Signings
Place
Digital Destiny, Delivered!
Slater
about the recordbreaking summer of
Moving on to Pastures New
AIF CEO Paul Reed on
past, present, and future of
festival
Your Shout
was your International Festival
It’s October, and in London, the leaves are turning brown, the sun is setting earlier every evening, and the warm weather that we enjoyed in recent months seems a long, long way away. But I’m topping up my half-empty glass with bubbly because it’s been nothing short of a remarkable year, and, as I said to a room of delegates at IFF, it’s astonishing what everyone involved in the live music business pulled off in 2022. Honestly, if you weren’t all so busy planning the busiest end-of-year run of shows in history, you should be patting yourselves on the back for achieving what once seemed like the impossible.
At ILMC this year, there was much debate on just how the industry could cope with the myriad challenges it faced – a scarcity of skilled personnel, supply chain issues, spiralling costs, and the little matter of a continuing global pandemic. However, six months later and we’ve just witnessed the most incredible summer season the northern hemisphere has ever hosted. And if the feedback at the International Festival Forum was anything to go by, 2023 is looking even bigger.
Talking of IFF, there were some frank discussions about the various hurdles the agency and festival sectors are having to deal with – costs being the major concern. But with a record-breaking 800 delegates making their way to Camden for the three-day gathering, the optimism was palpable. And while ticket prices will inevitably increase for next year, the general consensus was that this is an industry of problem solvers, and they will handle anything the gods (or politicians) throw at them.
For anyone that didn’t make it to IFF or for those who need a reminder of what went on, we have a round-up of proceedings on page 18.
This issue of IQ also features two of our annual celebrations of excellence: Green Guardians (page 38), which recognises industry suppliers that are helping to reduce impact on the environment; and The New Bosses (page 20), where we introduce 20 of the most talented young professionals on the planet. As noted elsewhere, these are (vastly) shortened profiles of these superstars. But never fear, Iq-mag. net will be publishing the full biographies and extensive Q&As for each New Boss in the coming weeks.
Elsewhere, we mark 35 years of the musical maestros D’Alessandro & Galli (page 28), while on a related theme, Adam Woods examines the Italian live entertainment business as it speeds back to recovery (page 56). And investigating the massive growth of the stadia concerts sector, Derek Robertson talks to venue management around the world about their post-pandemic return and the investments they are making to prepare for the boom in non-sports visitors in 2023 (page 48). What a year it’s already promising to be!
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AEG announces plans for a major revamp of its Crypto.com Arena (formerly Staples Center) in Los Angeles.
Just three people are responsible for over two thirds of UK festival and outdoor event tickets listed by resale platform Viagogo, a new report finds.
A number of European arenas tell IQ that skyrocketing energy costs are emerging as the sector’s biggest challenge since the Covid-19 pandemic.
AEG Presents sues Young Thug for the return of a $5million (€5m) advance, plus damages, after accusing the rapper of breach of contract.
CTS Eventim hails an “impressive comeback” for live entertainment, as it shares bullish financial results for the second quarter of 2022.
Harry Styles will continue his current Love on Tour outing with a run of stadium shows in Europe next spring and summer.
Rumours of gunfire cut short a Wiz Khalifa concert in Indianapolis, causing fans to flee the venue by climbing over seats and fences.
Mad Cool Sunset is called off after organisers were unable to find a “suitable” replacement for Rage Against The Machine.
Grassroots music venues are among the small- and mediumsized businesses in the UK that are facing closure without immediate action to curb rocketing fuel bills.
DEAG’s revenue soars past prepandemic levels, according to the company’s financial results for the first half of 2022.
Takk, the Swiss-French concert promoter and artist booking company, hires Théo Quiblier.
Ticketmaster gives event organisers the ability to issue NFTs before, during, and after live events.
Friendly Fire ups Pien Feith to head of its Dutch booking department.
ASM Global announces a long-term partnership with Fuze Technology Inc to offer mobile charging to attendees at its venues.
Live Nation makes a strategic investment in Turn Systems, which operates a leading reusable cup system.
Sam Fender is set to become the first Geordie artist to headline St James’ Park in his hometown of Newcastle, UK.
Ole Hertel is promoted to vice president and managing director of AEG Operations, operator of the Mercedes-Benz Arena in Berlin.
Feist pulls out of her support slot on Arcade Fire’s world tour, following allegations of sexual misconduct against the band’s front man.
K-pop fans can now buy shares in the companies behind stars like BTS and Blackpink via a new Exchange Traded Fund, launched in the US.
STAR publishes a report outlining the impact of Covid-19 on the UK’s ticketing industry.
Organisers of the star-studded Taylor Hawkins Tribute Concert hail the event as a “fitting and humbling memorial” to the late Foo Fighters drummer.
DF Concerts heralds a recordbreaking summer, having sold one million tickets between June and August.
Placebo postpone their entire North American tour just two days before it was due to begin, citing “visa and logistical issues.”
Justin Bieber postpones the remaining dates of his Justice world tour due to ongoing health issues.
Michelle Donelan is named as the UK’s eighth culture secretary in five years as part of a cabinet reshuffle by new prime minister Liz Truss.
Festicket appears to be on the verge of administration after a moratorium filed by the festival discovery and booking platform comes to an end.
Ticketmaster says its dynamic pricing model has captured over $500m (€500m) for artists and event organisers from resale markets in 2022.
Coldplay announces a special live broadcast of the Music of the Spheres World Tour from Buenos Aires’ River Plate Stadium.
Endeavor names Richard Weitz and Christian Muirhead as cochairmen of WME.
A number of music events are cancelled or postponed as a mark of respect in the wake of the death of Queen Elizabeth II.
Iron Maiden draws more than 120,000 fans across three sold-out stadium dates in Brazil.
DEAG enhances its presence in the classical and jazz market with the acquisition of classical music festival Classic Open Air.
Garth Brooks’ long-awaited fivenight stand at Dublin’s Croke Park ranks as Ireland’s biggest ever music event, according to Aiken Promotions.
UTA hires veteran music agent Scott Mantell.
Rock in Rio says the 2022 festival generated BRL2bn (€387.4m) in economic impact for its host city.
Lizzo is allowed to keep her $5m (€5m) booking fee for 2020’s cancelled Virgin Fest in Los Angeles, a judge rules.
Australia’s Falls Festival is set to relocate from regional Victoria for the first time in its 30-year history.
Sam Fender cancels his upcoming US tour dates, citing mental health concerns.
Siri Haugan Holden is named the new general manager of Norway’s promoters’ association, Norske Konsertarrangøre.
DEAG appoints Kilimanjaro Live’s Stuart Galbraith and Wizard Promotions’ Oliver Hoppe as divisional board members.
DICE expands its partnership with Germany’s Goodlive Artists.
Live Nation’s global artist discovery platform, Ones To Watch, launches in Singapore.
UTA announces two major promotions, elevating David Kramer to president and Jay Sures to vice-chair.
At least nine people die, including two 12-year-olds, following a stampede at a rock music festival marking Guatemalan Independence Day.
Roskilde Festival announces a revamp of its booking team and an increased focus on volunteering in the wake of its recent 50th anniversary edition.
A fire breaks out on stage during Panic! At The Disco’s concert in Minnesota, US.
Fyre Festival founder and convicted fraudster Billy McFarland is planning a comeback following his release from prison.
A riot erupts at a hip-hop festival in Canada after rapper Lil Baby abruptly cancelled his headline performance due to illness.
A lightning storm brings an early end to the closing show of Lady Gaga’s The Chromatica Ball world tour, in Miami.
Arlo Parks becomes the latest artist to call off tour dates due to mental health concerns.
Live Nation GSA acquires a majority stake in Berlinheadquartered festival, booking, and services agency Goodlive.
European live music trade bodies lobby for government-backed support packages to mitigate rocketing energy bills.
The 2022 edition of music-inspired charity endurance event Music Mudder raises more than £55,000 (€62,000) for Nordoff Robbins.
StubHub International appoints Dan Mucha as chief executive officer.
Help Musicians creates a new single-focus charity, Music Minds Matter, to support the mental health of all who work in music across the UK.
Harry Styles becomes only the third music artist to have a banner raised to the rafters at New York’s Madison Square Garden in celebration of his 15 consecutive nights.
The South Korean government gears up to drop its mask mandate for outdoor concerts and other large gatherings following a steady decline in Covid-19 cases.
Elena Barreras is installed as the new head of Spain’s music industry conference Primavera Pro.
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UK live music trade bodies express disappointment over chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng’s mini-budget.
Easol, a festival, travel, and event ecommerce startup in London, launches a new financing solution designed for festival organisers.
Live Nation CEE hires Budapestbased promoter Máté Horváth.
FKP Scorpio reveals it sold just shy of 2.2m tickets for Ed Sheeran’s += ÷ x European tour.
Organisers of San Francisco’s Portola Festival play down reports of a crowd flow issue at its debut edition.
AEG Presents France partners with renowned promoter Salomon Hazot on exclusively representing, producing, and distributing his artist roster.
Spain’s DarkMAD festival is postponed after several artists refuse to play in a venue that holds bullfights.
South Korean entertainment giant CJ ENM buys a stake in US-based virtual reality content platform AmazeVR.
European live music trade bodies are lobbying for government-backed sup port packages to protect the sector in the face of rocketing energy bills.
Astronomic energy costs have emerged as the sector’s biggest challenge since the pandemic, with ASM Global’s Marie Lindqvist saying electricity and gas prices have quadrupled at the com pany’s venues since the beginning of the year.
“It is probably our number-one challenge right now,” Lindqvist tells IQ. “However, the cost base in general is a huge challenge, with pressure in all key cost lines such as labour cost inflation, event costs, food costs etc.”
ASM is leaning on technology to help monitor and reduce its carbon footprint and costs. “We are able to view our consumption in real-time so we track usage every day with a view to becoming as efficient as we can be,” says Lindqvist.
“We are also further investing in new technol ogy and working closely with Greener Arena and other experts in the field to continue to move forwards in this space. Finally, we are recruiting a head of sustainability whose sole role will be to support our business to achieve our carbon reduction targets and to support our venues to be as green as they can be.”
AEG’s 15,000-cap Barclays Arena in Ham burg, Germany, is exploring the use of alterna tive sources such as wind power and solar energy in a bid to curb prices.
“Since its construction in 2009, the Barclays Arena has a greywater recycling system on the roof that collects rainwater for the sanitary sys tem,” says VP and MD Steve Schwenkglenks, add ing that the venue is reducing waste and increas ing recycling across its food and beverage offers.
The UK government unveiled the Energy Bill Relief Scheme for businesses after it was revealed that some live music venues are seeing their en ergy bills increase by an average of 300% – in some cases as much as 740% – adding tens of thousands of pounds to their running costs.
Under the new scheme, wholesale prices are expected to be fixed for all non-domestic energy customers at £211 (€243) per MWh for electricity and £75 (€86) per MWh for gas for six months between 1 October and 31 March 2023.
While welcoming the move, trade bodies stressed that further support is needed to stabi lise the sector – although calls to reduce VAT on ticket sales to 5% and reform business rates in September’s mini-budget went unheeded.
Elsewhere in Europe, markets including the Netherlands and Germany are still lobbying for
critical support to curb “disastrous” energy costs for live music businesses.
In the Netherlands, the Association of The atre and Concert Hall Directors (VSCD) says a large proportion of its membership is in danger due to rising energy costs and inflation.
“For many venues, the rise in energy costs is disastrous,” says Mirjam Radstake, director of Theater Hanzehof and Buitensociëteit in Zut phen. “The expectation for next year is that we will be seven times more expensive. Even if we sell out every performance, this cost increase is impossible to absorb.”
Germany’s Federal Association of the Con cert and Event Industry (BDKV) is calling for a special relief programme for the events sector.
“Without state support, there is a risk of the industry collapsing with bankruptcies, opera tional closures, and further migration of skilled workers and the self-employed,” reads a state ment. “This special programme is needed now and not in the near future when such help is al ready too late.”
Mirjam Radstake | Theater Hanzehof and Buitensociëteit in Zutphen“For many venues, the rise in energy costs is disastrous. The expectation for next year is that we will be seven times more expensive. Even if we sell out every performance, this cost increase is impossible to absorb”
Two charity concerts were staged to cele brate the life of late Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins.
Texas-born Hawkins died aged 50 on 25 March at a hotel in Bogotá, Colombia, where the band had been due to headline Festi val Estéreo Picnic.
The “all-star rock and roll shows” took place on 3 September at Wembley Stadium in London and 27 September at the Kia Forum in Los An geles in his honour, with ticket and merchandise sales from the concerts to benefit charities cho sen by the Hawkins family: London-based Music Support and New York-based MusiCares.
The brainchild of production manager Andy Franks, Music Support was launched in 2016 to provide specialist care for music industry execu tives, artists, crew, and technicians.
“We were deeply honoured to have been the sole UK charity involved in such a prestigious event,” says Franks. “To do a tribute like that in
a stadium is amazing and a heck of a send-off. It was a very, very moving event.”
The near six-hour Wembley show, staged by SJM Concerts and Metropolis, featured the Tex an’s bandmates alongside a host of special guests including Paul McCartney, Liam Gallagher, Bri an Johnson, Nile Rodgers, Josh Homme, Chris sy Hynde, Stewart Copeland, Lars Ulrich, Rush, and Brian May and Roger Taylor. Foos frontman Grohl was also joined by Hawkins’ 16-year-old son Oliver Shane on drums for a rendition of My Hero.
“It was an incredible privilege for the whole team at SJM Concerts to be able to deliver this amazing tribute to Taylor Hawkins on behalf of the Hawkins family and Foo Fighters,” says Chris York, director of Foo Fighters’ longtime UK promoter SJM.
“The vision and effort put in by all parties was there for all to see at what was a fitting and humbling memorial event. Working alongside the Foos team and seeing the level of profession
alism they bring to every aspect was an honour as always. It will live long in people’s memories and for all the right reasons.”
The LA concert had a similar running time, with guests including Alanis Morissette, Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith, Pink, Wolf Van Halen, Stewart Copeland, Them Crooked Vultures, Def Leppard, and Joan Jett.
Tour cancellations continue to mount, with Metronomy, Stormzy, and Santigold be coming the latest artists to scrap plans.
Arlo Parks, Shawn Mendes, Sam Fend er, Russ, Wet Leg, and Disclosure have all cancelled dates in the last couple of months due to mental health concerns, while Placebo, alt-J, Pale Waves, and Anthrax scrapped appearances due to “logistical issues.”
“Touring America is one of the most expen sive and exhausting things a band can do,” says an Instagram post from Metronomy after the band pulled the plug on their North American tour. “Right now, it doesn’t make sense for us to come, I’m afraid. We’ve had an incredibly busy year of gigs and festivals and now need to afford some of the same time and attention to our home lives.”
Meanwhile, Stormzy called time on his Aus tralia and New Zealand tour due to “circum stances beyond my control.” The grime artist was set to perform at Spilt Milk Festival as well as headline shows at HBF Stadium in Perth, two nights at the Hordern Pavilion in Sydney, Riv erstage in Brisbane, John Cain Arena in Mel
bourne, and AEC Theatre in Adelaide.
Elsewhere, Santigold cited a myriad of issues for scrapping her North American tour dates. In a lengthy statement, the US artist has cited difficulties with inflation and the post-pandemic touring industry among the reasons for the can cellation, adding that the financial and emotion al toll of touring after the pandemic has left her with “anxiety, insomnia [and] fatigue.”
“I will not continue to sacrifice myself for an industry that has become unsustainable for, and uninterested in the welfare of the artists it is built upon,” writes the US artist, who adds that she “thinks it’s important for people to know the truth of what it’s like out here for artists,” and doesn’t “believe enough of us are talking about it publicly.”
The UK’s Help Musicians has created a new single-focus charity, Music Minds Matter, to sup port the mental health of all who work in music, with Association For Electronic Music CEO Sil via Montello announced as its first chair.
“Having worked in music my entire career, I have sadly seen and experienced first-hand the devastating impact on the mental health of too
many great colleagues, friends, and artists,” says Montello. “Music brings such joy to so many people; we need to ensure that no one involved in creating and sharing it across the music-loving community is left to suffer the effects of stress ful, unhealthy, and often precarious livelihoods and is able to share in that joy and to thrive in their own daily endeavours.”
Music Minds Matter was established as a 24/7 mental health support line for all who work in music across the UK and has since evolved to en compass peer support groups, self-care sessions, and a music-focused mental health guidance website, Music Minds Matter Explore.
“Since Music Minds Matter launched in 2017, we have seen the need for mental health support continue to grow year-on-year,” adds Help Mu sicians CEO James Ainscough. “Musicians and those who work in music have been through an incredibly difficult time during the pandemic. And, sadly, coming out the other side is proving just as challenging, if not more. So the time is right to set up Music Minds Matter as a single-fo cus charity.”
US ticketing exchange and technology firm Lyte has acquired the assets of Festicket and Event Genius.
London-headquartered Festicket, which acquired Event Genius in 2019, entered administration in September, with ReSolve Advisory Limited appointed to oversee the process.
The festival discovery and booking platform previously filed a moratorium, which ended on 30 August as it was “no longer like ly to result in the rescue of the company as a going concern.” Fe sticket’s most recently available accounts from July 2021 showed losses of €8,976,888 for 2020 and €12,934,107 for 2019.
Festicket and Event Genius worked with hundreds of festivals and events across the UK, EU, Australia, and Latin America, in cluding BPM Festival, Ibiza Rocks, Summer Daze, and Annie Mac’s Lost & Found Festival.
Organisers of Australia’s 10,000-cap Borderline Music + Arts Festival blamed Festicket’s collapse for the cancellation of its 2022 event, which was due to be held at Gateway Lakes, Wodon ga, Victoria, on 8 October.
“This tough decision was necessary due to our primary ticketing partner, Festicket, entering into administration, which has caused significant and unrecoverable financial is sues for the event organisers,” reads a statement from promot ers, who also cited “labour shortages, supply chain issues, and difficult economic conditions.”
In the UK, Bristol’s Motion Club, which has partnered with Festicket for the last six years, says it is owed in excess of £300,000 (€345,000) due to not receiving payments for tick ets sold through their platforms, while beer festival promoter North Brewing Co says it lost in excess of £25,000 (€29,000).
Lyte, whose clients include North American festivals such as Life Is Beautiful, Pitchfork Music Festival, BottleRock, and Baja Beach Fest, has pledged to protect Festicket employees and find “ways to reconcile and rebuild with affected promoter clients.”
“With the assets we have acquired in this transaction – and all of the new team members in the UK, Europe, and Aus tralia who we welcome as part of it – we are bringing global opportunities to our existing employees and partners while extending an offer of access to our alternate universe to all promoters, ticket platforms, and fans worldwide,” says Lyte’s chief commercial officer Lawrence Peryer.
UK-based music, travel, and experiences start-up Pollen also fell into administration in August, just three months af ter raising $150m (€153m) in new funding.
2022 was always going to be something special. And boy, was it. Special and busy. Record-breaking busy. 2019 was an unparalleled year for summer events, then 2022 came along and blew that out of the water with 67% more events taking place. Massive thanks go to all our clients for partnering with us through such an incredible year.
While 2022 presented its challenges, we still scanned more than 1.5m people into events this summer. I am super proud of the whole team at Ticketmaster; getting fans into these events is just the grand finale of a huge undertaking.
First up – our marketing team finally got to stretch their muscles and put our 23m-strong fan database to work. From growing audienc es for new clients such as Trentham Live to reaching as many fans as possible for the more established festivals – particularly those like Creamfields South, which added new venues. The team not only used their skills to reach the right fan with the right event but also got crea tive with campaigns like highlighting the payment options to give ticket buyers more options.
Our heroic Fan Experience team was our backbone throughout the entire summer, dealing with over 200,000 fan enquiries. The recent enhancements to our digital custom er service solutions meant that more than 50% of these were successfully dealt with using automated responses, ensuring a speedy resolution for fans.
Then it was our onsite teams who made it all happen, working over 25,000 hours in box offices across hundreds of events up and down the UK. This year, we invited local stu dents studying event courses to work with us for the summer, giving them great relevant experience. We met some amaz ing people and, as a bonus, discovered new talent with two of them joining the team full-time.
Looking back on this summer, we can’t ignore the endless
benefits going digital has had. We’ve seen a 120% increase in the use of digital tickets across the business since 2019, and the majority of tickets this summer were fulfilled through our digital ticketing solutions. My personal highlight was the Ed Sheeran tour – the first call with the promoters took place back in March 2021, so it was more than 12 months in the making. The goal of the artist’s camp was to lock down the tickets so they stayed with real fans, and our digital ticketing technology did exactly that. Job done.
Being back in the field was a great relief for me. I’m first and foremost a people person. Sitting behind a desk and looking at a screen all day lost its appeal three days into lockdown. And it was not just me who missed being out and about in this amazing business. My son, Henry, has been going to fes tivals since he was six weeks old, and this year, I took him to everything possible. From BBC Big Weekend to Standon Calling, then to his first stadium show with Ed, and two Camp Besti vals, making it an action-packed summer. Finally, to the new Camp Bestival site in Shropshire, which, I have to say, was way more civilised than our pre-kid Bestival days!
This record-breaking summer is a testament to the fact that live music and festivals remain essential to everyone. It’s a time to reconnect with friends and family, try things you haven’t done before, explore and find new music, have time away from the 9-5 and the hustle and bustle of ordinary life. It’s all about the experience, which is why VIP sales are through the roof, with new concepts continuing to come through. The Ned Club at The Cambridge Club was another level, the Chef’s tables at Connect Festival booked up like the very best restaurants in town, and events like Wilderness con tinue to knock it out of the park year after year.
Strap yourselves in… 2023 is going to be another record-breaker. I’ll see you there.
“This record-breaking summer is a testament to the fact that live music and festivals remain essential to everyone”
The 2022 season has been the definition of a mixed bag. Some of the festivals that had established brands and loyal audiences over the years did well in terms of ticket sales, and the majority of cancellations were newer shows in their first year or thereabouts. But it was al ways going to be a strange, transitional summer overall.
All the challenges we warned about earlier in the year were exacerbated by costs going up 25-35% across the board. The sup ply chain issues relented a little towards the end of the season, but that was mainly due to shows being cancelled and invento ry and infrastructure then being released back into the market.
Markets tend to correct themselves, so we’re look ing towards 2023 with that in mind, but a lot of people are grappling with pricing. Many festi vals are already flexible with pricing plans, and I think you’ll see a lot more of that.
You’d like to educate audiences about costs but it’s difficult to do that in a way that isn’t tone deaf in the middle of this cost-of-living crisis. I wouldn’t expect your average attendee to understand the nuances of the festival financial model and how precarious it is, but the margins are very low – 10% or less. Are the cost increases going to relent? The fact is that we don’t know because that’s influenced by the wider economy and factors that are not only national but global.
Staffing has been a huge issue – not just making up the numbers but getting in experienced staff. That was a com mon theme across the season, and it’s not that surprising when you look at the number of people moving out of the industry during Covid. From what I gather, people have been facing very similar challenges across other parts of Europe.
Then there are Brexit-related talent issues. We run a mem ber helpline with T&S Immigration, and where artists re quired work visas as a visa national, the system was frankly a complete mess this year – serious delays, seemingly selective processing, prioritising tourist over work visas. It resulted in
numerous artists and crew needing to cancel shows.
Government has ignored repeated calls to simplify the vari ous systems over the years, none of which are truly fit for purpose for UK festivals. There seems to be no appetite to address this.
The AIF, as an organisation, is in good shape with a grow ing membership. We’ve fought some significant battles and campaigns and, importantly, the collective voice of the inde pendent sector is heard just as much as any other across the live music industry – and that voice has grown. We’ve had some impact over the years and represented members effec tively throughout the worst possible circumstances.
Some of the challenges that we face are cyclical, but I believe we are focused on all the right things. If I think of the pillars of AIF at the minute, then it’s climate action and sustainability; it’s audience welfare, such as our Safer Spaces campaign; and it’s diversity, both across the organisation and the membership and workforce. Whoever comes in after me will certainly have to pick up those three key strands.
The sector is under a lot of pressure – govern ment needs to act on pre-profit taxation and urgently reduce VAT on tickets to 5%, and also assure us that festivals will be classed as vulnerable and eligible for support on the energy crisis beyond March 2023.
Everyone’s looking forward to having a clean slate next year in the respect of not having to deal with rollovers from the pandemic, and there is some optimism around that. The sector is hugely resilient, having got through two years of complete or partial shutdown, and it’s resourceful and inno vative, so I’m not concerned about its longer-term health.
We were always going to have some challenging years coming out of Covid, and there are factors that you couldn’t have predicted, such as the war in Ukraine. But the fact that so much of the market is still around and looking to 2023 is testament to that resilience.
“You’d like to educate audiences about costs but it’s difficult to do that in a way that isn’t tone deaf in the middle of this cost-of-living crisis”
is an artist unafraid of baring all in her music. Her unique alt-pop-rock/emo sound has led to a growing groundswell online, building a strong community of fans – her “outsiders.”
AViVA describes her songs as being about the “outsider ex perience,” something clearly expressed in both her sonic pal ate and her lyrics, in which she explores the themes of control and isolation.
Since her debut single, GRRRLS, in late 2017, her distinct sound and message has garnered the support of tastemakers globally on YouTube and Spotify.
AViVA has toured with the likes of Yungblud, Poppy, and Pale Waves, has played at numerous festivals, and amassed more than 3bn global streams.
AViVA spent 2021 releasing new music and a debut novel (via MacMillan publishing), with a second book released this summer. She will appear at Supanova (Comicon) in Australia in November.
Acid Klaus (UK)
Æ MAK (IE)
AlinaHipHarp (UA)
Andrea Belfi (IT)
Andy Stott (UK)
Rob Gibbs, Progressive Artists
Jule Konrad, FMLY Agency
Darren James-Thomas, FMLY Agency
Arthur Janssen, PlayBook Artists
Naomi Palmer, Earth Agency
Annahstasia (US/NG) James Masters, Earth Agency
Antony Szmierek (UK) Matt Bates & Will Marshall, Primary Talent
Arushi Jain (US)
Nikita Lavrinenko, PlayBook Artists
At Last - A Tribute to Etta James (US) Seth Malasky, Wasserman
Austin Millz (US) Noah Simon, Kevin Gimble, Scott Schreiber & Shaq Millington, UTA
AViVA (AU)
Bel Cobain (UK)
Kara James, ITB
Hannah Shogbola, UTA
Benefits (UK) Steve Taylor, ATC Live
Big Image (UK)
James Whitting & Adele Slater, Wasserman
Brian Culbertson (US) Andrea Johnson & Seth Malasky, Wasserman
Broadside (US)
Byron the Aquarius (US)
Gemma Milroy, ITB
Naomi Palmer, Earth Agency
Caracara (US) Corrie Martin, Wasserman
CASWELL (UK) Clive Mill, Earth Agency
Charisse C (ZA/UK)
Hannah Shogbola & Ishsha Bourguet, UTA
Charly Reynolds (US) Keith Levy & Matt Runner, Wasserman
Childish Gambino (US)
Brent Smith, Wasserman
Chloe Bodur (UK) Sinan Ors, ATC Live Civic (AU) Steve Taylor, ATC Live
KILIMANJARO (UK)
Hannah Shogbola & Josh Pollard, UTA
Kolton Moore & the Clever Few (US) Keith Levy & Matt Runner, Wasserman
L.S. Dunes (US)
Laura Elliott (US)
Leftover Salmon (US)
Leifur James (UK)
Geoff Meall, Wasserman
Steve Taylor & Stuart Kennedy, ATC Live
Olly Hodgson, Wasserman
Cecilia Chan & Michael Harvey-Bray, Wasserman
Lexie Carroll (UK) Chris Smyth & Alex Hardee, Wasserman
LF SYSTEM (UK)
lilo (UK)
Brittany Miller, Daisy Hoffman, Dave Blackgrove & Cecilia Chan, Wasserman
Liam Keightley, ITB
Lost Girl (UK) Nick Matthews, Wasserman
Mac Wetha (UK)
CLT DRP (UK)
Jule Konrad, FMLY Agency Cook Thugless (US) Daniel Lee, Wasserman Cooper T (UK) Danny Misell, Earth Agency
Daithí (IE) Rob McGee, FMLY Agency dameeeela (AU) Lucy Atkinson, Earth Agency
DART (IE) Jason O’Regan, Earth Agency
David Foster (CA) Andrea Johnson, Wasserman
Devon Cole (CA) Marty Diamond, Tom Windish & Alex Hardee, Wasserman DJ_Dave (US)
Lucy Atkinson, Earth Agency
Donny Benét (AU) Paul Buck, Wasserman
DWLLRS (US) Matt Adler, Wasserman Eat Your Heart Out (AU) Filippo Mei, ITB evicshen (US)
Darren James-Thomas, FMLY Agency
Fantastic Negrito (US) Skully Kaplan & Stuart Kennedy, ATC Live FERG (US) Cal Callender & Lauren Marker, Wasserman
Flossie (UK) Mike Malak, Wasserman Fox Stevenson (UK) Francesco Caccamo, Primary Talent
Friko (US) Will Church, ATC Live
Glasvegas (UK)
Graham Clews & Steve Taylor, ATC Live goddard. (UK) Matt Rodriguez & Lucy Putman, Wasserman
Helen Ganya (UK)
Angie Rance, Earth Agency
Ishi Vu (SE) Jan Bouwhuis, Earth Agency
Jaz Karis (UK) Marlon Burton, ATC Live
Jazzy (UK)
Jess Bays (UK)
JFDR (ISL)
Nick Matthews, Wasserman
Hannah Shogbola & Jack Clark, UTA
Angie Rance, Earth Agency
Joe Vann (US) Corrie Martin, Wasserman
Joseph Lawrence (UK) Adele Slater & Clementine Bunel, Wasserman
Joshua Burnside (UK)
Angie Rance, Earth Agency
Kaleida (UK) Rob McGee, FMLY Agency
Karpe (NO)
Graham Clews & Marlon Burton, ATC Live
Kenny Beats (US) Cris Hearn & Jim O’Regan, Wasserman Khazali (UK) Beckie Sugden, Primary Talent
Sally Dunstone, Primary Talent Mercury (US)
James Masters, Earth Agency
MJ Lenderman (US) Duncan Smith & Nikita Lavrinenko, PlayBook Artists Model Man (UK)
Sinan Ors, ATC Live Model/Actriz (US) Roxane Dumoulin, ATC Live
Naya Ali (CA) Rob McGee, FMLY Agency niina (UK)
Michael Harvey-Bray, Wasserman Nikhil Beats (UK) Lauren Kaye, Earth Agency NIMMO (UK) Rob McGee, FMLY Agency
Oscar Browne (UK) Liam Keightley, ITB Pacific Avenue (AU)
Ben Winchester, Primary Talent Persia Holder (UK) Ryan Penty, Wasserman Peter Cincotti (US) Andrea Johnson, Wasserman Phoebe Go (AU) Paul Buck, Wasserman Poisonous Birds (UK) Jule Konrad, FMLY Agency Pomme (UK) Oliver Ward, UTA push baby (UK) Jule Konrad, FMLY Agency rainbolt (US) Zac Bluestone, Wasserman Satin Puppets (US) Jule Konrad, FMLY Agency Sematary (US) Fred Zahedinia & Mike Malak, Wasserman Seraphina Simone (UK) Sol Parker, Wasserman Sergio Mendes (BR/US) Olly Hodgson & Clementine Bunel, Wasserman
Shaé Universe (UK)
Max Lee & Kazia Davy, UTA Shalom (US)
Clemence Renaut, ATC Live Shamir (US) Jule Konrad, FMLY Agency
SIREN (UK)
Sol Parker, Wasserman
Francesco Caccamo, Primary Talent Skaiwater (UK) Nick Matthews, Wasserman Sonny Tennet (UK) Sol Parker, Wasserman Stephen Sanchez (US)
The Beths (NZ) Alex Bruford & Sarah Joy, ATC Live
The Cavemen (NG) Clementine Bunel, Wasserman
The Guru Guru (BE)
Jule Konrad, FMLY Agency
The Pearl Harts (UK) Rob McGee, FMLY Agency
The Righteous Brothers (US) Andrea Johnson, Ira Goldenring & Kevin Kastrup, Wasserman
The St Pierre Snake Invasion (UK) Jule Konrad, FMLY Agency
Tim Hill (US)
James Masters, Earth Agency
Tokky Horror (UK) Jule Konrad, FMLY Agency
Tom The Mailman (US) Graham Clews & Marlon Burton, ATC Live Wande Coal (NG) Sam Gill, Earth Agency
Ydegirl (DK/DE)
Jan Bouwhuis, Earth Agency Yumi and the Weather (UK) Julia Wasielewska, FMLY Agency
The International Festival Forum in as sociation with TicketSwap enjoyed a triumphant sold-out return 27-29 Sep tember, where a record-breaking 800 delegates enjoyed three days of Camden sunshine and a healthy mix of confer ence sessions, artist showcases, network ing events and business meetings.
Representatives from more than 500 festivals around the world reported brisk business with their booking agent colleagues, with many agen cies setting up pop-up offices around Camden. Delegates took advantage of IFF-organised speed meetings and the extensive networking areas on offer at the Holiday Inn hub or the various bars and terraces at the likes of the PowerHaus live music venue.
The eighth edition of IFF got off to a roaring start with an opening party sponsored by UTA, before the good people from Solo Agency in vited delegates to check out four of their finest emerging acts.
Early risers on Wednesday morning wit nessed opening debate The Festival Season 2022, where various luminaries shared their experi ence of the past few months, before IFF founder Greg Parmley conducted a keynote interview with principals of Roskilde Festival, which final ly got to celebrate its 50th edition after two years of postponements.
Wednesday’s live musical fare was provided by X-ray Touring, One Fiinix Live, and Primary Talent International, while CAA provided din ner and drinks, prior to Mad Cool Festival and The Spanish Wave’s showcase and a fitting birth day party to mark Roskilde’s golden anniversary.
Throughout IFF, headline sponsors Tick etSwap proved a popular draw thanks to their custom-built terrace lounge in the Holiday Inn offering a delicious brunch alternative, as well as a never-ending flow of mimosas for thirsty visitors.
Thursday’s schedule kicked off with a series of presentations titled The New Kids on the Block, where recently launched agencies One Fiinix
Live, Mother Artists, and Runway spoke about their ethos and bespoke approaches to business, and German festivals Superbloom and Tempel hof Sounds outlined their successful first seasons.
The conference schedule later wrapped up with Festivals & Agents: Happier Than Ever?, which examined the stronger bonds between both sides of the business and the ways they are continuing to work together for the common
good on behalf of artists and their fans.
A packed afternoon showcase programme saw live performances by clients of Wasserman Music, Earth Agency, and ATC Live. And for those not rushing off to catch flights, IFF’s final dinner was followed by Music Venue Trust’s Revive Live Mixer gigs, before UTA brought the curtain down at Camden Assembly with its latenight artists showcase, Hear This
Showcasing artists at IFF 2022 included:
Blondshell (ATC Live)
CLT DRP (FMLY Agency)
Connie Constance (ATC Live)
Dead Pony (Wasserman Music)
Debbie (Wasserman Music)
Deijuvhs (Earth Agency)
Ellie Dixon (One Fiinix Live)
Fat Dog (UTA)
Florence Arman (Primary Talent International) flowerovlove (Wasserman Music)
Gigi Moss (X-ray Touring)
Haviah Mighty (Earth Agency)
Hickeys (Spanish Wave)
Irenegarry (Spanish Wave)
Khazali (Primary Talent International)
Lizzie Esau (Wasserman Music)
Megan McKenna (Solo Agency)
Mitch Sanders (Solo Agency)
pablopablo (Spanish Wave)
Panic Shack (UTA)
piri & tommy (Wasserman Music)
Pixey (Primary Talent International)
Psymon Spine (X-ray Touring)
Steven Bamidele (Primary Talent International)
Surf Curse (ATC Live)
Talk Show (Primary Talent International)
The Goa Express (ATC Live)
The Kairos (Solo Agency)
The K’s (Solo Agency)
The Native (X-ray Touring)
The Stickmen Project (One Fiinix Live)
Waldo’s Gift (ATC Live)
Zand (UTA)
Zheani (X-ray Touring)
It’s 15 years since IQ launched The New Bosses – our annual search for future industry leaders. Such is the vast array of talent that stood out during the Covid crisis and the post-pandemic restart, that we have increased The New Bosses class of 2022 to recognise 20 of our brightest and best who are already making a difference through their work and extra-curricular activities.
The individual profiles on the following pages are shortened versions of the full interviews. Keep an eye on iq-mag.net in the coming days and weeks, where we will be publishing the full Q&A with each New Boss. And congratulations to everyone selected as one of this year’s New Bosses!
Your podcast initiative opened doors for you. What advice would you give to anyone trying to find a job in live music?
Go the extra mile: Start your own project (podcast, blog, etc.) and invest your time. Show the world you have expertise and why you would be a good addition to any team.
What’s been the biggest challenge for you and the DreamHaus team as the business has emerged from the pandemic restrictions?
There is an uncertainty about the upcoming winter, so hopefully we can continue having regular concerts throughout the colder times. Let me be fully honest: after months in my home office, it took a while for me to get used to the regular office workflow again.
Where would you like to see yourself in five years?
I just want to keep my momentum going and build my roster. In general, my goal is to continue to do my work, learn, and evolve –personally as well as career-wise – and then who knows what the fu ture will bring.
What has been the highlight of your career, so far?
After years of attending splash! as a fan, the moment I was backstage at the festival as an official was pretty cool. In addition to that, LUIS – the first domestic act I signed – just started his first tour, which is basically sold out.
MVT’s Emergency Response Service has proved invaluable over the past couple of years. What is your favourite success story?
Over the years, Pauline Forster, who owns the iconic George Tavern in London, has fought an immense battle to save the venue against threats of redevelopment. Being a small part in the story of the George Tavern and helping ensure the venue survives is something I am proud of. Pauline’s spirit encapsulates the creativity, chaos, and courage that can be found in venue operators up and down the country.
Your work at MVT has put you in the spotlight on TV and even lecturing students. How do you prepare for such daunting assignments?
I try to always say ‘yes’ to these types of challenges because by placing myself into these situations, I’ve become more familiar with their set up and actually started to enjoy them. I tend to have a general idea of the points I want to make, sense-check them by running them past the team, who have years of experience in the sector, and then try to leave room to just enjoy the process.
Where would you like to see yourself in five years’ time?
I don’t think [MVT CEO] Mark Davyd will have any issue with me openly saying I am coming for his job!
CAA (CO)
Your career prior to CAA saw you work across an array of music sectors. Would you encourage others to do the same?
Absolutely. I feel like it’s key to go through some early challenges in your career to teach you how to deal with difficult people and situations.
What was the biggest challenge for you in your work during the pandemic?
Our partnerships group was pretty lucky in that it actually got busier than ever during the pandemic. The fast-paced nature and endless problem-solving of that time gave us really thick skin to deal with issues as we’re returning to normal. Tough times for sure but I think it made us more resourceful, efficient, and calmer under pressure.
What has been the highlight of your career, so far?
I worked on a Cardi B x Tinder deal called the Swipe-Off, which had a simple premise – the university that swiped right the most would get a free concert from Cardi B. The winner was a technical university in Massachusetts with a 10k-cap arena on campus and there were lines around the block with people trying to get the free tickets. The tim ing couldn’t have been more perfect in terms of the artist’s star pow er growing while the fan competition went on – such a great example of a partnership that actually delivered an unforgettable moment.
Does your background in journalism and social media help with any aspects of your festival work?
All these previous experiences, plus the possibility to tour with a band, made me a more complex person, and thanks to this I can see things from a different perspective.
What is your process for trying to discover the next big act?
I prefer working with so-called baby bands on a long-term basis and grow with them step by step. Starting with the best possible slot at the festival and a follow-up with a headline show is the best scenario for every new band in the market.
If you could offer the 20-year-old David one piece of advice, what would it be?
Tell my younger self to be patient with whatever he is dealing with in life and try to solve everything with a calm mind.
Which three acts would be on your ideal festival line-up?
Billy Talent is one of my oldest favourite bands, so definitely them. I love the guys from Missio, who took the risk and flew from the US to the Covid-safe version of Rock for People last year. Leoniden from Germany is one of the best live bands that I know, and they can handle drinking Slivovitz with their promoter, so they must be on the bill!
Your mother was a sound engineer. Did that influence your choice to find a career in live music?
It showed me that a career in this industry is an option.
Having the possibility to see behind the curtain of the live industry probably just put it on a plate for me.
As a young person working in the highly competitive Swiss market, how do you try to find an edge over your rivals?
I attend international showcase festivals like Reep erbahn, ESNS, The Great Escape, etc and try to be present at as many events as possible in Switzerland
– always on the hunt for new talent and to keep my network strong.
As a new boss, what one thing would you change to make the live music industry a better place?
To keep people working in this adventurous and stressful industry happy and healthy, I feel like it is important to invest in a good HR department and be sensitive about employees’ needs and individual ca reer planning, especially for women.
What advice would you give to anyone who is trying to find a job in live music?
Keep yourself informed about the market, new acts, trends; attend concerts, festivals; and find out which field in this diverse industry really interests you the most. And try your luck!
You studied sport management and administration at university. Do you see any obvious areas where other forms of live events can learn from the sports sector?
Absolutely. From purchasing a ticket to trying to beat traffic on the way home – how can we in the industry make the guest experience the best it can be? This is something that I think should be on everyone’s mind.
You have rapidly risen through the ranks at ASM Global. What advice would you give to anyone trying to climb the ladder in such a competitive business?
It is important to understand the big picture and al
ways look into the future for the opportunities and headwinds that may be coming. This has helped me keep a progressive view when looking at various pro jects and troubleshoot potential pitfalls I may not have thought about beforehand.
If you could offer the 18-year-old Grant one piece of advice, what would it be?
The best way to identify what you like to do and don’t like to do is to jump right in and get hands-on experi ence wherever possible. So, if a volunteer, internship, or short-term job opportunity presents itself, don’t be afraid to say yes even if it isn’t what you had in mind.
What tips do you give colleagues and friends when it comes to them discovering artists in their specialist genres?
If the genre you love is thriving on TikTok, then that’s where you should be looking for new talent. If it’s trawling through BlackBox freestyles, go there. If it’s Sofar Sounds sessions, look there. It’s also important to have friends with good taste in other roles like A&Rs, managers, lawyers. People are always down to share a tip, especially if you’ve got a good one for them in return.
What has been the highlight of your career, so far?
Being granted Arts Council funding to start my own live and content brand (Lucent) with my friends – it’s the reason Oscar (Tuttiett) at AEG found me.
As a new boss, what one thing would you change to make the live entertainment industry better?
All facets of the live entertainment industry need to stop racially pro filing artists and their fans. We should pride ourselves on being a pro gressive industry and not openly endorse this backwards mentality.
Are there any particular events or shows you are looking forward to this year or next?
I’m really looking forward to the N-Dubz tour. I’m very proud to have played a part in one of the biggest success stories in the industry this year. I grew up listening to their music from the Channel U days, which makes it all the more special.
You started booking shows when you were at university. How did you learn to do that?
I was keen to learn more about Glasgow’s local scene and wanted to get involved with the bands and venues, so took a leap. It was a guessing game but I figured it out with advice from friends (who had toured) and lecturers.
Can you tell us about your Queens of Noise initiative?
Queens of Noise is a female-centric, gender-inclusive business based in Glasgow that is striving to tackle gender bias within the music in dustry. It is a community focused project and a safe space for anyone looking to work in the music industry.
As a new boss, what one thing would you change to make the live entertainment industry a better place?
I’d love to see gender-bias tackled in a real, tangible way, with more female-presenting people better represented and in higher positions across all sectors of the industry.
You’re obviously quite driven and entrepreneurial. How do you pick yourself up when something doesn’t work out as you had hoped?
I have a tendency to work on several things at once, so when one thing doesn’t work out, there’s always another to chisel away at. I do also take things to heart, so feeling deflated can be difficult. In those moments, lean on the community you build for yourself and take a moment, review, and try something else – failure can lead to great things.
What has been your biggest career highlight to date?
Next to my Job, I also do some freelance work in my “leisure time” and this year I had the honour of booking the RAW+ Festival in Berlin with my friend and fæmm colleague Marie. We managed to book a very cool and diverse 90% FLINTA line-up, which made us very proud and happy.
Your fæmm organisation sounds interesting. Can you tell us more about it?
It’s a queer-feministic initiative. We strive to give FLINTA (female, lesbian, intersex, trans, and agender) persons who work behind, on, and in front of the stage a platform to be seen and heard. We offer networking events in cities and during festivals (Reeperbahn Festival in Hamburg and c/o Pop in Cologne). We also have our own radio show fæmm.fm, a newsletter with FLINTA event tips for Berlin, and an electronic music channel on Soundcloud called “anders.” where FLINTA sets are promoted.
What proactive efforts can promoters make to help address gender imbalance?
It’s a question of will, money, and attitude. Give them chances, stages, and believe in them. But not only promoters need to change their at titudes, even the media (like radio stations) and the artists themselves do. We all need to make proactive efforts in our thinking and work to change the gender imbalance.
FORT AGENCY (CA)
Lots of people are trying to find a job in the music industry. What advice would you give to anyone trying to get a foot in the door? Get involved in everything music as early as you can. In my case, I joined my university’s radio club and got to host my own radio show. Little did I know, I was developing my experience and acquiring skills that are in high demand for entry-level jobs.
You’ve found a role at a Brown-owned business, which hopefully gives you a support mechanism. But are you finding yourself having to take on any frustrating battles simply because of your gender and ethnicity?
Unfortunately, yes. I think I’ve faced more challenges when dealing with individuals outside of North America, and I mainly believe it’s be cause of the small differences in culture that, sometimes, brings about some pushback or some sort of misunderstanding from the other end.
As a new boss, what one thing would you change to make the live music industry a better place?
Just like we have A&Rs to scout and develop emerging talent, I believe it could be greatly beneficial in having individuals do the same for the [business side], and I would want a more diverse group of agents and promoters entering this industry for that. I feel most people don’t nec essarily think of being an agent/promoter when trying to break into the industry, even less so for people of colour, in my opinion.
You’re a professional event organiser – what kind of events did you start out working on, and how did that help you get a foot in the door with your first job?
The first shows were with Ivette Sangalo, Joss Stone, and Radio Disney Vivo, among others, and they [taught] me that you should not take anything for granted; that you have to lose the fear of asking ques tions and making a fool of yourself; and that above all, you have to have confidence in yourself.
Is anyone else in your family involved in music – or do they all think you are crazy for your choice of career?
Two of my four brothers are producers! My twin broth
er, Ezequiel, was an indispensable actor in the push to make the decision to dedicate myself to this. And Le andro was the one who started this “legacy” that we are building today.
What has been your biggest career highlight to date?
A month ago, Phil Rodriguez presented me with the opportunity to go on tour with Tiago PZK in the role of tour manager. It has been the best decision of my life. I really enjoy every show, every new trip, every new experience, getting to know places and people, and cultures and audiences that are totally different.
You started booking shows when you were a drumming librarian. How did you learn to do that, and who did you turn to for advice?
Our singer was located in Hamburg, so the voluntary year at the library was my ticket to move to the city. Get ting a gig for our band was a lot of trial and error. The Internet was the place we turned to for advice. It defi nitely made me realise that landing a show for a new comer act requires a lot of persistence and persuading.
What did being an apprentice at KJK involve?
I was able to work in our touring, PR/marketing and
local department, [and] I still find it very helpful today to know how the departments operate. The vocational school also offered a one-month internship in London where Isla Angus took me in at Nomanis agency, and I got a little glimpse of the agent world.
You’ve been studying business psychology. How has this helped your everyday work life or is it more about being able to be a better negotiator for deals? What I’ve found most interesting were the questions about how to create a motivating work environment or how to enable people to reach their full potential. So I hope that my work as a promoter, as well as my addi tional new tasks in the field of HR, can benefit from that knowledge.
Making the move to Australia is quite an unusual step for an American. How did that relocation under WME come about?
I was promoted to agent at WME when I was 24, and they asked me if I’d move to Sydney to help grow their Australian office. The company knew I had a good ear for finding new talent, and the idea of living and breathing the Australian culture that was producing these incred ible global artists became an inspiring idea to me.
You obviously spotted a gap in the marketplace when you launched Proxy Agency. Have you always had an entrepreneurial streak or has this been a leap of faith?
Australia’s agency landscape was missing something that I thought wasn’t existing yet: an agency with a global perspective on things that is concurrently nurturing the new wave of artists and industry profes sionals under a banner that means something culturally.
Proxy feels like a family; the artists on Proxy are each other’s big gest cheerleaders, and there’s an energy behind it because the music matters and we’re representing the change we want to see in the world.
Proxy has had a rapid rise to prominence, but what has been your biggest highlight so far?
Signing Hayden James who is an A-level festival headliner in Australia was a massive moment for me and Proxy as a whole.
What advice could you offer to others who are trying to get a foot in the door of the music industry?
It’s always valuable to keep an end goal in mind but don’t get too blink ered by how you plan on achieving it. Take up every opportunity and every meeting. You never know how well they could land.
What are the biggest lessons that you learned during the Covid pandemic that you are using to help with your career going forward?
It’s been essential learning to take a step back and breathe, especially as we navigated unfamiliar ground with a significantly reduced team. It also serves as a good reminder that I’m still here doing what I love, especially when the pandemic altered that for so many.
You have a reputation for being able to spot emerging talent. How and where do you discover new music?
Streaming’s always the first go-to; it immediately offers the world in terms of what’s out there. That said, word of mouth is also a winner. We have such a fantastic network of young promoters across the world, and I’m lucky to have that community.
How would you encourage the next generation to choose the live music sector for their chosen career path?
Articulating how fast, unpredictable, slightly crazy, and fun the indus try and its people are is impossible in a few sentences, so I’d probably just invite them in for a couple days to see for themselves.
PROXY AGENCY (US)
SÖDRA TEATERN (SE)
Your team at Södra Teatern has really grown under your leadership. How many events are you hosting, and what kind of capacities are we talking about?
Södra Teatern, as a whole, hosts around 230 live concerts a year and 100 club nights with occasional live acts. We have four stages varying in ca pacity from 250 to 1,500 people. The club has a capacity of 1,200 people, three dance floors, and four bars. It’s a big house!
What has been your biggest career highlight to date?
Sometimes you see an artist take the stage for the first time and both you and the crowd just know instantly that it’s exactly where they are supposed to be. I never feel more privileged to have my job than in mo ments like that.
Are there any particular events or shows you are looking forward to this year or next?
I think that my best show of 2022 will be some show we book for the club on a whim after hearing a debut single and falling in love with it. Last year, I helped a new artist put a band together after hearing his debut single, and within three weeks after releasing it he did his first ever live show, and it was one of the best shows I have ever seen! This summer he played Way Out West (Sweden’s biggest music festival) only half a year after that show!
You worked at Music Norway for a while. Are there any areas where you think the commercial live music industry could work better with export offices?
Let’s say a major label and a global promoter in a small market such as Norway made a coordinated push on an emerging talent through its respective systems. If it happened simultaneously, I think chances are that this artist would break the surface and have something good to build on. It’s not as easy as it sounds, but I think there are some unfulfilled synergies that haven’t been really exploited in that space.
Launching a pop festival like NEON in an uncertain marketplace was a risk. Just what made the event such a success?
Several factors I’d say. We had the festival on the first weekend of June, the same day as the last exam for students. It effectively became the event that kicked off the summer.
2023 will be like a second album; we had a whole pandemic to come up with this plan, now we have to prove we can stay.
As a new boss, what one thing would you change to make the live entertainment industry a better place?
If the industry doesn’t create systems to avoid constant overload, where it’s not just about keeping your head above water, I’m afraid more good people with great skills will quit, too. It’s crucial that we take care of our own.
To fund your blog you worked in a bar and as a support worker. What advice would you give to anyone trying to break into the music industry?
I think everyone needs to do a stint in hospitality and deal with the public at some point in their life. Char acter building. And working as a support worker helps shape your perspective massively. My advice would be to get in early – take in as much experience as you can and put yourself about. Everything else will come from that.
What has been your biggest career highlight to date?
Seeing DICE go from a 15- to 400-person company over eight years has been pretty mad. Also it might be stuck in my head because I saw it in full flow last week but New Century partnering with DICE is really up there for me. It’s an amazing 1,000-cap venue in Man chester with an unreal team behind it – it’s my new favourite venue in the UK.
How would you encourage the next generation to choose the live music sector for their chosen career path?
Relationships are the key. Focus on building those where you’re most passionate – the rest will fall into place.
You started out in the famous mailroom at UTA. Is this still a viable path for people wanting to break into the music industry in 2022?
At UTA, music agents work across the entire company to find opportunities for clients in other business verti cals like acting, writing, film, and many other spaces. Since there are so many resources available for clients, it’s helpful to begin your career journey by learning as much as possible about every department, and the mail room is a great place to start absorbing that knowledge.
Do you think the music industry and consumer brands are best exploiting the opportunities that Pride has to offer?
As a queer person, it’s important to see the benefits
of both large-scale, company-sponsored Pride events and more underground grassroots events. Addition ally, many LGBTQIA+ artists make a huge portion of their annual revenue during Pride Month through corporate events. However, the LGBTQIA+ communi ty doesn’t stop existing outside of June and other in ternational Pride months, and we need to be creating more year-round live experiences and opportunities to support the community.
The gender imbalance at festivals has been an issue again this year. Are there any proactive suggestions agents can make to help address these problems? When agents are pitching a woman-identifying client to a festival buyer, they need to be able to articulate why that particular artist belongs on that specific lineup. It is essential to educate ourselves on our clients’ unique personal backgrounds, bodies of work, and fanbases beyond their gender identity.
Were you able to speak Mandarin before making your move to Taipei?
Growing up we would speak Mandarin at home, but I still had a huge learning curve when I first started working in Taiwan. I’m proud to say that my language skills have now improved to a point where most people are unable to tell that I am a foreigner.
What’s the most important lesson you can impart to visiting ‘Western’ acts?
Each market is unique. For example, something that may be well re ceived by fans in Bangkok, may not be so well received in Shanghai.
Asia seems like it will be the next region to really explode in terms of live music business growth. How would you lure fellow professionals to the region to help facilitate that growth?
Asia is the place to be if you’re looking for a challenge and an adven ture. The next couple of years are going to be great growth years for the live music industry in Asia, and it’s exciting to be able to be a part of shaping the industry.
As a new boss, what one thing would you change to make the live entertainment industry a better place?
We’ve already made strides with the emergence of 88rising and artists such as keshi over the past couple of years, but I would like to continue to see more AAPI representation throughout the industry, globally.
There were already some big promoters in Poland when you launched Follow The Step. What was your strategy to make the business a success?
Passion! The whole Follow The Step team honestly love what we’re doing, and we are always hungry for more. Our company doesn’t have a certain strategy, we’re just simply doing the best we can, and we’re always up for new challenges.
What has been your biggest career highlight to date?
It was definitely organising a charity concert to support Ukraine when the war started (together with television station TVN) in less than two weeks. We’ve sold out the show for 10,000 people and raised over $2million (€2m).
Setting up seven festivals in less than six years is very impressive. What tips would you give to other people who are looking to launch new events?
Try and don’t give up! Also don’t be scared to dream. When I was first starting, I’d never think that I’ll end up having seven festivals, head line shows and events, or over 70 people in our agency.
What one thing would you like artists to learn about coming to perform in Poland?
That every single person that came to their concert is there for a rea son, we have one of the most dedicated music audiences in Poland. And probably the craziest.
At 35 years and counting, Mimmo D’Alessandro and Adolfo Galli’s pro moting union has outlasted most marriages. But then, they do live largely separate lives.
“Adolfo is in Brescia, and I stay in Tuscany, in Viareggio,” explains D’Alessandro of their two-office setup. “I met Adolfo in 1987 in Tuscany. We had spoken on the phone about Miles Davis, who he was working with, but the first time we met faceto-face was at a David Bowie show I promoted in
Florence for the Glass Spider Tour. Adolfo is a very different character to me. I support Napoli [FC], he supports Inter…”
“It’s definitely a unique combination in our business, that’s for sure,” responds Galli with a chuckle. “Mimmo is more involved produc tion-wise, and I’ve always looked at more of the commercial side. Mimmo is from the south, I’m from the north. He likes horses, and I like gui tars. But our differences are our biggest strength.
“Even though sometimes we don’t agree, he puts something of what he thinks in and I put
It’s 35 years since Adolfo Galli and Mimmo D’Alessandro first collaborated on a show, changing Italy’s live music scene forever. James Hanley learns that Di & Gi’s founders are the epitome of ‘opposites attract’…
something of what I think in; we always listen to each other, and it is that combination that has allowed us to do what we’ve done so far.”
From that fateful first meeting emerged D’Alessandro e Galli (or Di and Gi to its friends) who would go on to bring a who’s who of inter national music to the Italian market, along with a hitherto seen level of professionalism.
“In the early days, Italy was an extremely dif ficult place to work, like the Wild West,” Sensible Events’ Andrew Zweck tells IQ. “But both Adol fo and Mimmo have played a big part in raising standards and making working there smooth, professional, and enjoyable. A show with them is always a special event.
“I started with them in the late 80s with Paul Simon. Our first big stadium tour was a double bill of Elton John and Eric Clapton in ‘92. Over the years, we’ve created a lot of successful tours for the artists I work with, such as Mark Knop fler, Roger Waters, and the Rolling Stones.”
Basing themselves away from the traditional industry melting pots of Rome and Milan, the company’s longevity has been born out of pas sion rather than profit.
“For me, this is not business; we love music,” says D’Alessandro. “I mean, imagine life with no music.”
According to Robomagic’s Rob Hallett: “They both have a genuine love for music, from jazz to country to rock,” he says. “Mimmo has even been known to rap in the karaoke bars of Forti dei Marmi!”
Hallett has known the pair for over 30 years, collaborating on productions from Herbie Han
cock and Youssou N’Dour to Backstreet Boys to Beyoncé, Justin Timberlake, and Leonard Cohen.
“We feel privileged to have had the possibility of working with artists like Roger Waters, David Gilmour, Paul McCartney, Elton John, Whitney Houston, George Michael, Tina Turner, Sade, Joe Cocker, and more,” reflects Galli. “When we
look at what we’ve done, sometimes we cannot believe it.”
The duo made names for themselves separate ly before deciding two heads were better than one. D’Alessandro started out in Naples in the early 70s, working with Italian singer Peppino di Capri (“I owe my business to Peppi”), before
Approximately 18 years ago, I had the good fortune to become James Taylor’s manager. The added bonus was meeting Adolfo and Mimmo who had been James’s promoter for years in Italy. Ever loyal, James asked me to continue working with them, and it’s been an absolute pleasure to do so. They know their market inside out, and it’s critical to have that local knowledge and influence while touring most places but particularly in Italy. More importantly, their integrity and passion for music is at the highest level. We have become family friends over the years and love spending time together. I always learn something. These guys are simply the best!
Sam Feldman | Macklam Feldman ManagementHow long have I known these guys? Forever… They are both class acts. The work we have done together has been terrific and sometimes terrifying –Pompeii! But getting through the tough ones proves the point that they are solid, detailed, and very together. Congratulations on 35 years.
Neil Warnock | UTA
Adolfo and Mimmo are two of my favourite promoters in one of my favourite countries. I always try to book my acts on a weekend in Italy, to have the excuse to visit and enjoy some fun, food, and adventure.
Andrew Zweck | Sensible Events Adolfo and Mimmo introduced Italy’s minister of culture Dario Franceschini to Dave Gilmour when he performed in 2016heading north to manage Viareggio’s storied La Bussola. He went on to run the then new 7,000cap Bussoladomani, where he supervised a live TV show every week and also dipped into man agement and record production.
A James Brown performance in 1984 remains a personal highlight, even if proceedings didn’t go entirely to plan.
“We had a contract to film the event for tele vision, but when he arrived in Viareggio he said he didn’t want any cameras and was asking for more and more money,” recounts D’Alessandro. “He says, ‘I want to talk with the Pope!’
“Eventually, I gave him $50,000 more, and then ten minutes before he went on stage, he said, ‘I don’t like the audience.’ But, finally, he went on the stage and played for three hours. It was unbe lievable – the best show I have seen in my life.”
Elsewhere, Galli took over the management of a local theatre in his hometown of Brescia and began booking jazz artists via a connection with George Wein, founder of the Newport Jazz Fes tival. Despite Di and Gi’s contrasting personali ties, legendary agent Barrie Marshall saw their potential as a pairing.
“We go way back to when Adolfo was ac tually in the army,” remembers the Marshall Arts founder. “He was booking gigs even then and would call me from phone boxes. For some months I thought his first name was Galli – as
the cry would go around the office ‘Galli is on the phone but doesn’t have much time!’ Of course, he very soon became Adolfo – and a friend. I think the earliest shows we did were José Feliciano and then Joe Cocker.
“Just a little later, I met Mimmo D’Alessan dro, another fine businessman full of charm and grace. I got to know him quite well, and I felt that the contrasting styles of these two men would create really great chemistry.
“I feel quite proud of the fact that I suggested they got together – and their collective talents have proved to be extremely successful.”
Marshall has collaborated with D’Alessandro e Galli on blockbuster concerts by the likes of Paul McCartney, Tina Turner, Whitney Hou ston, Elton John, and George Michael.
“I’ve known Barrie Marshall since I was about 25, and he is like family to me,” offers Gal li. “That is a relationship that is really strong and
goes beyond the business.
“Barrie put his [neck on the line] for us with Dire Straits in 1992. The manager did not want to hear about Italy at all, but Barrie said, ‘Look, I’ve worked with these guys in 1989 with Paul McCartney and Tina Turner in 1990. I’ve done Sade, I’ve done this, I’ve done that. You have to work with Mimmo and Adolfo.
“The negotiation with Ed Bicknell went on for two years and everything was on sale and sold out, with the exception of Italy. We ended up making the deal at the end of July 1992, with shows starting in September in Milan. We sold over 200,000 tickets in one month in August, which normally is unheard of in this country, and we are still working with Mark Knopfler 30 years later.”
D’Alessandro, who describes Marshall as “like a brother,” showed his gratitude in his own inimitable way.
“Mimmo had several horses at one time,” dis closes Marshall. “One was called Joe Cocker, and I believe one was Paco de Lucía. I then found out he named one Barrie Marshall.
“He and Adolfo sent me a commentary, ob viously in very fast Italian, which sounded so weird as every few seconds in English I could hear ‘Barrie Marshall.’ Apparently, I rode to vic tory with Frankie Dettori on my back.”
Thinking outside of the box is a key ingredi
ent in the Di and Gi special sauce, as character ised by its unorthodox choice of venues.
“We’ve always looked at creating events that are not customary,” says Galli. “A great rock and roll band meeting a great archaeological site is one of those things that people will remember, whereas anybody can play a sports hall. Whether you are in New York, London, or Milan, they are all the same, and our view has always been to look for different locations, which is a big challenge.
“We have promoted shows in St. Mark’s Square in Venice; the first Colosseum shows in Rome were produced by us; we’ve done shows with Leonard Cohen and George Michael in the square in the centre of Florence, and James Tay lor at the Piazza del Popolo in Rome.”
Most challenging of all was David Gilmour’s 2016 concert at the Amphitheatre of Pompeii, where the guitarist had performed as part of Pink Floyd 45 years earlier.
“I spent one year of my life on this show,” notes
D’Alessandro. “Every day was a meeting, and it was so tough. It was very, very complicated.”
“It was a big achievement because we could only work during the day,” adds Galli. “Special ists had to show us the way to load in our mate rial because you couldn’t put a certain weight on the site. And when we started the production, we were inside the venue every day for more than one month, trying to put it together for 3,000 people. David Gilmour was the first artist to per form in that venue after Pink Floyd – the Live at Pompeii DVD came from that show.”
Di and Gi would later stage gigs by Elton John, James Taylor, and King Crimson at Pom peii, while an annual staple of the firm is the Lucca Summer Festival, which launched in Tus cany in 1998. The 40,000-cap extravaganza has hosted heavyweights such as the Rolling Stones, David Bowie, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Tom Jones, Van Morrison, the Eagles, Stevie Wonder, Ennio Morricone, and Michael Bublé.
Always a pleasure working with them. Ignoring the fanatical passion for Napoli Football Club, the most vivid memory will always be when Neil Warnock and I had to change the deal with them for David Gilmour Live at Pompeii on the day of the first show. Mimmo was almost speechless. A first. After the answer to their follow-up question, Adolfo was also speechless. The shows will remain one of those forever special moments. Many thanks to D’Alessandro and Galli.
Paul Loasby | One Fifteen
Adolfo and Mimmo are true gentlemen. If you’re lucky enough to spend time with them in Italy, you’ll encounter their amazing hospitality. They are extremely professional promoters who you can always rely on to make sure the artist has a great experience. Many congratulations on 35 years in the business.
Tony Goldring | WME
I would like to publicly accuse Adolfo Galli and Mimmo of trying to kill me with boxes of pasta, which have been arriving for years. I’m hoping that other agents will be suffering the same fate. The problem is twofold: 1) the pasta is great, and 2) so are Adolfo and Mimmo. They are the best Italian promoters ever.
Carl Leighton-Pope | Leighton-Pope Organisation
Whitney Houston provided a coup for the promoters back in 1993 Leonard Cohen sprinkled suave sophistication over his Italian admirers, with the assistance of Di and Gi“I feel quite proud of the fact that I suggested they got together – and their collective talents have proved to be extremely successful”
Barrie Marshall | Marshall Arts
Its most recent edition, held in the Mura Storiche area next to the Lucca City Wall in June/July, welcomed Justin Bieber, Liam Gal lagher, and John Legend, among others.
“It’s like my baby,” gushes D’Alessandro. “A politician friend of mine said, ‘Lucca is such a beautiful place. I had never been to Lucca before and when I saw it, I was shocked. It’s an incredi ble experience.’”
“Lucca is a medieval world within a world,”
offers Galli.
“It is magic,” enthuses D’Alessandro. “You need to come!”
Di and Gi also debuted another unique prop osition, the 10,000-cap Tuscany festival La Prima Estate in 2022. Situated just 50m from the sea in Lido di Camaiore, Versilia, headline acts includ ed The National, Duran Duran, Bonobo, Court ney Barnett, Jungle, and Mura Masa.
“We have never looked at what other compa
nies do to promote their events,” stresses Galli. “We have seen others follow the same path as us, so maybe we did influence some people, but we have never looked in anybody else’s houses, as we say in this country.“
Although CTS Eventim took a 60% stake in the firm in 2018, consolidating its “leading po sition in the Italian live entertainment market,” D’Alessandro and Galli have continued to man age the company on a day-to-day basis.
“We were approached by CTS because they were expanding in our country,” says Galli. “Our company already had a contract with them for ticketing and they gave us this opportunity.
“Now, unluckily, this happened in 2019, and we ended up in between the two years with Covid, so a lot of the things that we were starting to de velop or discussing with them had to be stopped. Now, we have started again, and we are looking at some ideas that we can mutually develop togeth er, but mainly it was done by us in order to be able to develop some new strategies for the future.
“The world is changing, and we need to be
We want to join in the best wishes for these 35 years of Di & Gi successes. We have been working with them for over 30 years, and every time we have the opportunity to collaborate, the mix of professionalism and management skills combined with a passion for events creates unique shows. Bob Dylan to Beyoncé, Paul McCartney and Whitney Houston, the Backstreet Boys, maestro Ennio Morricone, Justin Timberlake, Mark Knopfler, Take That, Rod Stewart, Elton John, Prince, Justin Bieber, and Mariah Carey are just some of the soldout shows that have thrilled the spectators of our venues.
We are sure that together, we will still write other pages in the history of Italian and international live entertainment. Giancarlo Sarli | Mediolanum Forum / Palazzo dello Sport
Mimmo and Adolfo are extremely special to me – and everyone at Marshall Arts. We have worked together for decades and on just about all the artists we have had the privilege to represent, including Paul McCartney, Tina, Whitney, Elton, George Michael, Al Jarreau, Herbie Hancock, and many others. Myself and Craig [Stanley] were jointly involved with them, representing Andrea Bocelli at the time of his first huge success with Time To Say Goodbye and the Romanza album. For Jenny, Doris, and myself, and the rest of the Marshall Arts team, it is always a pleasure to be in their company. We’ve shared some amazing moments and a lot of laughter. Barrie Marshall | Marshall Arts
With Paul McCartney and Barrie Marshall Miles Davis was one of Di and Gi’s first artists back in 1987
“In the early days, Italy was an extremely difficult place to work, like the Wild West”
Andrew Zweck | Sensible Events
part of a major company because it’s more and more difficult for an individual independent company to work nowadays. But even though we are partnered with CTS Eventim, we still tend to work with the same people and the same spirit of a family-run business.”
Italy became the epicentre of Covid-19 in the devastating first few weeks of the pandemic, shutting down the country’s touring industry weeks before its European counterparts. For D’Alessandro, the memories are too painful to talk about even now.
“It was a really tough time,” he sighs. “I don’t want to remember it.”
“After two years, we finally started working again in April/May 2022,” interjects Galli. “Our first tour, which has been moved twice, was by Eric Clapton. So, in May, we were ready with our Eric Clapton shows in Milan and Bologna.
“Three days before the first date, we got a phone call saying Eric Clapton’s got Covid, and we had to move the dates to October. We are all looking forward to seeing him because we have three sold-out shows, and we know the audience is ready to see him after so long, but it was an unfortunate situation that after two years of be ing closed down because of Covid, right at the start of the season, we have to cancel for Covid. It’s unbelievable! There’s nothing more we can say. I think people have already said too much
Italian fans of Jennifer Lopez have Mimmo and Adolfo to thank
Anderson .Paak was on hand to help Di & Gi’s inaugural La Prima Estate festival get off to a successful start in Tuscany earlier this year
1998 also saw the duo promote Janet Jackson’s visit to Milan
about Covid.”
On a more positive note, Galli reports the Italian public’s appetite for concerts has not waned in the interim.
“People are buying tickets,” he says. “Lucca Summer Festival this year, which was the first one we’ve managed to do since Covid, did incredibly well. We sold almost 140,000 tickets and most of the shows were sold out. We have sold a lot of tick ets for all of our shows this year, including Clap ton in October, our Elton John and Rolling Stones shows at San Siro Stadium in Milan in June.”
While still intensely passionate about their work, the pair admit to frustrations over aspects
of the modern industry.
“It would be impossible for me if I started out today,” declares D’Alessandro. “When I started in this business, it was the best in the world, and I loved it. Every morning when I woke up, I would think, ‘Oh my god, I’m a very lucky man.’ Now it’s changed completely. You used to be able to speak directly with artists, now you speak with lawyers.”
“There was more possibility for music lovers like us to discuss ideas with the artists,” agrees Galli. “We have found that when you speak with an artist and explain the idea, there is the mon ey side but there is also an artistic side. But the
music business is unfortunately more about the numbers now. This doesn’t mean they couldn’t make money in those days, but they wouldn’t just look at the money.”
Today, a new generation of D’Alessandro e Galli is waiting in the wings ready to take the company forward.
“The future for Di and Gi, as far as I’m con cerned, is my son Andrea and Mimmo’s son Enrico,” suggests Galli. “They are the ones that will have to keep the brand going, because music changes; it’s the circle of life. I mean, 35 years ago, you would have never expected K-pop music to work in Europe, but now you have bands com ing from Asia and breaking the market. I still have my ideas on how to promote events. I try to keep up-to-date, as does Mimmo, but when you’re younger, you’re much quicker at picking up new tendencies and influences.”
I was three years old when Adolfo and Mimmo promoted their first show. Insane to even think about that! I have had the pleasure of working with them for ten years now and partnered with them on dozens of shows, of all sizes, and each time it has always been a great experience, regardless of the result! Adolfo and Andrea are as excited by new acts as they are about the acts Di and Gi have worked with for decades. The warmth and hospitality and true collaboration of Di and Gi’s whole team knows no bounds. Enrico, Serena, Elena, Maddalena, Paulo, Ursula, Carlo, Domenico, and Matteo are all great, great people.
Simon Jones | AEG Presents
“We couldn’t have better teachers,” says Enrico. “What’s so good about them is that they always go for the unconventional choice, and most of the time it’s brilliant, so we try to follow that example.”
“It’s been a good ride so far, and we hope to be here for a few more years,” concludes Galli. “We look forward to new artists and new experiences because we are always learning, so we want to be ready for whatever comes next.
“We are thinking positively about the future, even though nowadays, if you look at the news, it is depressing. At the end of the day, this is what we do. The music is what keeps us going, and as long as there’s good music, there will be D’Ales sandro e Galli.”
With Stevie Wonder in 1998“Make me an offer I can’t refuse”? Seriously… I always found them hard but fair. John Giddings | Solo
Welcome to IQ Magazine’s 2022 Green Guardians – our annual list (and badge of honour) that highlights those eco-warriors and innovators striving to make the live entertainment industry more sustainable.
The Green Guardians is spearhead ed by IQ and an expert panel of sustainability experts to recog nise suppliers who are improv ing the live music business when it comes to being more environmentally friendly.
Our international panel of judges this year includes representatives from A Greener Festival, Green Events & Innovations Con ference, Greener Events, Green Operations Europe (Go-Group), Julie's Bicycle, Le Réseau des Femmes en Environnement, Sustainable Event Alliance, Sustainable Event Solutions,
Tour Production Group, and Vision:2025.
The 2022 list of Green Guardians includes 20 entries across a wide range of event sup pliers and solutions providers, all of whom are working tirelessly to reduce the carbon footprint of the live entertainment business.
One of the goals of the Green Guardi ans initiative is to point decision makers toward suppliers who can help them to im prove their environmental credentials. We hope the products and services profiled on the coming pages will make a meaningful contribution to cleaner concerts and produc tions around the world in the years ahead.
Big Green Coach is the UK’s largest events travel compa ny, operating coach services to music festivals, gigs, and sporting events.
With audience travel accounting for almost 80% of carbon emissions of live events, it’s never been more important to think about travel choices. Coach travel is already the green est option for event goers, taking cars off the road and using less land for parking.
Going further in their green efforts, Big Green Coach’s work with Cool Earth means they have now sponsored close to 2 million square foot of Amazon rainforest for ten years.
In 2022, all of their coach services were carbon neutral. Emissions for every return trip were worked out and then offset by investing in sustainability projects with Ecolibrium. Biggreencoach.co.uk
Bluewater is a Swedish beverage company dedicated to bringing fresh, healthy water to people who believe that the best water is purified wa ter produced at the point of consumption, either at home or publicly vended at an event or venue – not bottled in plastic and transported from faraway places.
Back in 2013, founder and CEO Bengt Rittri, a Swedish environment entrepreneur sickened by plastic waste ending up in landfill and the oceans, decided to put a little human ingenuity to work – combining pat ented SuperiorOsmosis™ technology and the will to change the way the world views water.
Today, Bluewater purifiers make water safer to drink – without the chemical, plastic, and other toxic contaminants found in tap water or float ing around in single-use plastic water bottles. Bluewater purifiers, unique hydration stations, and sustainable bottles allow people to enjoy fresh, healthy water – at home, work, and on the go across Europe, the Middle East, China, Southeast Asia, the United States, and South Africa.
Bluewater also hydrates tens of thousands of fans at world-leading sport ing, music, and other events, including the British Open, the Women’s Open, Cape Town Marathon, and many more. Bluewater has been hon oured with a Fast Company World Changing Ideas award.
Bluewatergroup.com
Sustainability is woven into the fabric of the Christie Lites business. The company is committed to using green energy throughout its global locations, which includes premises across the United States and Canada, as well as the United Kingdom and Germany.
Safeguarding Christie Lites’ mission to develop every part of its business through the lens of sustainability, its new Nash ville premises has been constructed with Carbon Cure Con crete – a material that captures approximately 23 pounds of carbon dioxide per cubic yard of concrete. This is achieved by converting CO2 in calcium carbonate, a mineral that is an effective carbon dioxide vault that will not release the gas at any point in the future.
This move augments Christie Lites existing sustainability strategies that it has been putting in place across its interna tional operations, to ensure the company’s impact on the en vironment is actively reduced wherever possible. Christielites.com
Cube Modular’s unique foldable portable buildings were introduced to the live music industry in 2021, as a means to provide festivals and outdoor concert venues with a complete portable building infrastruc ture whilst minimising the carbon footprint associated with transport.
Folded flat and stacked for transport and erected on site in just a few minutes, these innovative Continest units provide robust and flexible tem porary infrastructure for any venue, reducing CO2 and GHG emissions as sociated with transport by up to 80%, compared to using traditional fixed, framed cabins. Collapsing and stacking the units means that a single truck can transport five times as many buildings, allowing Cube to supply a com plete range of production and accreditation offices, box offices, security cabins, and retail and merchandising units on two or three trucks.
2022 has seen a rapid increase in demand, with Cube supplying over 50 events, including major festivals Boardmasters, Glastonbury, and British Summer Time, plus individual concerts such as Michael Bublé and Robbie Williams. At Boardmasters, 128 units were installed ranging from site of fices to accreditation, security huts and crew accommodation. A total of 43 trucks were taken off the road as a result of using Cube's foldable Continest units, reducing congestion time on the Cornish country roads and leading to huge CO2 transport savings of 11,452kg. Cubemodular.co.uk
This year marks the 30th anniversary of KB Event's incep tion. The company was initially established to provide the event industry with transport and logistics solutions unlike any other on the market, and it is now recognised as one of the leaders in its field, boasting an impressive and loyal client base, and an extensive list of blue-chip and high-profile events.
In direct response to the challenges presented by Brexit, KB Event now operates an EU operation from Ireland. Environmental sustainability is at the heart of how KB Event thinks, how it operates, and how it delivers. The compa ny is continuously striving to identify and deliver the chang es required to achieve a brighter future for our planet, and every day its operational team works with the events industry to deliver practical solutions that boost efficiency and reduce impact on the environment.
Working collaboratively with clients, KB Event brings ex pertise from different specialisms to combat the challenges they face together. The introduction of Hydrotreated Vegeta ble Oil (HVO) into the fleet and working with the expertise at Peak Oils to supply 100% renewable diesel that is palm oil free, is a clear example of the company’s collaborative working ethos. In fact, the HVO that KB Event uses eliminates up to 90% of net CO2 and significantly reduces nitrogen oxide, par ticulate matter, and carbon monoxide (CO) emissions.
Many of the company’s clients are so conscious of the im pact of fossil fuels on the environment that KB Event is deliv ering more and more events with HVO as the primary fuel.
Examples include: Google Mobile World Congress in Barcelo na, World Economic Forum Davos, COP 26 Glasgow, Cannes Lions, and tours for Bring Me the Horizon and Enter Shikari. Kbevent.com
The sustainability strategy of d&b is informed by two ma jor forces: climate neutrality legislation and the 17 sus tainable development goals set by the UN. The compa ny recognises the negative repercussions the entertainment world can have on the environment and places a greater focus on topics such as reduced power consumption in new prod ucts (such as its XSL Series); noise management through its NoizCalc and ArrayCalc software; and monitoring sustain able production methodologies. Through these initiatives, d&b has achieved EMAS certification, as well as participation in the WIN-Charta programme to ensure the sustainable practices maintain momentum.
In 2020, d&b launched its Certified Pre-Owned (CPO) pro gramme to help reduce the environmental impact of touring and fixed installations. In order to prevent equipment ending up in a landfill, they decided to enter the circular economy. This remanufacturing programme allows customers to reap the benefits of a rider-friendly sound reinforcement system whilst contributing to the reduction of greenhouse gas emis sion and consumption of raw materials.
Dbaudio.com
Every Can Counts is a not-for-profit communications pro gramme working to inspire, encourage, and empower peo ple to recycle their empty drink cans. The initiative’s vision is for a 100% recycling rate for drink cans, and it works towards this by raising awareness about the benefits of recycling cans, and by making it easier for people to recycle when they’re out and about. Festivals and events are a big part of the programme’s focus, and this summer, Every Can Counts had a presence at 16 major events around the UK.
Every Can Counts delivers engaging activations in the event space that make recycling fun while also educating people and encouraging long-term behaviour change. The initiative also runs a recycling rewards exchange at a number of festivals, where attendees bring their empty cans to the Every Can Counts Recy cling Hub and exchange them for rewards ranging from tempo rary tattoos to festival t-shirts and even festival keyrings made from recycled cans.
The programme has also become well-known for its impres sive array of interactive installations, from voting bins to can cages. This year, highlights included collecting cans in the iconic Boomtown can-cage letters and creating a six-metre wall of art from recycled cans at Download Festival.
Everycancounts.co.uk
Since 2015, the charity ecolibrium has been leading the live event in dustry’s approach to tackling carbon emissions from travel. Founded by event organisers and guided by a board of trustees who lead on sustainability strategy across the touring, music, and live events industry and beyond, ecolibrium provides tools, advice, and resources to support their community of events, artists, suppliers, and companies to take action on travel emissions.
Since embarking on their mission, they have helped their members and event audiences to invest over £225k (€260k) in climate solutions projects: carbon balancing the equivalent of over 19.3m car miles. They have two climate programmes: Trees+, which supports planting and ecosystem res toration and preservation projects benefiting communities and protecting biodiversity in areas already experiencing the effects of climate change; and Energy Revolution, which invests in community-owned energy coop eratives, giving the power of clean electricity generation back to local peo ple to build healthier, financially stable communities.
In April 2022, ecolibrium published the Sustainable Travel Guide for Art ists and the Music Industry providing up-to-date information, best-practice tips, and inspiration to empower the live music industry to understand and take action on travel impacts.
Music and audio products manufacturer, Focusrite Group, has an am bition to become industry leaders in environmental sustainability and reveals a three-pronged approach to this goal:
Getting its own house in order is essential as Focusrite has the most con trol over this. The Group says it is making good progress by purchasing renewable energy everywhere it’s available, and this year it is using verified carbon offsets to achieve carbon neutrality against Scope 1 and 2 GHG emissions.
Hardware products are Focusrite’s biggest environmental footprint, so it is conducting detailed lifecycle assessments across its portfolio to understand the environmental hotspots across a range of metrics beyond just CO2. By embedding sustainability within product development, it is making changes to reduce impact. The first step was to use recycled aluminium on its Scarlett range, while more recently it started using recycled ABS plastic in the new Vocaster range.
Focusrite’s footprint only extends so far, but if it can influence the whole industry it could achieve much more. The group is being transparent about progress and methodology, and it has become a founding member of Green ingmusic.tech – a new working group on environmental sustainability that it is encouraging other music tech companies to join. Focusrite.com
Over the past five years, consultancy group Native Events has been working really hard to help the events and cultural sectors in Ireland transition towards a more sustainable and circular future.
Native Events was born of a frustration with the needless waste and impact that gigs and events were having in Ireland and the lack of progress being made within the creative in dustries there. They started with solar arrays and batteries to power stages and activations and a suite of upcycled furniture and decor, using salvaged materials from exhibitions.
The team has been pushing the conversation in Ireland to wards environmental and social responsibility and has part nered with Julie’s Bicycle to establish Julie’s Bicycle Europe. Together they have launched an innovative carbon calculator – specifically designed for the arts – in Ireland, so that cre atives can measure, account for, and reduce their environ mental impacts. Using this tool with their clients throughout 2022, they have been moving towards reporting and bench marking for the sector.
Coming back to live events following the pandemic has been challenging, but the team at Native Events has stayed
committed to their vision. Their work with Body&Soul Fes tival this year saw the introduction of a biodigester, which broke down food waste and compostables onsite; a switch from diesel to 100% HVO-powered generators; and the use of natural, waterless toilets site-wide, saving on chemical use and transport.
Also in 2022, they have been working on a hugely ambi tious carbon neutrality project with Dublin PRIDE LGBTQ+ Festival.
Further exciting projects this year include energy monitor ing for the Heineken Greener Bar at Electric Picnic, aimed at reducing energy consumption, and the creation of a festival campsite based on circular economy principles; a partnership with the Waste Management Regional Offices – an indus try-wide consultation on the elimination of single-use plastics at Irish events; and the co-creation and publication of guidelines for sustainable festivals with Failte, Ireland’s Tourism Board.
Native Event’s aim for 2023 is to continue their work with Ireland’s live events industry, whilst expanding their consultan cy work to help organisations understand their environmental impact and develop a strategy for how they can get where they need to be. Creating sustainable events and cultural activities is no longer a choice – it is action – and Native Events are proud to be at the forefront of action in Ireland’s creative sector. Nativeevents.ie
GEM-Stage was launched in Europe in 2019 in collabora tion with EU/Interreg NWE, just three months prior to the pandemic. The mission: demonstrate sustainable en ergy usage at event sites.
Since 2020, GEM has visited several European festivals where it has provided wind, solar, light, and hydrogen/hy drozine. And with an added professional stage (6 x 8 meters), GEM has become a fully operating, colourful and eye-catch ing entity that is an attractive addition to any event.
The stage includes a 90kWh battery storage and can pro vide energy for a live show of up to eight hours.
Among the events that have hosted GEM-Stage are Pohoda (Slovakia), Rock for People (Czech Republic), Boomtown (Bel gium), Eurosonic Noorderslag (The Netherlands), and Ves trock (The Netherlands).
In 2023, GEM-Stage is planning to spread its wings and visit more places and meet more people, in order to spread its message and demonstrate the benefits of sustainable energy. Gem-tower.com
Green Producers Club provides a research-based climate tool, Green Producers Tool, tailored to multiple industries within the creative and culture sectors, that both measures emissions and facilitates reduction.
All producers and purchasers of events, concerts, festivals, film & televi sion, and soon theatres, can now measure emissions from transport, ener gy consumption, food & beverage, recycling & waste, accommodation, ma chinery & construction, art department, venue management, equipment for both stage and film, as well as miscellaneous purchases.
The tool is developed by producers for producers, and is thus intuitive and relevant. It calculates emissions from activities immediately, which is helpful when planning future activities.
The emission factors in the tool are calculated by the acclaimed Cicero and based on international databases and cutting-edge research into lifecy cle emissions as well as direct emissions.
Green Producers Club will continuously develop the tool according to new technology and research. The Club facilitates seminars and work shops, and gives decision makers reliable analysis on where to implement measures that have an effect.
Instagrid specialise in high-power portable battery sys tems that enable reliable and efficient access to clean and affordable electricity for anyone, anywhere, and anytime.
Specifically, instagrid has developed an advanced portable power battery as a power supply for professional applications, to replace highly polluting fossil generators. The reduction of size and weight is achieved by proprietary power converter technology with a modular design. This gives users the abil ity to achieve unprecedented power levels, making instagrid products among the most advanced portable battery systems in the world.
Instagrid’s innovative technology helps professionals in areas such as construction, events, film/TV, and public sectors to work with more comfort, achieving greater productivity and efficiency. For the events sector, the compact and light weight battery brings convenience by providing flexibility and independence from site generators. The power system is easy to move around a festival or venue, wherever electricity might be needed.
In the UK, the ONE Max product powered everything from site cabins to pressure washers, welders and mobile PA systems during the build, show, and break at festivals includ ing Shambala and Secret Garden Party.
My Cause UK offers people the chance to volunteer at the UK’s biggest festivals whilst making an impact for a cause they care about. The concept is simple – volunteers give their time at a festival, and in return My Cause makes a donation to a charity of their choice.
Volunteering, says the organisation, “is a gateway to making unfor gettable friends while getting free entry to the UK’s leading festivals!” Volunteering with My Cause UK allows participants to “become part of a community that is exciting, adventurous, and passionate about making a change in the world we live in.”
In its first six years of operation, My Cause UK has donated close to £180,000 (€208,000) to more than 700 charities in the UK, thanks to the efforts of a steadily growing army of festival volunteers. Mycauseuk.com
Leading the green music movement since 2004, REVERB partners with artists, festivals, venues and more to reduce their environ mental footprint while empowering millions of fans to take ac tion on today’s most pressing environmental issues.
Working with artist partners like Billie Eilish, Maroon 5, Pink, Harry Styles, Dave Matthews Band, Jack Johnson, and many others, REVERB has greened over 350 tours and 6,000 concert events. With a focus on creating measurable impact, REVERB has eliminated 280,000+ tons of CO2e, prevented the use of over 4 million single-use plastic bottles at concerts, supported 4,800+ environmental non-prof its, and more.
REVERB launched the Music Climate Revolution campaign in June of 2021 to unite the music industry in the fight against the cli mate crisis by cutting industry emissions, funding carbon-fighting projects, and demanding climate action from world leaders. Since its launch, the campaign and its partners have raised more than $3mil lion (€2.9m) to support dozens of diverse global projects that draw down, sequester, or eliminate greenhouse gases, resulting in a reduc tion of 50,000 tonnes of CO2e. Music Climate Revolution partners have also engaged millions of fans at shows and online in climate ac tion and advocacy.
Reverb.org
Smart Power specialises in delivering renewable and low-carbon pow er solutions for the international live, touring, broadcast, and screen sectors. The company provides full-service technical hires, including power advancing; onsite technical support; fuel management; comprehen sive distribution planning and installation; site lighting; energy monitor ing; and reporting.
As specialists in battery and DC solutions, Smart Power is leading the charge for a transition away from generator power towards grid-connected battery solutions. Its approach to energy management is simple – deliver the most renewable energy mix available for the job in hand. To this end, it integrates a range of strategies, including biofuel generators, kinetic (peo ple-powered) solutions, solar, and mobile battery solutions.
The company’s suite of energy and power monitoring tools ensures that clients have the data they require for their scope 1 and 2 emissions reporting, whilst also enabling Smart Power to optimise power manage ment systems to ensure ongoing reductions in fuel consumption, GHG, and tailpipe emissions.
2022 has been an exceptional year for Smart Power with its client roster including Coldplay’s Music of the Spheres World Tour, the Queen’s Plat inum Jubilee Celebrations, the BBC Earthshot Awards, the Great Escape Festival, and the Great North Run. Smart-power-uk.org
Sunbelt – one of the UK's largest rental equipment pro viders – are big on all the things that matter, from equip ment and service to sustainability and trust.
Whatever the sector, project, or challenge, Sunbelt Rentals have the solution, offering the expertise, the equipment, and the team to make it happen.
The company boasts a nationwide portfolio of plant prod ucts, specialising in site storage and welfare facilities, plus a comprehensive range of tools available for buy or hire.
Alongside day-to-day equipment supplies, they can also provide a full range of market-leading, environmentally friendly temporary infrastructure solutions to help bring events to life.
Whether clients need complete event management or have a very specific requirement, Sunbelt can help. From planning, plant, and power, to access, safety, and welfare.
At TAIT, staff are committed to championing a sustainable future for the entertainment industry.
In 2022, the company rolled out a global training programme for all TAIT employees in Europe and North America. The initiative includes seminars and practical workshops introducing the concepts of working to ward the linear economy; waste and energy hierarchies; embedded carbon; lifecycle analysis; material choices; and whole systems thinking.
From 1 January 2022, all travel for employees based in North America and the UK was booked and managed through one travel company. This initiative gives TAIT clear visibility of its travel emissions from a project and internal perspective. It says that it is continuing to collate emissions data on Scope 1 & 2 and will include travel in its Scope 3 data collection in 2022. This data will be used to create the company’s carbon reduction policy.
TAIT’s new UK premises at Haverhill, due to open later this year, will incorporate solar panels above the office space and a rainwater harvesting system for the building. EV charging points have been installed with the infrastructure to increase capacity as more people make the switch to us ing electric cars.
As existing energy contracts expire, TAIT intends to replace them with new green contracts, switching its gas and electricity suppliers to those who specialise in renewable sources. By 2025, all of the company’s UK locations will run on green energy.
Continually investigating new and alternative methods to make the events it supports and the day-to-day activities of the company as car bon efficient as possible, Power Logistics offers sustainable power and lighting solutions.
The team has been involved with numerous high-profile events in 2022, such as Radio 1’s Big Weekend, BST Hyde Park, Extreme E, Boom town, and the Platinum Jubilee celebratory events in London. Delivering green-power solutions was paramount at all of them.
Power Logistics’ award-winning green credentials include the use of Green D+ HVO, utilising the smallest generators possible on a load-demand system, power monitoring, LED tower lights, and site lighting as standard practice at the events it serves. Whilst implementing battery energy storage systems is common place at projects that benefit from the technology. The team is currently exploring innovative solutions, including hydrogen pow er, solar, and the incorporation of second-life batteries to optimise energy usage for event utilities reducing fuel and carbon emissions.
Devising and implementing an advanced energy management strategy, Power Logistics reduced fuel consumption at this year’s Radio 1 Big Weekend by 34% from 2019, even though its overall capacity was 25% bigger. It also reduced the number of generators onsite from 30 to 17 compared to 2019, contributing not only to fuel savings but also to a huge reduction in transport. Powerlog.co.uk
Principality Stadium in Wales was just one of two UK venues on Rammstein’s historic 2022 tour
hygiene. Yet to gaze upon any number of packed stadiums and festival fields this summer is to re alise that public concern has all but vanished; de mand for large-scale communal, euphoric, sweatsoaked music experiences is higher than ever.
This comes as no surprise to Tom McCann, venue director of Arsenal F.C.’s Emirate Stadium in the UK’s capital. “Everyone – both fans and artists – learned to appreciate live entertainment when it was taken away from us for so long,” he says. “And with so many bands having produced new music over the last two years, it’s created a perfect storm of fans wanting live concerts and artists wanting to play.”
Indeed, rather than uncertainty holding back stadia mangement, a number of venues chose the pandemic recovery period to enter the market.
t was a statement that had become inevi table but was still dreaded – 13 words that nobody in the live music industry wanted to hear. “We collectively recommend largescale events through the end of March be postponed.” The date was 12 March 2020; those words came from a joint statement issued by Live Nation, AEG, CAA, WME, Paradigm, and UTA. That same night, the last four arena shows in the US – Billie Eilish, Prince Royce, Post Malone, and Lauren Dai gle – took place; one day earlier, Maroon 5 had headlined Uruguay’s Estadio Centenario, while 7 March had seen Elton John entertain over 26,000 fans at Australia’s Western Sydney Stadium. Such shows were no more, though – and no one knew when they’d be back.
As Covid-19 rampaged across the planet, ax ing public events and social gatherings became the first step toward lockdowns, with sporting events, cinema, theatre, and music the first to shut down. Safety, and fear of the virus, were the primary considerations; as the joint statement continued, ensuring that “precautionary efforts and ongoing protocol are in the best interest of artists, fans, staff, and the global community” were of paramount importance. Some smaller shows and events continued, particularly in ter ritories that enacted less stringent restrictions, but in the main, stadiums remained shuttered. And despite the arrival of the vaccine in early 2021, successive infection waves and the number of Covid-19 variants ensured that it wasn’t until the second quarter of this year that full-capacity stadium shows became viable once again.
In the midst of lockdowns, some wondered what profound behavioural and societal changes the virus might leave. Handshakes would be out, mask-wearing in; and as for large social gather ings, a whole new range of protocols and norms would be adopted to defend personal space and
Barely four miles (6km) north of Arsenal, ri vals Tottenham Hotspur dipped their toes into the concert market this year, hosting back-toback shows by both Guns N’Roses and Lady Gaga with just under 200,000 fans in attendance across the four nights.
Across the city, arguably the world’s most fa mous stadium, Wembley, was the setting for as many concerts – 16 – as games this year, selling more than 1.3 million tickets in the process. However, next year it will shatter that record with agreements to host 26 concerts.
In the UK in general, the total number of stadium and festival shows will exceed 2,000, double-digit growth from pre-pandemic levels, according to the Financial Times. And it’s not just here or in Europe: Argentina’s River Plate Stadi um will host Coldplay for ten nights in Novem ber (they’re also doing five nights in São Paulo, Brazil), while the likes of Ed Sheeran and Billy Joel have had to add extra dates to the Australian and New Zealand legs of their respective tours.
Of course, this is not just due to pent-up de mand and consumer confidence. As Alex Luff, venue sales manager at Principality Stadium in Wales, says, many of the postponed shows from 2020 and 2021 have simply been rescheduled. “We’ve had to work harder as a team and work more collaboratively with our partners and pro moters to satisfy such a crowded calendar,” he says. Rammstein’s Stadium Tour is one such ex ample; originally planned for 14 June 2020, they finally played in June this year, wowing nearly 40,000 fans with “audacious theatrics, extrava gant pyrotechnics, and world-class production.”
In total, the Principality Stadium has wel comed over 350,000 music fans this summer, in cluding 110,00 across two nights for Stereophon ics’ We’ll Keep a Welcome shows – with support from Sir Tom Jones, his first time playing the stadium – and 75,000 back in May for Ed Sheer an, the biggest capacity crowd to have ever taken place in Wales. “It was a bumper summer,” says Luff, “and an incredible opportunity to present the stadium to new audiences.”
Keen to make up for two years of inactivity and to meet public – and artist – demand for huge concerts, the 2022 stadium show schedule was packed like never before. Derek Robertson talks to stadium operators about recovering from the pandemic, dealing with a congested calendar, and their plans for a bright future.
Eden Park welcomed local heroes Six60 as the first ever concert at New Zealand’s national stadium last year
Of course, the long lead time required to plan and execute such huge shows has meant a some what truncated summer season. The Emirates Stadium hosted two shows by The Killers, which was all they could fit in, while Rome’s Stadio Ol impico has managed three concerts, down from their pre-pandemic average of seven. “The spike in Covid cases around December 2021 and Jan uary 2022 stopped productions that were about to be launched,” says Andrea Santini, Stadio Ol impico and Parco del Foro Italico manager, by way of explanation. Australia’s Suncorp Stadium was due to host three, too, with Guns N’ Roses, Justin Bieber, and Foo Fighters all due in Bris bane later this year – sadly, the latter was can celled due to the untimely passing of drummer Taylor Hawkins.
Worst hit was Cape Town’s DHL Stadium, which has managed only one show – Justin Bie ber’s Justice World Tour – due to the very late lift ing of Covid restrictions in South Africa. Doing more simply wasn’t possible at such short notice. But Gina Woodburn, commercial manager of the stadium, echoes what everyone IQ speaks to says about the rest of the year and beyond – de mand and the number of booking enquiries are higher than ever. “We have a very busy calendar in the planning, with the 2022/2023 financial year set to be one of our busiest ever,” she says. “Our bowl is fully booked for next year already.”
DHL’s experience is mirrored elsewhere, with a stadium concerts sales spike suggesting confi
dence at the A-list end of the market. However, many promoters globally are expressing concern about what effect that may have for artists lower down the pecking order.
New Zealand’s Eden Park, located in central Auckland, is another newcomer to the concert game but is already making its mark. It has five concerts planned for 2022, with talks still ongo ing over extending that before the turn of the year. “We’re delighted to be building on the mo mentum of our first-ever concert, Six60, from April last year, and look forward to hosting more international headliners,” says Nick Sautner, CEO of The Eden Park Trust. “And our content calendar looks busier than ever.”
Part of that comes from non-music events – after all, sports are most stadiums’ primary reason for existing in the first place. But as the stadium business recovers from the pandemic, they are not only stepping up their efforts to host more concerts – other sporting and speciality events are equally as important when it comes to boosting revenues. For example, Eden Park has the Cricket World Cup, the women’s Rugby World Cup, and Māori performing arts event Te
Matatini on its calendar.
Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium is also making moves to develop its commercial potential. “We’ve just hired [former Wembley Stadium and London Stadium exec] Danielle Buckley to be our senior manager – event programming, specifically to drive this area,” says McCann.
“We have a licence to host six major non-football events per year, three of which can be concerts, so we’re keen to be doing that and maximise usage of this amazing stadium.”
Up the road at Tottenham Hotspur, chief commercial officer, Todd Kline, has no such re strictions. “We are extremely proud to have fi nally been able to stage our first concerts since opening – something we have been waiting to do for more than two years,” he says.
“To receive the acclaim that we have done from within the music industry is testament to the incredible effort made by everyone at the Club to convert the stadium to concert mode and put on a great show for everyone in attendance. We look forward to bringing fans another excit ing summer of concerts at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in 2023.”
“We strongly believe that stadiums should be considered a hub for the community: civic buildings that serve a function above and beyond the event-day experience”
Nick Sautner | The Eden Park Trust
Family entertainment is also a growth area. In Wales, the Principality Stadium welcomed WWE’s first major UK stadium event in 30 years, in September, while the Supercross World Cham pionships come to town in October. “We have a 22-year history of holding major events,” says Luff, “and our back catalogue of success demonstrates we’re a must-play, must-show, multi-event arena.”
In part, the Principality Stadium’s success is also due to its implementation of technology to combat another issue facing stadiums hosting non-sporting events – protecting the pitch. With many stadiums’ primary focus being world-class sporting venues, maintaining a pristine playing surface is paramount – but that’s not always easy when you’re hosting dirt bikes, monster trucks, or 50,000 people dancing for three hours.
“We have invested in the latest pitch technol ogy to extend our third-party event window,” ex plains Luff. “Traditionally, that window ran from May to August, but with our new state-of-the-art hybrid roll-and-play surface, we can host major events into October while still guaranteeing the optimum playing surface required for elite inter national rugby within a matter of weeks.”
There’s also the fact that the stadium’s fa mous retractable roof can transform it from a 75,000-seater outdoor venue into the UK’s larg est indoor arena, offering endless possibilities for show production.
Tottenham also have retractable capabilities, as their entire pitch can be slid out of the stadi um, allowing a quick turnaround for non-foot ball events, potentially making the stadium available for clients throughout the entire year.
It’s not just northern hemisphere stadia boss es who are shoehorning new events into their
schedules. DHL Stadium’s enviable location in Cape Town makes it very attractive for largescale events, sporting and otherwise. “We were very fortunate post-Covid to secure most of the broadcast rugby and football matches hosted in Cape Town,” explains Gina Woodburn. “Secur ing new events is an ongoing objective and one we plan well in advance.”
As examples, she cites the British and Irish Li ons tour, the URC Final, as well as the forthcom ing Rugby World Cup Sevens. “We’ve also hosted a number of non-bowl events such as the Cape Town Marathon, the Cape Town Cycle Tour, and We Are Africa, to name just a few.”
It’s a similar story at Suncorp Stadiumin Bris bane. “We’re always looking for new and excit ing content in the form of concerts and other events,” says Alan Graham, general manager. Alongside concerts, this year they will be hosting the Nitro World Games – a two-day competition of action sports from BMX to scooter to moto cross – and the NRL Magic Round. “It provides a carnival-like atmosphere over multiple days in both the precinct itself and wider South East Queensland, generating plenty of revenue for the city, state, and business community.”
While state-of-the-art new-build stadia are em ploying technology to remove of cover their hallowed turf, for traditional sports outfits, it’s a
tricky balancing act.
At the Emirates, McCann notes, “We are a football club first, so ensuring a great pitch for the team will always have priority.”
Rome’s Stadio Olimpico is similarly con strained by the 60-plus football games hosted each season, with concerts only possible during a dedicated window of June and July, while Eden Park is beholden to its Trust Deed obligations to their legacy partners, Auckland Cricket and Auckland Rugby. “But our Turf Team have years of experience delivering some of the most hal lowed grounds in New Zealand,” says Sautner.
Eden Park’s central Auckland location poses a range of challenges for non-sporting events that are commonly shared by other stadiums located in dense urban, suburban, and downtown areas. Litter, noise pollution, curfews, and local trans port all become serious issues when dealing with tens of thousands of late-night revellers.
“We take a collaborative approach,” says Sau tner, “working together with our community, Auckland Council, and promoters.” He notes that when seeking consent, they frequently receive “96% support from our neighbours”; furthermore, he says they have “the right team to find solutions that deliver the best results for all parties.”
At Suncorp Stadium, events must secure prior approval from the minister of sport and be carried out according to specific regulations concerning noise monitoring and management, strict hours
“Everyone – both fans and artists – learned to appreciate live entertainment when it was taken away from us for so long”
Tom McCann | Emirates StadiumCape Town’s DHL Stadium offers certain lucky fans the iconic backdrop of Table Mountain
ing suit as they are “pouring in – even for as far ahead as 2025,” says Sautner. Meanwhile, DHL Stadium is already fully booked for the next 16 months. The Stadio Olimpico has plans for 12 to 15 concerts next year, a significant increase on its pre-pandemic levels of six or seven per season, while Suncorp has six major events lined up –three nights for Ed Sheeran, plus Elton John, Post Malone, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. “And we will continue to work with promoters on any ad ditional opportunities that are on the horizon,” says Graham.
After all, after that 13-word bombshell, no one knew when stadium shows would be possible again, so it’s no surprise that everyone – fans, sta dium owners, promoters, labels, crew, and artists – have embraced the magic of huge live shows like never before; you never know what you have until it’s gone.
of operation, and traffic management plans. “We have exceptional relationships with local authori ties, businesses, and residents,” says Graham. “It’s all about planning,” adds Woodburn at DHL Stadium. “That’s really important to max imise the capacity of bowl events in any given year. This, together with maximising the broad cast and attendance at each event, is core to the success of any stadium.”
Capitalising on the growth of live music and seizing opportunities are crucial to future profitability and something they are all actively working on.
Capitalising on the growth of live music and seizing opportunities is crucial to future profit ability and investment in facilities has become integral to stadia business plans.
DHL Stadium has refurbished and increased its hospitality areas – they now have a total of 2,100 places in the shared hospitality Business Lounge and an additional 5,000 seats in private suites (total capacity is now 60,000). The Stadio Olimpico is investing in production – “We want to supply services and infrastructure that cut production times,” says Santini – as well as offer ing higher added-value services to spectators and even taking back direct control of specific activi ties such as corporate hospitality.
The Principality Stadium is targetting tech and the role it can play when it comes to the fan experience. “In 2021, we upgraded our in-stadia technology and installed two giant HD Samsung screens supported by a new state-of-the-art broad cast and digital media studio by Ross Live,” says Luff. “But we’re also thinking about how to uti lise technology to build on the stadium’s services and retail environments to enhance the fan ex perience. As a venue, we must listen to fans and evolve with changing tastes and trends.”
That’s of concern to Suncorp’s Alan Graham,
too; delivering “interesting and engaging fan ex periences that are unique and amazing” is vital. To help do this, they lean on management part ner, ASM Global, whose portfolio includes over 350 arenas, stadiums and venues. “We utilise this network to capitalise on new trends and innova tions from all over the planet,” adds Graham.
But no one takes growth, or a stadium’s wid er role in the arts and the community it serves, as seriously as Eden Park. “We are committed to championing music, arts, and culture at all levels, and while Eden Park has been seen in the past as primarily a sporting venue, we aspire to change this perspective,” states Sautner. “We strongly be lieve that stadiums should be considered a hub for the community: civic buildings that serve a function above and beyond the event-day expe rience. They should operate as facilities that local residents can use and engage with all year round, instead of just being an underused asset that’s locked up after each event.”
Such a philosophy sees the team consider the stadium something more akin to a Town Hall; as if to prove this point, Sautner notes it has hosted school assemblies alongside sold-out gigs.
Having emerged from one of the darkest periods for live events in living memory, the outlook for the biggest venues on the planet appears very healthy for the rest of this year and beyond.
“That feeling when you finally get five min utes to surface and see the artist(s) performing live to a crowd, who are captivated by the music and production, will never get old,” says Danielle Buckley, who transferred to Arsenal F.C. on 16 September. “I am inspired by the vision here at Arsenal: we have already announced three con certs with Arctic Monkeys for 2023 and continue to receive vast enquires for sports, music and en tertainment events.”
Enquiries at Eden Park seem to be follow
“As we emerge from the pandemic and two years of isolation from families and friends, we strongly believe – and this year has shown us –that there’s such an appetite for live music,” says Luff. “Fans want to see major artists play stadium shows with that communal, once-in-a-lifetime ‘I was there!’ moment, with thousands united by a love of music. It’s important we don’t ever take that for granted.”
Having been shut down by the coronavirus for longer than many of its European neighbours, Italy’s live music professionals have been more eager than most to resume business. Adam Woods reports on their mixed fortunes.
In a market known for passion ate and frequently litigious extremes of competition, the breadth of the coalition that met the press at Milan’s San Siro stadium last September was striking.
Under the banner of promot ers’ body Assomusica, the heads of Friends and Partners (F&P), Vivo Concerti, Live Nation Italia, Verti go, D’Alessandro e Galli (Di & Gi), BPM, DNA, and others sat shoul der-to-shoulder to insist on a full live restart at full capacity.
“We have lost 99% of revenue,”
said Live Nation’s Roberto De Luca. “Only with 100% capacity can we start again.”
They didn’t get their wish until April this year, and a rollercoaster year has been the consequence –stuffed with shows, not all of them successful, but bringing relief, to the top end of the market in particular.
“We saw huge growth in 2022, both for international artist and lo cal artists,” De Luca tells IQ, almost exactly a year on from the San Siro showdown. “Talking only about big events in the summer period, we produced 22 stadiums, with 1.24m
tickets sold; two big open-air shows, with 105,000 tickets sold; and two festivals – Firenze Rocks and I-Days. We sold 309,000 tickets for those.”
The biggest shows, of course, give an impression of health that doesn’t necessarily carry right through the market.
“The trouble with this summer is there were too many offers,” says Vittorio Dellacasa of Milan-based staging and production specialist Delamaison Productions. “In a normal season, a venue might have ten shows a month, and now they have 29 on a monthly basis. The big
events work very well – like, capacity of 20,000 upwards. But the medium to small events, it’s tough for them.”
Italy was hit particularly hard and exceptionally early by Covid. In the live business, the resulting restrictions meant two long zombie years, and as with most other mar kets, the ramifications of those and other disasters are taking time to unravel.
“After two years of pandemic and the Ukrainian crisis, we are all living a very difficult period,” says Vertigo CEO Andrea Pieroni. “I’m pretty sure it will take another two or three years before we come back to the pre-pandemic level. It won’t be an easy challenge, in my opinion, but I’m here, and I’m ready to rock.”
Pieroni says he didn’t draw his inspiration from his home market for his recent novel, È solo rock‘n’roll (It’s only rock’n’roll), set in the in ternational live music business. But
With magnificent Roman buildings such as Verona Arena – which celebrates its 2,000th anniversary in 2030 – Italy has some of the most spectacular venues on the planet © Claconvr/Wikimedia Commons
anyone who wanted to create a soap opera around a real-life live music industry could do worse than bas ing it in Italy, where passions run high and lawsuits rain down with remarkable regularity.
Last year, CTS Eventim’s Tick etOne was fined almost €11m by the country’s competition author ity Autorità Garante della Concor renza e del Mercato (AGCM) over allegations of abusing a dominant position in the Italian ticketing market, though the conviction and fine were repealed in March 2022.
Over the course of the case, back in 2019, venue group and promot er Zed Entertainment’s co-founder Valeria Arzenton, who had publicly decried the practices of TicketOne and Eventim-owned promoter F&P, was threatened by the Even tim side with a defamation suit.
This year, Viagogo was dramat ically fined €23.5m for breaking Italy’s rules on secondary ticketing. And in February 2019, De Luca and other Live Nation and Viagogo ex ecutives, as well as Di & Gi’s Mim mo D’Alessandro, were cleared of wrongdoing by a court in Milan, having been charged with profit ing from inflating ticket prices us ing the secondary market between 2011 and 2016.
All of which paints a picture of
a wild and interesting market, and one that remains proudly unique in numerous ways.
In an industry where international talent typically makes the world go round, Italy remains remark ably self-contained. Italian stars still rule the roost on home turf, and big touring acts can often find themselves feeling rather less fa mous and successful in Italy than they do elsewhere.
“Probably the main difference between Italy and other markets is that around 70% of the business is in domestic acts,” says Pietro Fuc cio of Rome-based independent promoter DNA Concerti. “When I speak to an international agent, he doesn’t understand why his artist, big or small, doesn’t get the same attention in Italy as he gets everywhere else – and it is because they are smaller here than they are everywhere else.”
The difference in recent years is a significant shift towards younger artists, spearheaded by performers such as stadium-filler Ultimo, Mi lan’s Rkomi, Vicenza’s Sangiovanni, glam-rockers Måneskin, Bergamo’s indie-rockers Pinguini Tattici Nucle ari, and hip-hopper Sfera Ebbasta.
As a barometer of Italian music’s
health at home, every one of the Top 20 best-selling albums of last year was by an Italian artist, and for the first time ever, the same was also true of the year’s Top 10 singles.
“In the last five, six years, Ital ian music has got big exposure,” says Eric Bagnarelli of Live Na tion-owned promoter Comcerto. “There are a lot of new acts that are getting good results, and they are a huge part of the market now.”
The 71-year-old Sanremo Mu sic Festival – the inspiration for Eurovision – retains a remarkable power to guide the musical main stream. Over the years, Sanremo has launched the careers of numer ous Italian acts, including Andrea Bocelli, Laura Pausini, Eros Ramaz zotti and Zucchero, but it has neat ly pivoted towards younger, edgier talent in recent years. Måneskin won the contest in 2021, and 2022 winner Blanco this summer sold out all 350,000 tickets of his 27-date Blu Celeste national tour in hours.
But while Italian acts may be superstars at home, it is relatively rare that they have made it big else where. Often, they have been bro kered by powerful booking agen cies who fulfil a management-style role, with little attempt at an inter national plot.
“It is still difficult,” says Attil
BPM Concerti. “There are more Italian artists that now play Europe because in the last ten or 15 years a lot of people have left Italy and gone to cities like Barcelona or Lon don. But usually Italian acts sing in Italian. It’s a barrier, you know?”
“You can do very well from tour ing just in Italy,” notes Christoph Storbeck, head of the conference programme at Linecheck, Italy’s leading music conference, “so a lot of artists don’t see it as natural or mandatory to go out into the world.”
Måneskin have made a piece of Italian history by becoming a genuine international act on the back of their Eurovision 2021 win. Will Italian stars start bursting the country’s borders in greater num bers? Vivo Concerti’s managing director and co-owner Clemente Zard, isn’t convinced.
“I think this is an exception,” he says. “They obviously sing in Eng lish, and they came out in a very, very strong way, but to say it will now happen to a lot of other Italian artists – no, it won’t happen. But definitely, Italian music can have success in other countries.”
Italy represents a particularly heat ed battleground for the interna tional corporates, with Eventim in the box seat as the majority owner of promoters Vivo Concerti, Di & Gi, Vertigo and F&P, as well as tick eting market leader TicketOne.
“The reality is that now there are only two big groups: Live Na tion on one side and Eventim on the other,” says Pieroni at Vertigo, which broadly leans towards rock, both domestic and international.
“There’s not much room for indie promoters, although sometimes even indie promoters can do some big names. But in general, if you are not part of a big corporation, things will be very hard.”
Vivo Concerti finds itself in a particularly strong position as the booking agent and promoter for many of Italy’s most successful new acts, including Ultimo, Blanco, Måneskin and others.
“We promote a lot of interna tional acts, and we are growing on that side, but we did €120m, €130m
revenues this year and 75%, 80% is from local acts,” says Zard.
“We are lucky because we are the promoter for practically all of the major new Italian artists. This summer we did 22 large-scale events, between stadiums and big arenas including Circo Massimo. And we are still growing because we are a young company - I am 32 years of age, all my employees are pretty young. We understand how things are moving because we are part of the generation that is mov ing them.”
One of Vivo Concerti’s inno vations is the incorporation of a 13-strong booking department. “That is very unusual for a promot er in Italy – Italians are not famous for being the most modern in the business.”
Vivo Concerti and F&P recently pooled their resources for the launch of a new media company, Friends & Vivo Multimedia, which aims to assist brands eager to capitalise on the power of live music. The venture defines the two companies’ reach as 3,000 shows per year and an audi
ence of 5 million, with a combined 140 Italian artists, 50 international ones, and 45 DJs represented.
Of the other Eventim siblings, Vertigo reports a fitfully strong summer, flanked by a testing spring, and a potentially barn storming autumn.
“It was a good summer with big numbers, although most of the shows were postponements from 2020, so those tickets were sold a long time ago,” says Pieroni. “Re garding shows we announced in early 2022 to happen in the sum mer, unfortunately the situation was not so good. On the other hand, we announced several arena shows to happen in the autumn, and those have sold incredibly well.”
Di & Gi, meanwhile, finds the market “in very good health right now,” according to promoter En rico D’Alessandro, who reels off big shows: the Stones at the San Siro in June; Elton John’s final Italian performance at the same stadium a couple of weeks earlier; six dates for Roger Waters next year in Milan and Bologna.
Live Nation Italia, meanwhile, has all the international strength you would expect, as well as a fast-growing ticketing contender in Ticketmaster. De Luca rates de velopment of local artists as a key priority for Live Nation over the coming years, though he notes that there are plenty of existential chal lenges in these tricky times.
“Like everywhere else, increased costs have affected our work, and this problem will not decrease in the near future,” he says. “On top of this there was, and there is, a short age of personnel, as many left their usual jobs due to the lack of shows during the pandemic. We lost a lot of professional people, and we need to train new ones, and it will take time for that.”
Of course, there are independ ents that thrive, including Trident Music, with its affiliated booking agency BPM Concerti.
“We are one of the last big in dependent groups in Italy,” says Perissinotti at BPM, which holds a roster of around 50 Italian acts such as Pinguini Tattici Nucleari, Luchè, Paky, Nayt, while also taking care of Italian gigs for international artists such as Jethro Tull, Yes, Tokio Hotel and V**gra Boys. Trident handles Jovanotti, Sfera Ebbasta, and Tiro mancino, and events including the Jova Beach Party’s recurring sum mer tour of Italian beaches.
In July, Milan-based independ ent Radar Concerti sought the comfort of a larger group when it became the latest member of the Nordic All Things Live collective.
“I was with Live Nation for ten years, and I was missing the infor mation,” says Radar Concerti’s Fab rizio Pompeo. “Now we have a lot more of that, a lot of colleagues shar ing what they know about different markets. Being part of a bigger com pany means having a different strat egy – bigger shows, maybe festivals.
“When you’re a smaller inde pendent, you try and grow some new artist, and then when things start to happen they come and say, ‘Sorry, we went to Live Nation. Thanks, you did a great job.’ But al ready, I think people are treating us differently.”
Under veteran Claudio Trotta, Italian pioneer Barley Arts also forges on, bringing Queen + Adam Lambert, Deftones, and others to It aly this summer and selling 170,000 tickets for three Bruce Springsteen dates next May and July at the Par co Urbano G. Bassani in Ferrara, Rome’s Circo Massimo, and Mon za’s Autodromo Nazionale.
“2022 has seen ups and downs,” says Barley Arts head of booking Marco Ercolani. “There was a slow spring, a hectic and way too busy summer, and a difficult fall.”
For obvious reasons, including
rising touring costs, squeezed dis posable income, market saturation, and other knock-on effects from Covid and the Russo-Ukrainian War, Ercolani and Trotta predict a difficult time to come.
“It’s going to be tough,” says Trotta. “Very tough. But for now we are having a very good year. We are back working, we are doing shows and tours that have been resched uled five, even six times, and we are doing some new shows as well, with some great successes. But some very good medium and small shows are suffering on the sales, and produc tion-wise, all of us in Europe have lost a lot of personnel.”
Festivals mean something a little different in Italy than elsewhere. Multi-stage events are rare, as is onsite camping, so the typical Ital ian festival is more akin to a con cert series, often spread across sev eral weeks, with a handful of acts and one clear headliner each day.
“We don’t have a festival with multiple stages and a 60,000-, 70,000-capacity,” says Bagnarel li. “We don’t have anything that is comparable to Glastonbury or Reading and Leeds.”
It is an issue that has dogged the market over the years. “I tried a couple of times to do multiple-stage festivals and camping, but the tick et sales remained the same,” says Pieroni. “So why spend more mon ey? We also have to consider that June and July in Italy are the hot test months. It’s not like northern Europe where you have 22 degrees during the day and people feel like they are in heaven. In Italy, they would feel like they were in hell.”
Among the most recent at tempts to challenge the paradigm was the eclectic pop and rock event Home Festival, initially in Treviso and latterly in Venice, which ap peared to signal a new dawn in Ital ian festival habits, drawing 80,000 at its peak in 2018. But its Trevi so-based promoter Home Enter tainment fell on hard times after a troubled tenth edition in 2019, and the following year the company went into liquidation.
For his part, Zard is convinced festivals are another area of the market ripe for modernisation. Having brought on board Daze Events’ Alessandro Ravizza as sen ior promoter and head of festivals development, Vivo Concerti is in volved in Florence’s two-day, mul
ti-stage electronic festival Decibel Open Air, for which Zard predicts bigger and better things – just as he does the market at large.
“It will take some time, but I’m sure we will achieve this result because it’s important for Italy to have festivals in a proper way and not only headline shows,” he says. “In the coming years, we will sure ly invest more in festivals we have at the moment, festivals we will acquire, and festivals we will start ourselves in the coming years.”
Founded in 1998, Di & Gi’s Luc ca Summer Festival is the veteran of the scene, its 2022 edition the 23rd to grace the Tuscan city – this year across 15 nights in the Piazza Napoleone and on a site beside the historic city walls.
“We registered 150,000 attendees in this edition, and we had John Leg end, Robert Plant & Alison Krauss, Zucchero, and a few other major Ital ian artists,” says D’Alessandro. “You could really feel the joy of the audi ence at being able to come back.”
Di & Gi’s latest festival venture was the six-day La Prima Estate in Lido di Camaiore in the province of Lucca, which had its first edition in June with space for around 5,000 and a range of daytime activities –
yoga on the beach, cooking classes, trekking in the hills – to further sweeten evening line-ups headlined by Duran Duran, The National, Anderson .Paak, and others.
“It’s a 360-degree experience,” says D’Alessandro. “We realise that a concert is not enough anymore for this audience, so let’s do it in a great location where they can spend the day on the beach or having a lot of different experiences. We have 1,000 km of coast, but I don’t recall an Ital ian festival right on the beach.”
Rock in Roma, which was launched by Maximiliano Bucci and Sergio Giuliani as Romarock in 2002 in tribute to Rock In Rio and Coachella, this year chalked up its 19th edition, with Massive Attack, Chemical Brothers, Rkomi, Blanco, and others playing through June and July, again in the headline show format.
Firenze Rocks, with Muse, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Green Day, and Metallica headlining across four days, leveraged Live Nation fire power in June, while I-Days did the same in Milan with Greta Van Fleet, Imagine Dragons, Rkomi, and Green Day once more.
Other Italian festivals include techno event Kappa FuturFestival
Barley Arts promoted two shows for Queen + Adam Lambert at Casalecchio di
in Turin; drum and bass festival SUNANDBASS in Sardinia; Mi Ami in Milan; and indie event Ypsi grock in Castelbuono, Sicily.
Music Innovation Hub’s Line check, meanwhile, leads the line for industry conferences, taking place in Milan in November. “It’s the main conference in general,” says Storbeck. “We are happening within the great framework of Milan Music Week, so there’s stuff happening all over the city, more or less coordinated.”
Valeria Arzenton of Zed Entertain ment, the Padova-based venue oper ator and promoter whose ten build ings include the 2,500-cap Gran Teatro Geox, the 3,916-seat Kioene Arena, and 32,420-cap Stadio Euga neo in Padova and further venues in Brescia, Mantova, and Conegliano, found herself in the role of whis tle-blower in 2019 when she gave anonymous testimony to an Italian TV show about abuse of a dominant position on the part of TicketOne.
The ensuing scandal was noisy and painful, but from Arzenton’s perspective it was ultimately worth while, as the AGCM imposed on the market leader the obligation to open up to competing ticketing operators.
“In October, the final vote of the administrative justice will decide definitively the status of the trial,” she says. “In any case, from the first AGCM verdict, the market is irrevo cably opened to other ticketing com panies. In any case: goal achieved.”
Zed’s venues are carefully rising again after two full years of Covid, and Arzenton’s other projects in clude a musical based on the music
of late Italian star Raffaella Carrà, which will debut in Spain in autumn 2023, but what Arzenton sees in Italy is an increasingly globalised market.
“More than in the past, the na tional market is full of internation al artists,” she says. “Also, promot ers are more daring than ever with new venues, with festivals, with more dates. Festivals are becoming more familiar and more appreciat
ed by the audience. Italy is finally a global destination.”
Evidently, other venue operators think so. Last year, Eventim an nounced plans to build a new mul tipurpose arena in Milan. Sched uled for completion in 2025, the 16,000-capacity MSG (Milano Santa Giulia) arena will be one of the larg est in Italy and will also include an outdoor area of more than 10,000 square metres for open-air events.
The venue will compete with Oak View Group and Live Nation’s promised Santa Giulia Arena –which will, like the MSG, be used in the 2026 Winter Olympics – as well as the 12,700-seat Mediolanum Fo rum in Assago, near Milan, which has served the city since 1990 and is one of two Italian members of the European Arena Association (EAA).
Last year, ASM Global entered the Italian market for the first time when it secured the contract to op erate the new 6,000-seat basketball arena in nearby Cantù, which is due to be completed in late 2023 and has potential concert applications.
Meanwhile, F&P’s Ferdinando Salzano is one of the movers be hind the 100,000-capacity RCF Are na, the largest outdoor music venue in Europe, which opened in Reggio Emilia, near Bologna, just as Covid bit, but still sold out all tickets for its opening concert, featuring local superstar Luciano Ligabue. Harry Styles is booked in for July 2023.
My highlights of IFF were:
1. Sustainability including equality, diversity, and accessibility came up on all panel sessions, unprompted.
2. Reconnecting with the “live” family, actually IRL.
3. flowerovlove at the Wasserman showcase was particularly mesmerising – and now I’m a fan!
Claire O’Neill | A Greener FestivalMy IFF highlight was seeing so many interna tional friends and colleagues again. It’s been a super challenging year for all, but happiness at being back doing what we all love is getting us through. Seeing so many people in person is a great reminder of this.
Alex Bruford | ATC Live
IFF was like a festival: after entering the gates, it was full of smiling faces, old and new friends, lots of music, and great adventures. I think IFF is the most important meeting place for the European live music industry at the moment.
Rauha Kyyrö | Fullsteam Agency
The highlight of every IFF for us as an agency is that we get to meet with all the agents and the industry professionals that we work with for the whole year, and it’s always good to put the face to the name!
Meeting people. The social aspect is the most im
portant part of IFF, then the showcases. Michal Kaščák |Pohoda Festival
It was just great being back at IFF in an envi ronment full of the best festival bookers in the world. And the fact that people are back booking new acts for their events, rather than rollovers, is just such a relief.
Rob Challice | Wasserman MusicSeeing people and reigniting those friendships that we’ve all built and enjoyed over the years. On the artist side, I really liked Khazali, who is repped by Beckie Sugden at Primary Talent. I loved his attitude and bedroom eyes, and the music was just fantastic.
Mo Thomson | Sandbird Creative Services
My IFF highlight was definitely The New Kids on the Block panel. Hearing how both new festivals and agencies are working to change the business for the better was really inspiring. I found meet ing other independents extremely insightful; it
was a great opportunity to hear new perspectives!
Amy Greig | Runway Artists
Great networking! I had as many meetings as I could possibly handle, both with agents and pro moter colleagues from all over Europe.
Nick Hobbs | Charmenko
My highlight was the ability to finally touch base with so many of my international colleagues af ter so long. Face-to-face conversation is often the best way to feel out future collabs and ideas.
Flo Noseda-Littler | Wasserman Music
It was great to see everyone together again in Camden. My top highlight, and shameless plug, was deijuvhs forward flipping into the pit at our showcase – it was a proud moment!
Lucy Atkinson | Earth Agency
For me, the absolute highlight was seeing pro moters that I stayed close to throughout the pan demic and vice versa. True friendships beyond the business formed, with hardships very much still at the forefront for so many, so it was good to see us all sitting together and supporting.
Natasha Gregory | Mother Artists
This year’s edition of the IFF resembled the one from 2019, for me. I have the impression that in the last two years, relations have tightened and conversations are not only based on the exchange of information but focus on the analysis of many threads and variables that may affect the devel opment of a given artist. Most of us can describe ourselves as solution seekers and creativity has returned to the game!
Sara Kordek | Good Taste ProductionWhat was your International Festival Forum highlight?
