in this business, while also enjoying life, having strong character and always smiling, against all odds. Claudio has many friends and I’m proud to be one.” Gian Paolo Serino, journalist and writer, Italy “Claudio brings a contagious energy to everything he does. I’ve worked with him on humane projects, such as when he came to tell stories to sick children in Fatebene Fratelli Hospital in Rome, or when we organised a public reading for disadvantaged people in Milan. He has the head of a manager and the heart of a child.” Pascal Van De Velde, Greenhouse Talent, Belgium “Claudio was one of the first people to be friendly to me and to speak to me when I debuted as a junior promoter at ILMC. You can’t miss him, he’s a giant, he’s loud and even Joseph Stalin would have been jealous of his beautiful black moustache.” Giuliano Pisapia, former Mayor of Milan, Italy “The first time we met was in 2012 when I was Mayor and he was organising Bruce Springsteen’s concert in San Siro [80,000]. Claudio was really angry because local residents were in open war with the authorities about volume levels and the time the concert was due to finish. We found an acceptable solution for both situations and we have been friends ever since.”
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Florence and her magic machine 48 • Feature
Florence and The Machine at the Domain, Sydney © Jordan Munns
Whether it is performing impromptu in a club toilet or headlining a festival with a broken foot, Florence Welch and her Machine’s career has been driven by a mixture of will power, creative endeavour and a team of professionals dedicated to helping her deliver barn-storming performances worldwide, Christopher Barrett reports.
audience • issue 229 • February 2019
F
lorence Welch has come a long way since November 2007, when she convinced The Queens of Noize DJ Mairead Nash to manager her, by delivering a one-on-one rendition of Etta James’ Something Got A Hold On Me while they were together in a nightclub toilet. On her current tour Florence will become the first female artiste to headline a British Summer Time (cap, 65,000) concert in London’s Hyde Park twice, and, in January, she broke the attendance record at Australia’s The Domain in Sydney, with an audience of 27,500. “Florence’s worldwide success is the result of the progression of a truly talented artiste,” says her international agent Emma Banks at CAA, in the UK. “It is very rare that I say this about an artiste, but I don’t think I have ever seen Florence play a bad show. Even if she comes off stage thinking it wasn’t great, no one that watched it agrees with her. Florence puts 100 per cent into every concert.” Having already toured Australia and New Zealand, North America and the UK, as part of the High As Hope Tour, Florence + The Machine will commence a mainland Europe
trek in March. Then, in May, she will head back to the US, Canada and Mexico before returning to Europe for a string of festival performances over the summer that include Hungary Sziget Festival (75,000) and Electric Picnic (40,000) in Ireland. Following Welch’s impromptu washroom showcase back in 2007, Mairead Nash and her fellow Queens of Noize associate, Tabitha Denholm took the plunge. They agreed to move into management and began representing the singer, working with X-ray Touring agent Hannah Giannoulis to book some clubs across London. Early landmarks include a support slot with MGMT in 2008, and in June of that year Moshi Moshi released the her first single Kiss With A Fist. In February 2009, before the band had even released their first album, they won the Critic’s Choice Award at the BRITs. Nash and Denholm formed Luv Luv Luv Management and took on Giannoulis to help handle the burgeoning work load. They then approached Banks to act as agent. The first time she saw Welch perform live was at London’s Bush Hall www.audience.uk.com
Feature • 49 (400) in 2007, supporting Courtney Love. “I thought Florence was very charismatic but there was a lot of work to do,” says Banks. “I took her on in 2009 and by then she had played a lot of shows and had put a lot of ground work in. I greatly respect her management team, who sorted that out, because she came along in leaps and bounds.” Welch’s dramatic stage shows, incorporating thundering beats, soul-stirring melodies and flamboyant set design have graced many of the world’s best known venues and festivals, including Glastonbury (140,000). Her headline slot on the festival’s Pyramid Stage in 2015, and the resulting BBC TV broadcasts, proved another landmark for Welch. She had been asked to step into Foo Fighters shoes at the 11th hour and headline the event, after Dave Grohl injured himself and had to pull out. Welch seized the moment with vigour, not only delighting the audience with her hits including Dog Days Are Over, Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up) and You’ve Got The Love, but a powerful rendition of Foo Fighter’s Times Like These. “A lot of people saw Florence for the first time at Glastonbury because of the enormous amount of TV coverage her performance received,” says Banks. “Everything she has done, all the moves she has made along the way, have added up to put her where she is now.”
Global strategy
Welch is now managed solely by Hannah Giannoulis at HFG Management, who worked closely with Banks and her North American
agent Samantha Kirby Yoh of William Morris Endeavor to construct the tour around the release of fourth album, High As Hope. “After the album came out in June, Florence played some festivals in Europe and smaller shows there, but we took the decision that the majority of festival and outdoor work would be in Europe and the UK in 2019,” says Banks. “The positioning of the UK tour fell into place nicely in November because it gave us enough time to get the album out and make sure we were crosspromoting it with the UK dates. “What we don’t want to do is have Florence committed to multiple trans-Pacific and trans-atlantic flights, so we divided the year up into manageable chunks of time and made sure we maximised her time in each place.” Florence’s rise in North America has also been significant with many significant shows along the way. Among milestone performances were the band’s Coachella Festival (80,000) debut in April 2010, and performance that September at MTV’s Video Music Awards. The day after the latter appearance, Florence + The Machine became the most searched-for name on Google. WME’s Samantha Kirby Yoh says she will never forget the band’s return to Coachella in 2015. “She broke her foot while leaping off the stage and then continued performing the last few songs, and sprinted through the crowd, but all of her shows are memorable – Florence gives everything every night.”
Creative vision The
tour
ENERGY SUPPLIER BETWEEN
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incredibly
HEAVEN & EARTH AND BEYOND (on request...)
Florence and the Machine at The Domain, Sydney © Daniel Boud
smoothly so far, says Banks, thanks she works in through the years,” says largely to the on-the-road team Banks. “She is 100 per cent involved led by production manager Narci in the artistic process and everything you see comes from her.” Martinez. Keeping the show on the road in “Narci also works with me on the Red Hot Chili Peppers and I love it Europe is trucking operator Brian Yeardley, which used its when he is produc10-acre site in the UK, tion manager, because to unload 14 containers it gives me a level of of equipment from the comfort to know that first US leg of the tour, any issues will be hanbefore setting off on the dled well,” she says. November dates. Alongside Martinez “We are going out again on the High As Hope with them in March for Tour has been other the European tour, which members of the Roel Vergauwen will involve 14 trucks,” says Chili Pepper’s team, including stage manager Philip the company’s live events logistics Dannermann and head rigger director Glenn Savage. “Because it’s a pretty long tour, we will fly extra Gabriel Wood. Featuring an asymmetrical wood- drivers to Oslo [Norway] to double en stage, the set was designed by up with the existing drivers.” ShowFX, with Welch’s creative vision brought to life by creative di- Promoting Loyalty rector Willo Perron. When it comes to selecting promot“Florence has developed and ers to work on the tour, Banks says matured and owned the space that she doesn’t like to change
Energized supplier ‘High As Hope’ Tour Florence + The Machine
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50 • Feature Salford. It was June, she played in things unless they are broken. “It is about repayment, you start front of a stained glass window and with an artiste playing tiny club gigs went on with sun coming through or on a support tour that makes no the window and finished when it money,” says Banks. ”The promoters had gone dark,” he says. “The atinvest in an artiste whose career mosphere and performance was breathtaking.” they believe in, and ofWoolliscroft says that, ten go over and above among the many highby putting marketing lights since was a 2015 money in and teams of show at Manchester promo people on to the Arena (cap. 15,000 for shows. concerts). “We develop acts “She ran to the back through the clubs into of the hall and up in to the theatres, ballrooms, Emma Banks the lower bowl seats, arenas and festivals and if someone has done a good job for and sang half a song surrounded by wide-eyed overthem, you don’t change whelmed fans. It was one it. Florence has pretty of those gigs you never much had the same prowanted to finish,” he says. moters, in almost every The High As Hope market, since the outset.” tour saw the band reMatt Woolliscroft at UK turn to the Manchester promoter SJM Concerts Arena last November, has been promoting along with six other Florence + The Machine arena shows, includin the country since Matt Woolliscroft ing at London’s The O2 2008. “The earliest show that really (20,000), where she played two stands out was a fantastic gig at St dates. “Everything sold-out well in Phillips, a 300-capacity church in
Staging the show Busing – Garry Lewis operations manager, Beat The Street, UK “Florence is unique, there’s nobody quite like her. The drivers who work on her tours always enjoy the experience, which is always a good sign. It suggests that it is a happy camp.” Lighting design – Tim Routledge, UK “[Show designer] Willo Perron’s stunning wooden topographical stage design conceals 16 Robert Juliat Dalis 862 Footlight fixtures in wooden hides. The show is lit in three colours, tungsten, peach and rose gold, and the Dalis fit beautifully in this world. By playing with cold and warm white and various accents, the Dalis gave us dynamic and unique key-lighting on each of the eight players. The Dalis, along with the full lighting inventory, are supplied by Premier Global Production in Nashville.” Trucking - Kevin Hopper, MD, TRUCKINGBY Brian Yeardley, UK “We got a call from [production manager] Narci Martinez in 2016, asking if we could get some backline from Heathrow airport [UK] to Croatia for the INmusic festival in Zagreb – in 24 hours. We did it with a truck and four drivers and have been with them ever since. “On this tour we have 14 x 45ft high security mega cube box trucks, flying in extra drivers where necessary. Narci knows what he wants when he wants it and how you’re going to deliver his expectations. We have a great working relationship with him and everyone in production, especially Luke Bell who we work with very closely.” Power – Jan de Meyer, CEO, The Powershop, Belgium “On stage Florence is very open with her audience, what you see is what you get. I think people appreciate that very much.”
advance, quicker than the previous tour, which on a fourth album campaign is very impressive,” says Woolliscroft. The band will return to the UK in the summer for festival dates including British Summer Time and Boardmasters (50,000).
Another long-time Florence + The Machine associate is Dominique Revert at Alias-Production in France, who is promoting the Paris show in March, AccorHotels Arena (9,078). Revert first worked with the band at Le Bataclan (1,500) in February 2010. He says other early highlights
FLORENCE + THE MACHINE
PHOTOGRAPH: DANIEL BOUD
audience • issue 229 • February 2019
www.audience.uk.com
Florence + the Machine © Luke Dyson
include their performance at the Festival De Nimes (24,000) at the town’s Roman amphitheatre, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, later that year. “She is just a magic star during her shows, charismatic, a real showwoman,” he says. “We used social media networks, of course, but also ran a billboard campaign in the Parisian Metro and worked with RTL2, which is the perfect radio station to target the Florence audience,” he says.
Rising up down under
Florence + The Machine released
Florence + The Machine © Luke Dyson
Chugg MD Susan Heymann new single Moderation in January, which she had been performing live says the highlight, of what was the during the Australian leg of the tour band’s sixth Australian tour, was The Domain show. that kicked-off in Perth “It was a huge moat the 15,000-capacity ment,” she says. “It was a RAC Arena. record-breaking crowd The seven-date and a beautiful Sydney Australian tour took in a summer night. The show series of outdoor venues went off without a hitch including The Domain in and everyone in the auSydney (27,500), before dience walked away havcrossing to New Zealand ing experienced somefor a show at Auckland’s Dominique Revert thing very special.” Spark Arena (12,200). Lunatic Entertainment’s Danny The concerts were co-promoted by Chugg Entertainment and Lunatic Rogers has worked with the band since their first tour of Australia Entertainment.
in 2010, as part of the Laneway festival, which hits five Australian cities and Auckland. Having played Auckland’s first Laneway Festival in 2010, Florence + The Machine’s returned to headline the event on 28 January. Rogers says it has been a pleasure working alongside Giannoulis and Banks. “[They are] extremely respectful to our knowledge of our home markets, and always open to creative ideas,” he says. “They are clear, professional and appreciative people who have demonstrated that loyalty still exists in the world
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audience • issue 226 • November 2018
52 • Feature involved in, the concert at Berlin’s of music.” Postbahnhof (900) in Heymann says deOctober 2009 proved parmand for tickets for ticularly memorable. Florence’s January “On the afternoon of shows were the stronthe show a panic-stricken gest yet. tour manager called us “Florence + The and said, ‘Guys, our trailer Machine has come caught fire on the way to through Australia six Berlin and our backline is times and each tour burnt, including the harp. has been incrementally Sebastian Vuignier Can you please get a backstronger than the last, it’s an incredible story and a testa- line and harp to the gig for tonight’s ment to a committed and growing show?’. The backline was easy, the harp was not,” says Sabottka. fanbase,” she says. “We ended up sending a runner “With a consistently incredible live show, every fan who attends to Leipzig [149 kms/93 miles] to a Florence + The Machine show rent this precious instrument from a musician in the Leipzig wants to come again.” Philharmonic Orchestra. Rogers agrees that, In the end it all turnedaside from the strength up and it was a fantastic of her management concert.” team, Welch’s continSebastienn Vuignier ued ascendance comes at Takk Productions, down to the fact she alwho has the show at ways delivers on stage. Zurich’s 13,700-capacity “I’ve watched her Hallenstadion, has been play over 80 shows and Scumeck Sabottka working with Welch since I’ve never once witnessed a show that wasn’t genuine- the outset. “We have taken it step by step, ly incredible,” he says. “She’s a highly personal performer with a proper starting with the 500-capacity Mascotte venue in Zurich on the punk rock instinct.” 17 October 2009. That sold out 24 hours before the show,” he says. Stepping-up “A few months later, in Back in Europe the spring 2010, the band mainland leg of the sold-out the 900-capactour starts in Germany ity Rohstofflager, and two with shows including years later we went for Munich‘s Olympiahalle a 4,700-capacity venue (11,822), Lanxess Arena which sold-out two (14,689) in Cologne and month in advance. Berlin’s Mercedes Benz “In 2015, and again this Arena (12,672). Ron Euser year, she has filled the Scumeck Sabottka, CEO of MCT Agentur, has promoted largest arena of the country, the the band in Germany since day Hallenstadion.” Vuignier says the strategy of one. Of all the shows he has been
Roel Vergauwen, Live Nation Belgium “The first time I worked with Florence was when she supported MGMT at Ancienne Belgique [cap. 2,000] in Brussels in 2008. She played solo but made a deep impression. If I remember it well she also played a few songs after the concert outside the venue for the fans. She has a unique voice, a strong personality on and off stage, excellent songs and never disappoints live. Then she has made all the right stepes – the Lotto Arena [7,000, Antwerp], various festivals and now Sportpaleis Antwerpen [20.000] – sold out in a few hours.“ Dave McGeachan, DF Concerts & Events, Scotland, UK ”I booked Florence into King Tuts Wah Wah Hut [cap. 300] in Glasgow as a headliner to play on 8 November 2008. I remember being struck by her amazing voice and stage presence. Then each return was a sell-out, moving up through Oran Mor [500], O2 ABC Glasgow [1,300], two nights at Edinburgh Corn Exchange [2 X 2,500] and the O2 Academy Glasgow [2,500]. Now she sells-out arenas. ”Florence always puts on an incredible show, and that’s why audiences keep coming back.” Ola Broquist Luger, Sweden ”I believe her first show here was at Way Out West [30,000], on one of the smaller stages, in 2009. Then in 2010 we did the first headline at Debaser Medis [850] in Stockholm, which sold-out. Since then the band have returned twice to Way Out West and headlined one of the main stages. The Stockholm show in March has moved-up from Hovet [8.000] to Ericsson Globe [11,500] and it´s about to sell-out. ”Florence is one of those truely unique artistes that has incredible songs and really strong presentation.”
starting in small venues and working upwards helped the band create a dedicated and loyal fan base, and they will return to Switzerland to play the St Gallen Festival (30,000) in June. Live Nation Norway promoter Odd Inge Sneve first worked with the band at Oslo’s Parkteateret (450) in 2009. On this tour, it’s in the city’s 8,100-capacity Spectrum Arena. “It’s always a pleasure working with Florence and the band,” he says. “The only challenge this time has been figuring how to release more tickLukaz Minta ets, because the demand has been so high.” In Poland, Go Ahead has promoted all the band’s headline concerts
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and has a show at the 14,850-capacity Atlas Arena in Lodz. “This show sold out so fast that we could have easily sold-out a stadium,” says Go Ahead’s Lukaz Minta, who believes that the band’s originality and performance prowess are key to it appealing to a broad range of fans, young and old. Another long-time collaborator is Mojo Concerts promoter Ron Euser in the Netherlands. He was hooked after first seeing the band in 2008 in the 250-capacity room at Amsterdam’s Paradiso (1,500), as part of showcase festival London Calling. “She had an amazing voice and stage presence, you could see
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54 • Feature she was really ambitious,” he says. Since then Florence + The Machine have played festivals such as Lowlands (55,000) and Pinkpop (60,000), as well as arena shows including Ziggo Dome (17,360) in Amsterdam. “Florence has matured and takes on these big stage shows in a really professional way,” says Euser.
The European leg of the tour will end at the Rotterdam Ahoy (16,562) on 25 March, which Euser says is on the cusp of selling-out. For Banks, this tour is a natural continuation of Florence Welch’s upward trajectory but the focus is not simply a matter of booking bigger and bigger venues. “Business in Australia was up
Tour Dates 2019 DATE COUNTRY CITY 15-Nov UK 16-Nov UK 17-Nov UK 19-Nov UK 21-Nov UK 22-Nov UK 23-Nov UK 25-Nov UK 26-Nov UK 12-Jan Australia 16-Jan Australia 18-Jan Australia 19-Jan Australia 22-Jan Australia 23-Jan Australia 28-Jan New Zealand 30-Jan New Zealand 02-Mar Germany 04-Mar Switzerland 05-Mar Germany 07-Mar Belgium 09-Mar Germany
eight per cent on last time and we are seeing similar increases in sales in Europe,” she says. “For an artiste that isn’t all over the radio and doesn’t make obvious pop songs, it is a huge success. “I am sure we will see Florence playing stadiums at some point, but she also loves being close to the action and what you will see DATE COUNTRY CITY
VENUE CAPACITY
Leeds First Direct Arena Birmingham Genting Arena Glasgow The SSE Hydro Dublin 3 Arena London The O2 London The O2 Manchester Arena Brighton Brighton Centre Cardiff Arena Perth RAC Arena Adelaide Botanic Park Melbourne Sidney Meyer Music Bowl Geelong Mt Duneed Estate Brisbane Riverstage Brisbane Riverstage Auckland Laneway Festival Auckland Spark Arena Munich Olympiahalle Zurich Hallenstadion Cologne Lanxess Arena Antwerp Sportpaleis Hamburg Barclaycard Arena
11,450 13,500 12,900 12,296 16,200 16,200 14,000 3,500 7,000 13,000 20,000 12,000 20,000 8,000 8,000 13,500 10,500 11,822 13,700 14,689 18,641 10,828
from her is a varied career in terms of how she presents the art that she is making. “Florence has a career that is as long as she wants it to be and that is what is so exciting — she is a career artiste that transcends the charts. “She will go on forever if she feels like it.”
VENUE CAPACITY
11-Mar Sweden Stockholm The Globe 12-Mar Norway Oslo Spectrum 14-Mar German Berlin Mercedes Benz Arena 15-Mar Poland Lodz Atlas Arena 17-Mar Italy Bologna Unipol Arena 18-Mar Italy Turin Palaalpitur 20-Mar Spain Barcelona Palau Sant Jordi 21-Mar Spain Madrid Wizink Centre 24-Mar France Paris Acor Hotels Arena 25-Mar Netherlands Rotterdam Ahoy 15-Jun Mexico Mexico City Sports Palace 16-Jun Mexico Guadalajara Telemex Auditorium 18-Jun Mexico Monterrey Citibanamex 29-Jun Belgium Werchter Werchter Festival 30-Jun Switzerland St Gallen St Gallen Festival 13-Jul UK London British Summer Time 17-Jul Czech Republic Ostrava Colours of Ostrava 19-Jul Romania Bontida Electric Castle 07-Aug UK Edinburgh Princes Street Gardens 08-Aug UK Edinburgh Princes Street Gardens 10-Aug UK Newquay Boardmasters 12-Aug Hungary Budapest Sziget Festival 30-Aug Italy Milan Milano Rocks 01-Sep Ireland County Laois Electric Picnic
9,934 8,101 12,672 14,849 13,599 11,240 15,010 14, 606 9,078 13,270 21,547 8,681 6,556 80,000 30,000 65,000 45,000 30,000 6,000 6,000 50,000 75,000 25,000 40,000
LOOKING FORWARD FOR AN AMAZING SHOW IN PARIS WITH FLORENCE + THE MACHINE !
ALIAS-PRODUCTION.FR audience • issue 229 • February 2019
www.audience.uk.com
theonly onlytruly trulyglobal global RFID cashless solution the RFID cashless solution the only truly global RFID cashless solution the only truly global RFID cashless solution the only truly global RFID cashless solution We enhance live experiences, providing technology and insights
Weenhance enhancelive live experiences, experiences, providing technology and insights We providing technology and insights We enhance live experiences, providing technology and insights We enhance live experiences, providing technology and insights tomake makeevents eventsbetter betterand andmore moreprofitable. profitable. to to make events better and more profitable. make events better and more profitable. toto events better and more profitable. cashless Whygo gocashless cashless Why Why go cashless Why go cashless Why cashless
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2018... InIn2018... 2018... In In 2018...
Profitability Profitability Profitability •Profitability 22%increase increaseinintakings takings •Profitability 22%
22% increase infaster takings • 22% increase in takings Transaction 80% faster Transactions 80% faster •••Transaction 80% 22% increase in takings Transaction 80% faster • Transaction 80% faster Reduce theft and fraud • •Reduce theft and fraud ••Transaction 80% faster Reduce theft and fraud • Reduce theft and fraud Increasesponsorship sponsorship revenue • Increase revenue • Reduce theft and fraud Increase sponsorship • Increase sponsorship revenue • No cash management • No cash management revenue ••Increase sponsorship revenue No cash management • No cash management
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Insights Insights Insights Insights Who spentwhat, what,when when&&where where • •Who spent Insights
spent what, when &where where • Who spent what, when &&& where Who sold what, when • •Who sold what, when where • Who spent what, when & where Who sold what, when & where • Who sold what, when & where What works, what doesn’t • •What works, what doesn’t • Whoworks, sold what, when & where What what doesn’t • What works, your what doesn’t Recognise your most valuablecustomers customers • •Recognise most valuable • Whatyour works, what doesn’t Recognise your most valuable customers • Recognise most valuable customers • Improve customer flow • Improve customer flow • Recognise your most valuable customers • Improve customer flow • Improve customer flow
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93 550,000+ 10 4 93 550,000+ 10 4 93 550,000+ 10 4 93 550,000+ 10 4 1m+ $30m+ 18 events attendees countries continents events attendees countries continents 93 550,000+ 10 continents 4 events attendees countries continents events countries attendees attendees spent In 2018...
events
attendees
countries
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continents
56
C i t y Fo c u s Berlin, Germany Audience takes a look at the world’s major cities and venues most used by international artistes Olympiastadion A: Olympischer Platz 3, 14053 T: +49 30 30688112 E: pr@olympiastadion-berlin.de W: www.stadiummanagement.co.za Principle contact person: Timo Rohwedder Policy: Hire only Capacity: 74,475 In-house Concert Sound System: No In-house Concert Stage Lighting: No Past/forthcoming concerts: Rammstein, Metallica, Pink, Phil Collins, The Weeknd, Imagine Dragons, David Guetta, Ed Sheeran, Dua Lipa, Jay Z, the Rolling Stones, Guns N’Roses.
Nicki Minaj, Post Malone, Shawn Mendes, Florence + the Machine, Panic at the Disco!, Rod Stewart, Bob Dylan, Mumford & Sons, Eric
Columbiahalle
Mercedes Benz Arena
Waldbuehne A: Am Glockenturm, 14053 T: +49 180 657 007070 E: concert-concept@deag.de W: www.waldbuehne-berlin.de Principle contact person: Moritz Schwenkow Policy: Hire only Capacity: 22,290 In-house Concert Sound System: No In-house Concert Stage Lighting: No Past/forthcoming concerts: KISS, Fleetwood Mac, Depeche Mode, Iron Maiden, Pearl Jam, Kings of Leon, Robbie Williams, Aerosmith, Paul McCartney, Neil Young, Black Sabbath.
Waldbuehne Festival
Mercedes-Benz Arena A: Mercedes-Platz 1, 10243 T: +49 30 2060 7080 E: a.hartmann-sylla@mercedes-benz-arenaberlin.de W: www.mercedes-benz-arena-berlin.de Principle contact person: Aissata Hartmann-Sylla Policy: Hire & self-promote Capacity: 17,000 In-house Concert Sound System: No In-house Concert Stage Lighting: No Past/forthcoming concerts: Ariana Grande, audience • issue 229 • February 2019
In-house Concert Sound System: Yes In-house Concert Stage Lighting: Yes Past/forthcoming concerts: Dave Matthews Band, The Kooks, Camila Cabelo, Ringo Star and His All Starr Band, Giorgio Moroder, Tears For Fears, Chvrches, Take That, Dream Theater, Wilco, LCD Soundsystem, Niall Horan, Bastille.
Clapton, Justin Timberlake, Morrissey, Queen.
Max Schmeling Halle A: Am Falkplatz 1, 10437 T: +49 30 443045 W: www.max-schmeling-halle.de Policy: Hire only Capacity: 11,900 In-house Concert Sound System: No In-house Concert Stage Lighting: No Past/forthcoming concerts: Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds, Ariana Grande, Unheilig, Imagine Dragons, Deep Purple, Sido.
Verti Music Hall A: Mercedes Platz, 10243 T: +49 30 2060 708811 E: a.hartmann-sylla@mercedes-benz-arenaberlin.de W: www.verti-music-hall.de Principle contact person: Aissata Hartmann-Sylla Policy: Hire only Capacity: 4,000 In-house Concert Sound System: No In-house Concert Stage Lighting: No Past/forthcoming concerts: Bastille, Cypress Hill, The War on Drugs, John Cale, Lewis Capaldi, George Ezra, Hozier, Jack White, Jason Mraz, Keith Urban, Slash, Kamasi Washington, Disturbed.
Tempodrom A: Mockernstrasse 10, 10963 T: +49 1806 554 111 E: Karolin.gramsch@tempodrom.de W: www.tempodrom.de Principle contact person: Karolin Gramsch Policy: Hire only Capacity: 3,500
A: Columbiadamm 13-21, 10965 T: +49 30 6981 7586 E: info@c-halle.com W: www.c-halle.com Principle contact person: Ines Riepenhusen Policy: Hire only Capacity: 3,500 In-house Concert Sound System: No In-house Concert Stage Lighting: No Past/forthcoming concerts: Arctic Monkeys, MGMT, Rudimental, The Wombats, Greta Van Fleet, Christine and the Queens, Bloc Party, Halsey, Incubus, Anderson Paak, HAIM, Macklemore.
Astra Kulturhaus A: Revaler Straße 99, 10245 T: +49 30 200 56767 E: stefan@astra-berlin.de W: www.astra-berlin.de Policy: Hire only Principle contact person: Stefan Grey Capacity: 1,600 In-house Concert Sound System: Yes In-house Concert Stage Lighting: Yes Past/forthcoming concerts: Stone Temple Pilots, Three Days Grace, Lewis Capaldi, Gary Clark Jr., Lily Allen, Macy Gray, Passenger, Kodaline, Courtney Barnett, Kamasi Washington, Mac Demarco, Lil Xan, POLO & PAN.
Huxleys Neue Welt A: Hasenheide 107/113, 10967 T: +49 30 7809 9846 E: booking@huxleysneuewelt.com W: www.huxleysneuewelt.com Principle contact person: Susa Treubrodt Policy: Hire only Capacity: 1,600 In-house Concert Sound System: Yes In-house Concert Stage Lighting: Yes Past/forthcoming concerts: Foals, White Lies, LANY, Good Charlotte, Father John Misty, Gary Numan, 10cc, The Human League, Killing Joke, Beach House, Garbage, Leon Bridges, James Bay, Migos. www.audience.uk.com
Royal Arena is a modern 16.000-capacity Live Nationoperated indoor venue located only a few miles from downtown Copenhagen, the cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s international airport and the bridge connecting Sweden and Denmark.
www.royalarena.dk Contact: dh@royalarena.dk
Copenhagen
Perfection After 15 years hitting the mark, 2018 was no exception: 21 Sold Out Shows 76 Events 603,131 Attendees $25.3 Million in gross tickets sales Stay tuned for our New Year’s Resolution: Beating our own record!
ON OUR WAY TO
Book your event with us now! Eduardo Cajina-Díaz General Manager 787.777.0800 x 2301 ecajina@smgpr.com www.coliseodepuertorico.com
DISTRICT
E
Events • 61
Events
20-23 Mar
AES Convention
Ireland, Dublin www.aes.org/events/146/
Entertainment and music industry light, sound and production event .
25-28 Mar
Winter Music Conference 100th Anniversary USA, Miami Beach www.wintermusicconference.com
Panels, seminars, workshops and demonstrations, exclusive poolside DJ sets and the International Dance Music Awards.
25-31 Mar
Tallinn Music Week Estonia, Tallinn
tmw.ee
Norway, Oslo www.infernofestival.net
24-29 Mar
Music Expo
USA, California www.musexpo.net
Convention with daily forums, discussions and evening showcases at West Hollywood music venues.
Inferno Metal Festival Norway
net
The Inferno Music Conference gathers the Norwegian metal scene to meet up with metal music professionals and media from all over the world.
Billboard Latin Music Conference & Awards USA, Miami www.billboardevents.com
Prolight + Sound
Germany, Frankfurt www.prolight-sound.de
Canadian Music Week Canada, Toronto | www.cmw.
Comprehensive music industry conference and show case festival, covering sectors including live and recording.
17-19 May
New Skool Rules Festival
www.newskoolrules.com Networking, showcases, master classes, workshops, panels, after-parties, speed-date sessions and more.
22-24 May
In its 11th year, conference and discussions for all things music business, followed by awards event.
IMS
1-5 May
East Coast Music Awards
www.internationalmusicsummit.com Dedicated to creating awareness of, and appreciation for, the electronic music scene.
Canada, Halifax www.ecma.com
Spain, Ibiza
23 May
Ivor Novello Awards UK, London
Four-day conference and award show, offer East Coast musicians the opportunity to showcase.
www.theivors.com
9-12 May
Brazil Music Conference
Awards celrating songwriter, composers and the music publishing industry.
Brazil, Sao Paulo www.brazilmusicconference.br
2-5 Apr
6-12 May
Netherlands, Rotterdam
22-25 Apr
A weeklong celebration of talent, curiosity, creativity, freedom and equality.
18-21 Apr
The official gathering for Electronic Music talent and trade in Latin America.
An event for light, sound and production in the entertainment and music industry.
9-11 May
The Great Escape Festival
UK, Brighton www.greatescapefestival.com A three-day music conference and festival showcasing new music from a variety of genres.
4-7 June
MIDEM
France, Cannes www.midem.com
Conferences, showcases and networking across four days, attracting 8,000 business people from over 90 countries.
18-20 July
Sonar
Spain, Barcelona www.midem.com
Convention and festival dedicated to advanced music and new media art.
The details shown above have been compiled from information provided to Audience and whilst we make every reasonable effort to ensure accuracy, we cannot be held responsible if data is incorrect.
Tallinn Music Week (TMW) Festival for Tomorrow’s Music, Arts and Ideas Tallinn, Estonia, 25 - 31 March 2019 Find out more: tmw.ee
www.audience.uk.com
TMW Music Festival
TMW Creative Impact Conference: “Culture & Creativity, the engine of new economy“
TMW City Festival: City Stage, Talks, Arts, Design, Tastes, Urban Space
Thu 27 March - Sat 30 March 170 bands, 21 showcases, 10 venues
Fri 29 March - Sat 30 March Estonian Academy of Arts
Mon 25 March - Sun 31 March
Freshness, global engagement and dynamism at one of the most influential new music festivals in Europe. Expect a multi-genre line-up from the New Wave of Russia to the Nordic pop along Estonia’s own ingenious flair.
Future-proofing the impact of arts and creativity on economy within diverse and gender-balanced expert panels, featuring music industry experts, popculturologists, entrepreneurs and policy makers from various walks of life.
Free city stage concerts, heated public talks, arts and design programme, and handpicked selection of the best restaurants in North Tallinn
audience • issue 229 • February 2019
62
Production News Newsbites Blackmagic for Groban intimacy THAILAND Sonos Libra has been appointed exclusive distributor for British console manufacturer Allen & Heath (A&H), following its success with the products in Vietnam. The company will now distribute brands including dLive and Xone. “Sonos Libra is a young, dynamic company who have rapidly built an impressive standing in the region,” says A&H sales director Markus Sinsel. Sonos Libra clients include Bangkok’s German Tawandang (2,000) and Laos’s Hard Rock Café in Vientiane, while A&H works with artistes including Hosier, Bryan Ferry and Warpaint. NETHERLANDS Entertainment industry engineering consultancy Blumano has opened a new branch, Blumano Netherlands, headed by project manager and stage machinery specialist Michiel van der Zijde, who first worked with the company on Beyoncé and Jay Z On the Run II. “Blumano and I share a commitment to excellence and a dedication to making our industry a safe working environment,” says van der Zijde. Other Blumano clients include Lana del Rey, Sam Smith and Lady Gaga. USA San Diego-based distributor Pacific AV becomes part of the North American sales team for British loudspeaker manufacturer EM Acoustics, which works with clients including Elaine Paige, David Byrne and the UK’s Royal Albert Hall (cap. 5,300) in London. “Pacific has the knowledge to help us expand our user base in the States,” says EM operations director Mike Wheeler.
WORLD
C
reating an intimate feel for Josh Groban in large performance spaces such as US’s Madison Square Gardens (cap. 18.600) in New York, or the UK’s The O2 (21,000) in London, required a simple setting, says video director Stuart Mercer. His company, Vis-a-Vis Video, used manufacturer Blackmagic Design to supply an “end-to-end” solution to the video including Blackmagic URSA cameras, Blackmagic Micro Studio Camera 4K and ATEM 2 M/E Production Studio 4K for big screen content and backdrops. “The scale of the production was vast, with a 14-piece orchestra, a five-member band and guest choirs on the main stage,” says Mercer. “However, the staging for each concert was pared back and sim-
ple, so that Josh could really engage with each audience on a personal level.” A 14m wide LED screen formed the backdrop to the main stage and featured live performance footage from Groban and his band, captured Blackmagic at work for Josh Groban cast cameras on a number of big tours, in Ultra HD 4K with a system comprising three URSA I know they deliver stunning images for Broadcast and four Blackmagic Micro arena venues,” says Mercer. “They were the perfect choice for such a huge video Studio Camera 4K. “Having worked with the URSA Broad- screen production.”
Bandit helps celebrate Outlaw UNITED STATES
W
ith over 25 artistes paying tribute to Willie Nelson at the 18,000-capacity Bridgestone Arena in Nashville,
Willie Nelson with Sheryl Crow © Bandit Lites
the production needed to complement the performers rather than distract from them, says lighting designer Mark Carver. Emmylou Harris, Alison Krauss, Dave Matthews, Sheryl Crow and John Mellencamp, were among the singers at Willie: Life & Songs of an American Outlaw, as well as Nelson himself. “With this design we were trying to give a world-renowned artiste and his peers a space where their individual musical talents would be front and centre,” says Carver. “We did not want
the lighting and video to overpower the music.” He called on rental company Bandit Lites to supply nearly 250 fixtures including Claypaky B-EYE K20s, Claypaky Sharpys, Chauvet Rogue RH1 Hybrids, GLP X4S, VL 3500 Spots, Sunstrips STP-10, Bandit’s exclusive GRNLite Moving Washes and Robe PATT 2017 fixtures. A grand MA 2 Full provided control. “The B-EYES were used for eye candy and toning the band with colour,” says Carver. “The RH1 and Sharpys were used for strong beams and gobos to create a strong artistic statement. The VL 3500 provided band key lighting and edging, while the GRNLite washes were my audience light workhorse.”
LONDON’S LARGEST INDEPENDENT LIVE MUSIC VENUE 10,000 STANDING CAPACITY & 150 YEARS OF ICONIC MUSIC HISTORY - FROM PINK FLOYD TO FLORENCE + THE MACHINE. alexandrapalace.com/venue-hire | 020 8365 4314 audience • issue 229 • February 2019
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Production News • 65
Arsenal basks in African sun BELGIUM
H
endrik Willemyns, frontman of the Brussels band Arsenal, wanted a sunrise effect to open a one-off show at Antwerp’s Lotto Arena (cap. 5,200), evoking the dramatic skies of Africa, where latest single Amplify is set. This remained a visual feature throughout the show, before descending like a sunset at the end.
Artist Akiko Nakayama provided the content for a four-metre-diameter circular LED screen attached to circular truss, which provided the “sun” working with lighting designer Wouter Verbeke to create colour schemes for different songs. Verbeke deployed a selection of fixtures by Czech Republic-based manufacturer Robe, including 28 MegaPointes, 24 Spikies, 28 Spiiders, 22 LEDBeam 150s and eight Pointes.
“I wanted some small, lightweight punchy beamy lights around the sun,” he says. “The Spikies provided a perfect solution. The intensity of their beams was really impressive in the cavernous roof. In addition I wanted lights all around the stage from every angle.” Consequently, he rigged 20 of the MegaPoints on a curved truss above the on-set “treeline”, which formed an arch around the band. These were
used for effects, beams, spots and other numerous looks. The front light was provided by the Spiiders and Pointes on the front truss and the Pointes plus another eight Spiiders on the floor. “The Spiider is a brilliant wash light,” he says. “I used its flower effect on the floor-based units which worked a treat. They’re a perfect compliment for the MegaPointes and make great ‘base elements’ for any lighting rig.”
Ivete Sangalo goes full beam ahead
Avoiding metal cliches
BRAZIL
UNITED STATES
P
D
erforming for a crowd of 55,000 at Sao Paulo’s Allianz Park, as well as for a DVD recording, Ivete Sangalo needed powerful follow spots that could function in a range of production conditions, according to lighting designers Paulinho Lebrão and Guillermo Herrero. Their initial uncertainty about infrastructure layout at the stadium led to them choosing four Robert Juliat Lancelot 4000W HTI followspots, which they say is powerful enough to cope with any conditions. “When we began the project, we didn’t know what the front-of-house installation would be like, or even if we would have towers,” says Lebrão. “We chose the Lancelot because we knew it would be able to cope easily with the enormous throw distances, whether we had towers or needed to position them further away.” The four followspots, supplied by rental company, LPL Professional Lighting, were rigged on two towers located 70m from the stage.
rummer and vocalist Brandon Saller played an active role in designing the set for metal band Atreyu’s In Our Wake tour, creating six vertical “pipes” surrounding the stage. He worked with lighting designer Megan Alksninis hoping to transcend the clichés often associated with hard rock shows, using a floor package of Elation lighting supplied by rental company JDI Productions. “Metal can easily get stuck with a lot of strobes and little front light,” says Alksninis. “I tried to find the balance, having that but also allowing the audience to see and participate with the band. The chorus almost always had a unique colour chase and occasionally blinders.” She used a mix of strobes,
chases and mirror balls with fix- tain songs, so it was important to tures including 30 compact ACL have a great crowd light,” she says. 360i and 6 DARTZ 360 LED mov- “Having a full LED rig was imporing heads along with 8 Cuepix tant to me because it meant the Blinder WW2s and 4 Protron 3K package would be cohesive. The Dartz and 360i’s worked perfectly Color strobes. The fixtures were mounted on together. The DARTZ were used the pipes in a range of configu- to zoom in and out, with gobos, rations, with at least one of each or prisms. For a small LED light fixture per pipe, at venues in- they really outshine almost every cluding Chicago’s House of Blues other light.” (cap. 1,800), Sacramento’s Ace of Spades (1,000) and Denver’s The Summit Music Hall (1,100). “Atreyu involves the crowd and talks before cer- Atreyu In Our Wake tour © Jenn Curtis
bsite! e w w e n see our .com s y r n e h n www.joh Specialist Suppliers to the Entertainment Industry
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audience • issue 229 • February 2019
66
Tour Plans Artistes
Period/Territory Contact details
A1 Jun-Dec David Samuel, ASM Talent Worldwide T +44 20 3005 9170 david@asmtalent.co.uk
A guide to Artistes, Tours and Agents Subscribers to Audience can submit their artistes for free listing in Tour Plans, subject to available space and at the discretion of the publisher. Send your info to: sean@audience.uk.com
Adam Naas Jun-Aug Clotaire Buche, Junzi Arts Worldwide T +33 61 7153 539 Clotaire@junzi-arts.com Alma Jun-Sept Alex Bruford, ATC Live Europe T +44 20 7580 7773 alex@atc-live.com Alice Jemima Jun-Sep Zac Peters, DMF Music Europe T +44 01392 437744 zac@dmfmusic.co.uk Ana Moura Jun David Flower, SASA Music Europe T +44 20 7359 9232 rab@sasa.demon.co.uk Bobby McFerrin Jul Gunter Schroder, The Kurland Agency Europe T +1 617 254 0007 gunter@thekurlandagency.com Billy Ocean Jun-Sep Rebecca Drouet, Europe The Leighton-Pope Organisation T +44 20 8741 4453 becky@l-po.com
The Hot Sardines
Artistes
Period/Territory Contact details
Blackmores Jun-Jul Alec Leslie, ALE Consolidated Night Europe T +44 1829 730488 alecconsol@aol.com Buju Banton Jun-Aug Isabelle Messer, Georg Leitner Productions Europe T +43 1 914 86 15 imesser@glp.at
Body Type Jun-Sept Alex Bruford, ATC Live Europe T +44 20 7580 7773 alex@atc-live.com
Canned Heat Jun-Sept Sabine Trunzer, Kultopolis Europe T +49.6861.9399827 agentin@kultopolis.com
Blackbox Jun-Dec David Samuel, ASM Talent Worldwide T +44 20 3005 9170 albert@missioncontrol.net
Chassol Jun-Dec Clotaire Buche, Junzi Arts UK, Europe T +33 61 7153 539 Clotaire@junzi-arts.com Christopher Cross Jun-Oct Paul Charles, Asgard Agency Europe T +4420 7387 5090 pc@asgard-uk.com Cliff Bennett & Jun-Sep Mark Lundquist, Mark Lundquist Concert The Rebel Europe Promotions Rousers T +44 14832 24118 mark@marklundquist.com Conner Jun-Sep Alex Bruford, ATC Live Youngblood Europe T +44 20 7580 7773 alex@atc-live.com
Melissa Aldana
audience â&#x20AC;˘ issue 229 â&#x20AC;˘ February 2019
Don McLean Jun-Oct Paul Charles, Asgard Agency Europe, Australia T +44 20 7387 5090 pc@asgard-uk.com
www.audience.uk.com
QUALITY THROUGH EXPERIENCE
CSB ISLAND ENTERTAINMENT and its founder Carsten Svoldgaard are celebrating 25 years in showbusiness. A huge thanks to all the artists, agents and managements we have worked with over the last 25 years – we are looking forward to the next 25 years of teamwork.
TO NAME A FEW: Placido Domingo · André Rieu · Barry Manilow · Bryan Adams · Sir Elton John · Eros Ramazotti Fleetwood Mac · KISS · Kylie Minogue · Hollywood Vampires · Helene Fischer · Tom Jones Willie Nelson · The SHOW - a tribute to ABBA · Lord of the Dance · Disney on Ice · Harlem Globetrotters David Cooperfield · Thriller Live · The Whitney Houston Show · Queen Machine
CARSTEN SVOLDGAARD, CEO +45 20609493 · cs@csb.dk
KENNETH SVOLDGAARD, COO +45 20609489 · ks@csb.dk
LISE AARØE CHRISTIANSEN, AGENT +45 91550162 · laa@csb.dk
YOUR SCANDINAVIAN PARTNER
69
Tour Plans Artistes
A guide to Artistes, Tours and Agents
Period/Territory Contact details
Gangstagrass Jun-Aug Matt Bartlett, Midnight Mango Europe T +44 1458 211117 mb@midnightmango.co.uk Gabriel Rios Jun-Sept Alex Bruford, ATC Live Europe, UK T +44 20 7580 7773 alex@atc-live.com George Clinton Jun-Sep Parliament/ Europe Funkadelic
Nina Pernica, Georg Leitner Productions T +43 1 914 86 15 npernica@glp.at
GONG Jun-Aug Ryan Balch, The Leighton-Pope Organisation Europe T +44 20 8741 4453 ryan@l-po.com Grace Jones Jun-Jul Georg Leitner, Georg Leitner Productions Europe T +43 1 914 86 15 gleitner@glp.at Hannah Sanders Jun-Oct Chris Wade, Strada Music & Ben Savage Europe T + 44 1377217662 info@stradamusic.com Jools Holland Jun-Aug and His Rhtym & Europe Blues Orchestra Joe Satriani
Nick Peel, Miracle Artists T +44 20 7935 9222 nick@miracle-artists.com
Jun-Aug Wayne Forte, Entourage Talent Associates Europe, South T +1 212 633 2600 America & Australia booking@entouragetalent.com
Julia Jacklin Jun-Aug Alex Bruford, ATC Live Europe T +44 20 7580 7773 alex@atc-live.com King’s X Jun Nick Peel, Miracle Artists Europe T +44 20 7935 9222 nick@miracle-artists.com
The Sheepdogs
Artistes
Period/Territory Contact details
Kool & The Gang Jun-Jul Georg Leitner, Georg Leitner Productions Worldwide T +44 121 454 7020 wlaurer@glp.at Lady Sings Jun-Jun Tim Jennings, Big Bear Music The Blues UK T +44 121 454 7020 tim@bigbearmusic.com Love with Jul-Aug Glenn Povey, Event Horizon Johnny Echols Europe, UK T +44 7841 594677 glenn.eventhorizon@gmail.com Lisa Ekdahl Jun-Nov Paul Charles, Asgard Agency Europe T +44 20 7387 5090 pc@asgard-uk.com
The Orphan Brigade
www.audience.uk.com
Lisa Fischer Jun Gunter Schroder, The Kurland Agency Europe T +1 617 254 0007 gunter@thekurlandagency.com
audience • issue 229 • February 2019
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Tour Plans Artistes
Period/Territory Contact details
Masia Jun-Aug Henry McGroggan, Europe Central European Organisation T +48 22 894 60 35 henry@centraleuro.org Maya Youssef Jun-Aug David Flower, SASA Music Worldwide T +44 20 7359 9232 rab@sasa.demon.co.uk Manfred Mann’s Jun-Jul Alec Leslie, ALE Consolidated Earthband Europe T +44 1829 730488 alecconsol@aol.com Manny Charlton Jun-Dec Alan Cottam, Alan Cottam Agency Band Europe T +44 1254 668 471 alan7000uk@yahoo.com Marcus Bonfanti Jun-Jul Sabine Trunzer, Kultopolis & Band Europe T +49 6861 939 9827 agentin@kultopolis.com Melissa Aldana Jul Matt McCluskey, The Kurland Agency Europe T +44 1 617 254 0007 matt@thekurlandagency.com Michael Chapman Jun Europe
Chris Wade, Strada Music T +44 1377 217662 info@stradamusic.com
MISIA Jun Henry McGroggan, Central European Europe Organisation T +48 22 894 60 35 henry@centraleuro.org Musical Youth
Jun Worldwide
Serena Catapano, Cat Music Management T +44 7871 075 072 info@catmusicmanagement.com
Artistes
Period/Territory Contact details
Old Man Aug Eddie Barcan, Splendid Events Luedecke Europe T +44 7584 221821 eddie@splendidevents.org.uk Orbital May-Sep Dan Silver, Value Added Talent Worldwide T +44 207 704 9720 dan@vathq.co.uk Renaissance Jul Wayne Forte, Entourage Talent Associates Europe T +1 212 633 2600 booking@entouragetalent.com REWS Jun-Aug Matt Bartlett, Midnight Mango Europe T +44 1458 211117 mb@midnightmango.co.uk Ritchie Jun Blackmores Europe Rainbow
Alec Leslie, ALE Consolidated T +44 1829 730488 alecconsol@aol.com
Roberto Fonseca Jun David Flower, SASA Music UK, East Europe T +44 20 7359 9232 rab@sasa.demon.co.uk Rod Clements Jun Chris Wade, Strada Music & Rab Noakes Europe T +44 1377 217662 info@stradamusic.com Roy G Hemmings Jun Mark Lundquist, Mark Lundquist Motown Show Europe Concert Promotions T +44 14832 24118 mark@marklundquist.com Sass Jordan
Jun Europe
Hilde Spille, Paperclip Agency T +31 24 323 9322 hilde@paperclip.agency
Shakin’ Stevens
Jun-Jun Worldwide
Rebecca Drouet, The Leighton-Pope Organisation T +44 20 8741 4453 | becky@l-po.com
Soak Jun-Oct Alex Bruford, ATC Live Europe T +44 20 7580 7773 alex@atc-live.com Spratleys Jun-Aug Japs Worldwide
Ryan Balch, The Leighton-Pope Organisation T +44 20 8741 4453 ryan@l-po.com
Shob Jun-Jun Jeff Aug, Maximum Bookings Europe T +49 177 642 4221 info@MAXIMUMBooking.com The details shown above have been compiled from information provided to Audience and whilst we make every reasonable effort to ensure accuracy, we cannot be held responsible if data is incorrect.
Tipitina
+44 1293 558080 fly@premieraviation.com
Over 130 music tours Quite simply, our experience counts audience • issue 229 • February 2019
www.audience.uk.com
HOME OF LEGENDS The Johan Cruijff ArenA, formerly known as Amsterdam ArenA, is one of the leading Stadiums within Europe. Being the host for AFC Ajax, the Dutch National Team, concerts of world’s leading artists, EDM event Amsterdam Music Festival and four games of the UEFA Euro 2020 tournament. The dynamic ambience, retractable roof, HD WiFi & 4G
etwork,centrallocation,goodaccessibilityandsufficient n parking space make the Johan Cruijff ArenA a unique location for any event. The spacious ArenA can be divided in many smaller areas to make it suitable for all kinds of events, concerts and festivals. We can host between 10.000 and 68.000 visitors in various settings.
T/ +31 020 311 1306 E/ sales@johancruijffarena.nl w/ johancruijffarena.nl
73
Tour Plans Artistes
A guide to Artistes, Tours and Agents
Period/Territory Contact details
Sister Jun-Jul Georg Leitner, Georg Leitner Productions Sledge Worldwide T +43 664 111 5177 wlaurer@glp.at Skalpel Jun Ania Marzec, Central European Europe Organisation T +48 22 894 60 35 ania@centraleuro.org Stella Donnelly Jun-Sep Alex Bruford, ATC Live Europe T +44 20 7580 7773 alex@atc-live.com Stone Jun-Sep Mark Lundquist, Mark Lundquist Europe Concert Promotions T +44 14832 24118 mark@marklundquist.com absagency@mac.com Symphony X Jun-Jun Nick Peel, Miracle Artists Europe T +44 20 7935 9222 nick@miracle-artists.com 10cc Jun-Aug Steve Parker, Miracle Artists Worldwide T +44 20 7935 9222 steve@miracle-artists.com 10cc’s Graham Oct-Nov Steve Parker, Miracle Artists Gouldman & his Europe, UK T +44 20 7935 9222 Heart Full of Songs steve@miracle-artists.com Tedeschi Trucks Jun Wayne Forte, Entourage Talent Associates Band Europe T +1 212 633 2600 booking@entouragetalent.com Ten Years After Jun-Sept Sabine Trunzer, Kultopolis Europe T +49.6861.9399827 agentin@kultopolis.com The Bizarre World Jun-Oct Paul Charles,Asgard Agency of Frank Zappa Europe T +44 20 7387 5090 pc@asgard-uk.com The Fizz Jun Ryan Balch, The Leighton-Pope Organisation Europe T +44 20 8741 4453 ryan@l-po.com The Jacksons Jun-July Georg Leitner, Georg Leitner Productions Worldwide T +43 664 111 5177 wlaurer@glp.at The Normads Jun-Jun Rob Berends, Paperclip Agency Europe T +31 24 323 9322 rob@paperclip.agency
10cc - Paul, Iain, Graham, Rick and Keith
Artistes
Period/Territory Contact details
Tipitina Jun-Jun Tim Jennings, Big Bear Music Europe T +44 121 454 7020 tim@bigbearmusic.com Seán McGowan Jun Zac Peters, DMF Music Europe T +44 1392 437744 zac@dmfmusic.co.uk The Hot Sardines Jun Matt McCluskey, The Kurland Agency Australia, Asia T +44 1-617-254-0007 matt@thekurlandagency.com The Orphan Jun-Oct Nigel Morton, Moneypenny Agency Brigade Europe T +44 1377 240162 nigel.morton@moneypennymusic.co.uk The Skull Jun-Jun Bauke Algera, Maximum Bookings Europe T +49 177 642 4221 info@MAXIMUMBooking.com The South Jun-Aug Dan Silver, Value Added Talent Europe T +44 207 704 9720 dan@vathq.co.uk The Spitfires Jun Zac Peters, DMF Music Europe T +44 1392 437744 zac@dmfmusic.co.uk Tommy Emmanuel Jun-Nov Sabine Trunzer, Kultopolis Europe T +49.6861.9399827 agentin@kultopolis.com UFO Jun-Aug Nick Peel, Miracle Artists Europe T +44 20 7935 9222 nick@miracle-artists.com Xander & the Jun-Aug Alec Leslie, ALE Consolidated Peace Pirates Europe T +44 1829 730488 alecconsol@aol.com
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1
audience • issue 22929/01/2019 • February17:31 2019
74
Festival News
Øya advises Oslo on sustainable events NORWAY
T
he 15,000-capacity Øya Festival, has been invited to join the advisory board for the city of Oslo as it becomes European Green Capital this year. The event, which celebrates its 20th anniversary this year, was awarded an ‘Outstanding’ award by festival environmental charity A Greener Festival (AGF), having succeeded in powering the entire event with sustainable electricity, while also hand sorting festival
waste leading to 70 per cent re-use, according to the organisers. It will now play an active role advising the city on sustainability issues. “The European Green Capital will consist of a huge number of events throughout the year,” says the festival’s sustainability manager Kleiva Møller. “Øya was asked to contribute with expertise in making these events greener. We hope to use the year to show Oslo and Europe our solutions for a greener city life.
“A festival like ours is a great is headlined by The Cure, Robyn and place to pilot new environmental Tame Impala, while tickets are 2,954 solutions - and we love to show our Norwegian krone ($343). audience new technology, transport solutions, sustainable food or waste management that might be implemented on a city wide scale.” The festival Øya Festival
Unum aims to launch Carbon: how low can Flow go? new Albanian scene FINLAND
ALBANIA
A
new house and techno festival launches at the beach site of Rana e Hedhun, Shengjin, on the Adriatic coast, this May, with the aim of stimulating a new contemporary music scene in the region. Unum has a capacity of 20,000 but co-organiser Grego O’Halloran, an Ibiza-based promoter and event manager who’s worked with clubs including Amnesia (7,000) and Hi (6,000), will be happy to attract 6,000 to 10,000 in the first year. “We want to create a good experience in Year One and build on it organically,” says O’Halloran. “The aim is to expand beyond one festival and create a series of events in different music genres.” He is working with local partners including a Kosovo-based promoter and says the event is supported by Albania’s Tourism Ministry, who will facilitate travel. “We knew the festival market is saturated in its current format,” he says, “so we wanted to provide an experience that’s never been done, which meant going to a new region. The line-up, which includes Craig Richards, Luciano and Ricardo Villalobos, is across three stages playing music 24/7 over four nights. Tickets are €139 ($157).
A
lthough attendance grew by 3,000 people a day to 84,000 in 2018, Flow Festival, near Helskinki, says it managed to reduce the volume of waste it produces by 21 per cent, while all waste was used either for energy production or reused. The event, headlined by Cardi B, Blood
Flow Festival
Orange, Tove Lo and Neneh Cherry, prides itself on its environmental record, raising €11,901 ($13,511) towards the John Nurminen Foundation which protects the Baltic Sea. The sum was raised through €5 ($5.67) contributions made by ticket buyers at the point of purchase. “Sustainability is one of the most important values for us,” says Flow organiser Tuomas Kallio. “In 2018 Flow’s restaurants purchased 46 per cent vegetarian or vegan dishes during the event and in 2019 we will further increase the amount of plant-based, organic and local food.” The 10-stage event is held next to a disused power station in the Suvilahti district of the Finnish capital and tickets cost €205 ($233).
Tour Manager Terry Tucker’s Touring Tribulations
audience • issue 229 • February 2019
by Newman-Parker
www.audience.uk.com
䐀䜀 䴀攀搀椀漀猀 䌀栀椀氀攀㨀 倀栀漀渀攀㨀 ⠀㔀㘀 ㈀⤀ ㈀㌀㔀㈀ 㔀㤀 ⼀ 匀愀渀琀椀愀最漀 ⼀ 䌀栀椀氀攀 䐀䜀 䴀攀搀椀漀猀 唀匀㨀 㘀㈀ 㤀 伀氀攀愀渀搀攀爀 䐀爀椀瘀攀 匀甀椀琀攀 ⴀ 㐀 圀椀氀洀椀渀最琀漀渀Ⰰ 一䌀 ㈀㠀㐀 ㌀ 䔀砀攀挀甀琀椀瘀攀 䐀椀爀攀挀琀漀爀㨀 匀礀氀瘀椀愀 䠀攀眀椀琀琀 眀眀眀⸀搀最洀攀搀椀漀猀⸀挀漀洀 䀀搀最洀攀搀椀漀猀 ⼀搀最洀攀搀椀漀猀