Index In Brief

IN BRIEFINDEX

The concert business digest

JUNE

John Sharkey, executive vicepresident of European operations for leading venue operator ASM Global, announces his departure from the company after seven years.

Governments in Denmark and Norway start organising large-scale test events to determine how large gatherings can take place during the pandemic.

Fieldlab Evenementen reveals the findings from three months’ worth of pilot events in the Netherlands.

The International Festival Forum

announces a physical, non-socially distanced event in London this September, complemented by an online pass for delegates who are unable to travel.

Luxembourg’s Rockhal scales up its pilot concerts from 100 to 600 people per night, as part of the Because Music Matters initiative.

Barclaycard Arena Hamburg

welcomes spectators for the first time in over a year for a series of tests. Laneway Festival, the much-loved Australasian touring festival, joins the TEG family.

WME parent company Endeavor posts a small profit of $2.4million (€2m) in the first quarter of 2021.

Hearby launches gig guide that will cover 36+ UK cities.

Live Nation appoints Nicole Portwood to the newly created role of chief brand officer.

UAE announces it will require proof of vaccination for live events.

Jazzopen Stuttgart is on track to welcome more than 30,000 fans to open-air venues across the German city this September.

Dutch music venues are permitted to reopen from 5 June, when the country enters step three of the government’s reopening plan.

Belgian live entertainment giant Sportpaleis Group is given the green light to open its pop-up arena in the coastal area of Middelkerke this July.

Chinese post-punk band Re-TROS make history with the biggest rock show in China since the beginning of 2020.

Finnish metal band Nightwish are joined by more than 150,000 fans from 108 countries for their virtual concert experience.

Promoters buy into Oz ticket marketplace Tixel.

Paris’s Accor Arena hosts 5,000 people with no social distancing for Ambition Live Again.

A number of music businesses and associations mark the oneyear anniversary of the Blackout Tuesday/#TheShowMustBePaused campaign.

Austrian promoters and festival organisers prepare to relaunch activities in July. The South African Roadies Association hits out at the loose regulations governing live event production in South Africa.

An American inventor patents a new thermometer design he says will allow the taking of temperature readings without physical contact at live events.

UK promoter Magnitude Live launches. Poland’s Fest Festival is given permission to go ahead as planned, without any capacity limits, provided that attendees have had their Covid-19 vaccinations.

Belgium gives green light for 75,000-capacity open-air festivals.

Sky Festivals, the largest festival owner in Norway, acquires Stavernfestivalen.

Barcelona-based TiketBlok says it has developed an app that makes it possible to identify everyone who attends a major event through their mobile phones.

Plans are underway for a summer concert for 60,000 people in New York’s Central Park.

Israel’s successful Covid-19 vaccination programme allows event organisers in the country to operate as they did back in 2019.

The UK’s live entertainment community holds its breath for the government’s long-awaited 14 June Covid briefing.

French live music associations initiate a push for their members to be allowed to reopen at full capacity.

Employers’ association WNP and trade body VSCD join forces ahead of live music’s return to the Netherlands.

Tixxy, the start-up predictive concert recommendation service, expands its team with three new members of staff.

Sławomir Worach is named as the new chairman of MAKiS, which operates both the Widzew Stadium and the Atlas Arena, in Łódź, Poland.

Research by LIVE reveals even a four-week delay would cause £500m (€585m) of economic devastation to venues, festivals, and touring companies in the UK.

Sir Elton John calls on the British government to take advantage of the current window of opportunity to solve the Brexit crisis facing emerging artists.

Female urinals are developed to eliminate festival queues.

Attitude is Everything publishes a ten-point ‘live music checklist’ to help ensure deaf, disabled and neurodivergent fans are made welcome.

Live events will be permitted at full capacity in the Netherlands and Denmark.

TicketSwap raises $10m (€8.4m) in its first funding round. Verbraucherzentrale NRW (the Consumer Advice Centre of North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany), brings legal action against CTS Eventim.

The British government confirms that live entertainment businesses will have to endure another month of closure.

Goodlive Artists, the booking and touring division of Berlin-based Goodlive, launches Goodlive Artists Austria in Vienna.

Metallica sue Lloyd’s of London over postponed tour losses.

Danny Wimmer Presents acquires Billy Alan Productions, a leading booker of talent for Native American-run casinos.

UK festivals including Black Deer in Kent are forced to call off their 2021 events at the last minute after the government U-turn.

Former APA staffers, Steve Martin and Andy Somers, launch Paladin Artists in the UK and the US.

DEAG’s Kilimanjaro announces acquisition of promoter UK Live.

ASM Global expands partnership with Ticketmaster.

UK government is savaged in parliament over Brexit ‘no deal’ for music.

Scientific data from pilot concerts in five European countries, most recently Belgium, demonstrate that live events do not accelerate infection. A new series of pilot events in Germany aims to convince authorities to allow open-air raves, following the success of earlier test shows.

Irish concert businesses receive €25m in summer funding.

UTA signs Grammy-nominated artist Demi Lovato for worldwide representation in all areas.

Germany’s LEA honours the biggest and best events of 2019.

Spain’s Mallorca Live will hold a pilot concert later this month using the local health passport to do away with social distancing.

Tour manager and health and wellbeing specialist Suzi Green commissions a series of resilience workshops for the international live music industry.

The first Manchester Arena Inquiry report identifies several missed opportunities it claims could have lessened the impact of the attack.

Indian ticketing giant BookMyShow lays off another 200 employees as coronavirus restrictions continue to hurt demand for live entertainment and cinema.

Serbia’s Exit festival will launch a new open-air event, Sunland, in Bulgaria next month.

Casey Wasserman says his company’s experience in working with brands will be the number one opportunity for its many new artist clients. UK industry bodies write to the prime minister regarding what they describe as crippling staff shortages across large parts of the UK economy.

The O2 is set to become the first real-world arena to get its own venue in Fortnite.

Seven people, including five police officers, are injured on Friday night as police break up an illegal rave in Brittany.

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Download Pilot – the UK’s first major camping festival of its kind since lockdown – is hailed a resounding success.

Joss Stone signs with ICM Partners for worldwide representation.

Facebook will not charge a fee to content creators for at least the next two years, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announces.