16 minute read
Analysis
from IQ110 Preview
by IQ Magazine
INTERNATIONAL LIVE BIZ RALLIES ROUND UKRAINE
Ramifications for international touring were dire and swift following Russia’s invasion of its Eastern European neighbour Ukraine.
Acts such as Bring Me The Horizon, Imagine Dragons, Louis Tomlinson and Jethro Tull all pulled concerts in
Ukraine following the escalation of the conflict, while artists including Green Day, The Killers,
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, and My Chemical
Romance cancelled shows in Russia.
Ihor Samosud, COO at promoter Virus Music – which owns Ukraine’s largest ticket seller
Concert.ua and Kyiv concert venue Bel Etage
Music Hall, says there were “hundreds” of international shows scheduled in the next two years but “everything is now cancelled or postponed until 2023 at best.”
“We were looking forward to Iron Maiden’s first visit to Ukraine [promoted by Virus Music] and the second visit of Imagine Dragons [for which Concert.ua is the exclusive ticket seller], who are a favourite in Ukraine,” Samosud tells IQ.
Samosud said the company was helping clients and promoters communicate with ticket buyers until money can be refunded for cancelled shows. The firm is also enabling clients and promoters to offer ticket vouchers as an alternative to cash refunds in a bid to help soften the financial blow.
“All Ukrainian promoters already have large financial losses associated with cancellations,” he says. “And this process will continue for a long time. Even after the end of the war, we will need a lot of time to restore our industry.”
Promoters and agents in Ukraine were forced to flee their homes in the early days of the conflict or seek shelter underground.
“I was born and raised in Kyiv – that’s where my whole life is,” Dartsya Tarkovska, co-founder of Music Export Ukraine, tells IQ. “We were worried that a war was about to begin, so we moved to Lviv a few days before the conflict began. So we were lucky we were able to move safely.”
“The desperate situation put day-to-day matters into perspective,” adds Tarkovska. “Right now, it’s a matter of survival, and no one cares about the music industry,” she says.
Live music behemoths Live Nation and OVG publicly severed ties with Putin’s nation as the war intensified, while Spotify suspended its services in the country, Universal Music closed its Russian office, and UK collection society PRS for Music formally suspended its rights representation relationship with its Russian counterpart RAO.
The Russian concert industry made a united call for peace, with one leading promoter speaking of the “catastrophe” facing the region’s live music business.
“Basically, the Russian showbusiness market will most likely shrink to those acts who either support Putin or who keep silent,” says Semyon Galperin of music venue Tele-Club Ekaterinburg, which had been due to welcome the likes of Nothing But Thieves, Uriah Heep, and Morcheeba in 2022.
Galperin was one of dozens of signatories from the Russian entertainment business to endorse a letter calling for an end to the conflict.
“We, employees of the Russian concert, theatre and music industry, deem it necessary to formulate our attitude to the events taking place in Ukraine and inevitably affecting all the countries of Europe and the former USSR,” it said. “Our work is to create cultural values. Our mission is to make art accessible to people, from small to great. Art, culture – what distinguishes a man from a beast, what unites people.
“Culture is an inseparable value, and access to culture is a basic human right. Any armed conflict will attempt [sic] this right, as well as the inseparable human right to life, health, liberty, happiness. We believe it is vital to immediately stop military actions on the territory of Ukraine, the consequences of which will be irreversible.”
Russia has been banned from competing in this year’s Eurovision Song Contest by the European Broadcasting Union, while New York’s Carnegie Hall cancelled performances by Putin supporter Valery Gergiev and the Mariinsky Orchestra. Gergiev has also been forced to resign from his post as honorary president of the Edinburgh International Festival.
Meanwhile, a blacklist of performers who have spoken out against the war was leaked to Russian media and published in pro-democracy newspaper Novaya Gazeta. The list included rock group Aquarium, whose lead singer Boris Grebenshchikov had taken to social media to denounce the war as “madness.”
Paradigm agent Tom Schroeder describes the outlook for future international shows in Russia as “pretty bleak.”
“Unless there is a really significant change to the situation, I think Russia could be pushed out in the cold as a touring market for some time,” he tells IQ.
“It’s important to say I have been talking to our Russian promoter friends, making it clear we know this is Putin’s war, not Russia’s war, and we support them fully. Sadly, that doesn’t mean it is viable as a touring market, and they are very aware.
“After the last two years we have all faced, for these promoters to now have this – is mind-blowing and heart-breaking.”
Attention also turned to the conflict’s potential impact on touring in neighbouring markets. With Belarus, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Moldova all bordering Ukraine, the crisis has led to concerns that international acts will be reluctant to visit the Eastern Europe
Guy Dunstan | NEC Group
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FESTIVAL FEVER TAKES HOLD
FKP Scorpio, All Things Live, and Goldenvoice are among the latest promoters to capitalise on unprecedented fan demand, adding new events to an extraordinarily busy festival summer.
In addition to its new Berlin festival, Tempelhof Sounds, FKP is bringing a trio of new festivals to Scandinavia during the second weekend in June.
Rosendal Garden Party (SE) will take place on Djurgården island in Stockholm, with head-
Consumer confidence has bounced back better than expected according to top promoters and ticketing firms. DEAG, DICE, Event Genius, and The Ticket Factory have all said that current ticket sales are even higher than pre-pandemic levels.
Event Genius, which serves more than 50 countries worldwide, says its ticket sales are outstripping 2019 levels by more than 25%.
“It’s been an incredibly strong and heartening start to 2022,” says the company’s CEO, Benjamin Leaver. “Demand for events is arguably at an alltime high, and we see lots of potential for growth this year, which is immensely encouraging.
“We’re expecting 2022 and the next few years to become a landmark period for the events industries.”
According to an Event Genius customer survey conducted at the beginning of this year, fans liners The Strokes, Florence + The Machine, The National, and Tyler, The Creator.
Loaded (NO) will see up to 7,000 people watch artists such as Wilco, Sharon Van Etten, and Susanne Sundfør at Vulkan Open Air in Nedre Foss, Oslo.
And Syd for Solen (DK), organised by FKP’s Danish subsidiary smash!bang!pow!, is slated to take place in Søndermarken Park, Copenhagen, with headliners Liam Gallagher, The National, and Jungle.
are also digging a little deeper into their pockets for events.
“Such is the demand for events and experiences – both domestically and abroad – event-goers are now spending up to three times more on their domestic and international event trips than even pre-Covid levels,” Leaver says.
DICE, a UK-based mobile ticketing and discovery platform for live events and livestreams, has also seen a replenished demand for live events since the pandemic.
“With the venues and festivals we can draw comparisons from, we’ve seen fan demand for live events higher than it was before the pandemic,” Andrew Foggin, global head of music at DICE, tells IQ.
“The industry was in great shape before the pandemic, and it’s encouraging to see that it’s picking up where it left off.”
Foggin has witnessed a particularly strong
Copenhagen will also benefit from a new intimate three-day festival from All Things Live. Common Ground will take place between 12–14 August at KPH Volume, an old tram depot in Denmark’s capital city, boasting 700 square metres of event space. The festival will be headlined by Metronomy, Parquet Courts and Altın Gün.
Elsewhere, AEG’s Goldenvoice is launching a brand new alt-country festival for Los Angeles.
Palomino Festival will debut on 9 July at Brookside at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, featuring some of the biggest names in country, folk, bluegrass, and pop.
Other promoters expanding their stable of events include Goodlive with Superbloom (Munich), Festival Republic with Electric City (London), Kilimanjaro with Neck of the Woods (Norwich), and AEG and Team Love with Forwards in Bristol.
Meanwhile, Tomorrowland and Rock Werchter have joined forces to launch Core in Brussels, and Last Tour, the Spanish festival organiser and concert promoter behind Bilbao BBK Live, has announced Cala Mijas in Spain and Kalorama in Portugal.
demand for breakthrough artists such as PinkPantheress and Fred Again, each of which sold out multiple shows in minutes.
“We’re generally seeing tickets selling out faster, with fans joining our waiting list for soldout shows in higher numbers than we’ve ever seen,” he says.
Elsewhere, Berlin-based DEAG, whose core markets include Germany, the UK, Switzerland, Ireland, and Denmark, has reported a 50-80% increase in ticket sales compared to pre-pandemic.
DEAG CEO Peter Schwenkow says that family entertainment, concerts, and spoken-word events are selling best at the moment, although he also explains that the dramatic increase is partly attributable to the company’s acquisition of six promoters during the pandemic.
“We are very much convinced we will see a record year just by delivering the 5,000-plus shows we have on sale,” he recently told IQ.
TICKET SALES SOAR PAST PRE-PANDEMIC LEVELS
Andrew Foggin | DICE
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PRODUCTION TITANS LINE UP FOR IPM 15
Phay Mac Mahon, Bonnie May, Okan Tombulca, Padraic Boran and Bryan Grant are among the production gurus slated for the 15th anniversary edition of the ILMC Production Meeting (IPM) later this month.
Taking place the day before ILMC kicks off, IPM also returns to an in-person format in 2022, promising its biggest and best programme yet. This year’s event will feature a series of key production group and trade association partnerships, as well as a second programming tranche by the Event Safety & Security Summit (E3S).
“We are very excited to see our international delegates making time in their busy schedule to get back together in person,” says IPM & E3S producer Sytske Kamstra. “It’s an important day for everyone, filled with very relevant and urgent topics, and with a wealth of expertise on not just the panels but in the rooms. We can’t wait.”
IPM’s speaker line-up is led by Phay Mac Mahon, one of the go-to production managers in the international touring business and the recipient of IQ Magazine’s 2022 Gaffer Award. Since launching his career in the 70s, Phay has worked with household names including Bob Geldof and The Boomtown Rats, Def Leppard, The Pretenders, Adam Ant, Paul Young, Moody Blues, Whitesnake, Aerosmith and many more. He was also a sought-after lighting designer until the 1990s, working with the likes of Shakira, Westlife, Meat Loaf, Janet Jackson, Ricky Martin, and Nicki Minaj.
Also joining IPM is Bonnie May, CEO of Global Infusion Group, which delivers worldclass events and brand logistic support to lavish private events, royal weddings, governmental summits, international automotive roadshows, world expos, and major sporting events worldwide, including the Olympics since 2012.
May will be speaking with veteran show director and stage manager Asthie Wendra about the industry’s response to the perfect storm created by Covid and Brexit in part one of this year’s IPM mega-panel. Meanwhile, part two will see Okan Tombulca, CEO of eps holding, joining Mac Mahon and others to consider the supply-chain issues created by Covid and Brexit.
With a number of Production Note sessions to augment the IPM agenda, MCD Productions’ Padraic Boran will be hosting The Power of Energy session, considering what power supply might look like in the future and how it will affect events. And exploring the relationship between the live industry’s old guard and its young, up-and-coming professionals, Lina Ugrinovska, founder of Banana & Salt, will lead a discussion with NoNonsense Group director Liz Madden and Britannia Row Productions director Bryan Grant.
Including a full day of programming from
Event Safety & Security Summit
Full agenda information can be found on the ipm.live website.
Wiltshire Council is running a soft market test exercise, to explore future options to remobilise the City Hall entertainment venue in Salisbury. This process will help inform how Wiltshire Council might progress future options for the venue. The aim of the SMT is to: • Gather information to support the council’s decision-making process in any next steps and will only be used for research purposes. • Approach the market to understand the level of interest to manage and operate City Hall as a multi-purpose entertainment/cultural venue. • Begin to understand the market’s experience and ability to manage venues similar to City Hall. Organisations are invited to complete the council’s questionnaire from 4 April 2022. The deadline for returns is 9am on 16 May 2022. Please note: Any information you provide will only be used for research purposes. This questionnaire does not constitute an Invitation to Tender process, and will not be judged against any criteria, nor will it inform any potential tender process in the future. No award of any contact will be made as part of this process. Please download the information packs and questionnaire form:
www.wiltshire.gov.uk/salisbury-city-hall-soft-market-test
NEW SIGNINGS & NEW MUSIC
VISIT THE WEBSITE TO HEAR OUR ‘NEW MUSIC’ AGENCY PLAYLIST
Each month, ’s partner agencies help us to compile a playlist of new music, much of it released by the new signings to their rosters. Among the tracks on April’s playlist are submissions from ATC Live, CAA, ICM Partners, ITB, Mother Artists, Paradigm, Primary Talent, Pure Represents, UTA and WME.
STAYMELLOW (UK)
AGENT Filippo Mei, ITB H ailing from Liverpool, stayMellow is a fusion of nostalgic guitar-driven rock and 808-bass-heavy quick-fire rap (and everything in between). He is a whirlwind of genre-less, ever-evolving emotional sonic chaos. Achieving 75,000+ completely organic streams on his debut single Eye Contact; more than 42,000 streams on his single Angel; and over 20,000 on his most recent release, nowurgone, (in just over a month), stayMellow has well and truly hit the ground running, and 2022 is expected to be a truly special year for him as an artist.
Paying homage to his father’s mantra throughout the duration of a very tough life and the mentality it took to get him through that, stayMellow embodies the belief that life can be awful, but it can also be beautiful.
Agent Filippo Mei says stayMellow has been confirmed to play at Liverpool Sound City later this month and at Drown U Out Festival in Leeds later in the year.
YUMI ZOUMA (UK)
AGENTS Beckie Sugden & Aimée
Kearsley, ICM A lternative pop group Yumi Zouma began as a long-distance home-recording project between friends online. The release of EP I in 2014 and EP II the following year saw the band embraced by the blogosphere and handpicked to tour with Lorde before having even held a band practice together.
After an invite from Philippe Zdar to work at his Motorbass studio in Paris, debut album Yoncalla was released in 2016. Second album Willowbank was recorded at home in New Zealand and released in 2017.
Their third album, Truth or Consequences, came out in March 2020, on the day Covid-19 was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization. After cancelling tour plans, in October 2020 the band set to work on producing their next record, Present Tense, which was released last month.
Yumi Zouma recently finished a European tour run, including a sold-out London Lafayette on 18 March. They return to Europe this summer for festival appearances at Rock Werchter (BE), Metropolis Festival (NL), and UK events Visions Festival and Leopallooza.
ARTIST LISTINGS
49th & Main (IE) Aaron Smith (UK) Adekunle Gold (NG) Artemas (UK) BĘÃTFÓØT (IL) CHLOBOCOP (UK) Dave Okumu (UK) Delilah Holliday (UK) DJ Harrison (US) En:vy (UK) Erica Manzoli (UK) Fave (NG) Ferdous (NL) Frankie Stew & Harvey Gunn (UK) Games We Play (US) Georgia Harmer (CA) Hamdi (UK) Hannah Jadagu (US) Jack Kane (UK) James BKS (FR) Jet Vesper (UK) JETTA (UK) Kezia Gill (UK) Kinkajous (UK) Larry June (US) Laura Groves (UK) Lazare Hoche (FR) Cris Hearn & Cecilia Chan Colin Keenan, ATC Live Darren James-Thomas, FMLY Agency Mike Malak, Paradigm Ben Haslett, Earth Agency Annabel Whittle, FMLY Agency André Marmot, Earth Agency Annabel Whittle, FMLY Agency Darren James-Thomas, FMLY Agency James Smith, Earth Agency Alex Hardee, Paradigm Darren James-Thomas, FMLY Agency Daniel Turner, Earth Agency Jack Clark, UTA Matt Bates, Primary Talent Nikita Lavrinenko, PlayBook Artists Lauren Kaye, Earth Agency Clemence Renaut, ATC Live Sarah Casey & Oliver Ward, UTA Darren James-Thomas, FMLY Agency Giulia Spadaro, ITB Annabel Whittle, FMLY Agency Olly Hodgson, Paradigm Alba Martin, Earth Agency Ari Bernstein, ICM Annabel Whittle, FMLY Agency Peter Beer, FMLY Agency
HOTTEST NEW ACTS
APRIL 2022
THIS MONTH LAST MONTH ARTIST
1 - LIL SHORDIE SCOTT (US) 2 1 NIGO (JP) 3 - CAITY BASER (UK) 4 14 CAT BURNS (UK) 5 3 IAYZE (US) 6 - ISABEL LAROSA (US) 7 - JELEEL! (US) 8 - MORGANNE (US) 9 - JX.ZERO (US) 10 - KAYCYY (US) 11 - NEMZZZ (UK) 12 42 LEITH ROSS (CA) 13 31 HARRIETTE (US) 14 24 LEAH KATE (US) 15 - MATT SCHUSTER (US)
PREDICTIONS FOR MAY 2022
SLEAZYWORLD GO (US), LANA LUBANY (UK), VIBE CHEMISTRY (UK), JIM LEGXACY (US), BTEN56. (FR) Artists not in the current top 15, but growing quickly LB aka LABAT (FR) Leith Ross (CA) Lilith Ai (UK) Maria Chiara Argirò (IT) Marlon Craft (US) Marzz (US) Emile Martin, FMLY Agency Eleanor McGuinness, PlayBook Artists Claire Courtney, Earth Agency Sinan Ors, ATC Live Beckie Sugden, ICM Ari Bernstein, ICM
Mike Dimes (US) Mndsgn (US) muva of Earth (UK) Nation of Language (US) Kevin Jergenson, ICM Darren James-Thomas, FMLY Agency Naomi Palmer, Earth Agency Sarah Joy, ATC Live
Neve (IE) Off! (US)
Ryan Penty & Corinna Burrows, Paradigm Graham Clews & Stuart Kennedy, ATC Live OhEm (UK) Sally Dunstone, Primary Talent Philip Glass Ensemble (US) Darren James-Thomas, FMLY Agency Plastic Mermaids (UK) Paul McGivern, PlayBook Artists Quantic (UK) Cris Hearn & Clementine Bunel, Paradigm Roger Eno (UK) Cris Hearn, Paradigm SIDEPIECE (US) Paul McQueen, Primary Talent Simo Cell (FR) Emile Martin, FMLY Agency Skinner (IE) Claire Courtney, Earth Agency Squarepusher (UK) Cris Hearn, Paradigm Stars (CA) Paul McGivern, PlayBook Artists stayMellow (UK) Filippo Mei, ITB The John Martyn Project (UK) Angie Rance, Earth Agency Tycho Jones (UK) Ben Haslett, Earth Agency Vega Trails (UK) Alba Martin, Earth Agency WurlD (NG) Sam Gill, Earth Agency Yaya Bey (US) Darren James-Thomas, FMLY Agency Yeat (US) Obi Asika & Jack Clark, UTA Yumi Zouma (NZ) Beckie Sugden, ICM Zebra Katz (US) Emile Martin, FMLY Agency
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