Harry Styles‘ record-setting 30-night residency at New York’s Madison Square Garden came to a close over the weekend, with a pair of Styles’ recurring “Harryween” concerts that saw the star, his band and much of the audience dressed for the occasion — in his case as 1970s-era Elvis Presley on the first night and the notorious “Pizza Rat” on the following evening. The second night also included an onstage appearance from basketball star Jalen Brunson, captain of the world champion New York Knicks, presenting Styles with a banner commemorating the residency.

Live Nation Entertainment (NYSE: LYV) will release third-quarter 2026 financial results after market hours on November 5, 2026. CEO Michael Rapino will host a teleconference that day at 2:00 p.m. PT (5:00 p.m. ET). Management will also hold an investor presentation on November 10, 2026, at 11:00 a.m. PT (2:00 p.m. ET). Both events will cover financial performance, operational outlook and other forward-looking matters.

The Weeknd – “Blinding Lights” — 5,659,700,000
Ed Sheeran – “Shape of You” — 5,167,000,000
The Neighbourhood – “Sweater Weather” — 4,996,600,000
The Weeknd – “Starboy” — 4,841,900,000
Harry Styles – “As It Was” — 4,695,400,000
Drake – “One Dance” — 4,544,000,000
Post Malone – “Sunflower” — 4,538,000,000
Lewis Capaldi – “Someone You Loved” — 4,485,100,000
Ed Sheeran – “Perfect” — 4,168,400,000
The Kid LAROI – “STAY” — 4,123,200,000

Various Artists Management (VAM) has announced 16 new signings across its artist management, songwriter and producer, publishing and recordings divisions as the company continues to expand its international roster.

The latest additions follow a period of growth for the independent management company, which operates offices in London, Los Angeles, New York and Sydney. VAM opened its Sydney office in January 2025 and recently launched 23 Recordings, a label venture with Atlantic Records, Warner Records and 10K.

Among the new artist management signings are former Little Mix member Perrie Edwards, Irish singer-songwriter James Vincent McMorrow, Swedish duo Lennixx and Bay Area artist Bennett Coast. The company has also added Hannah Grae, Karina, Jake Marsh, Jessica Doolan, Vicky Sometani and Jos Rivers.

CDs appear to be having a resurgence. John Lewis said searches for CD players are up 96% since July, while another report on trends in music and film this year found that CD sales are up 16%.

With this in mind, we asked music fans why they favour discs over other formats, and if it is a new preference or a lifetime habit.

Chancellor John Healey’s Budget, announced today, has met with a mixed response from the live music industry, which has welcomed business rates relief but called for further measures.

The Chancellor’s decision to increase the business rates threshold for retail, hospitality and leisure from £12,000 to £18,000 was among the steps widely welcomed.

Reddit is the latest platform to lean further into recommendations. Its homepage is being split into two feeds: “For You”, which will be the default and will show posts from communities people don’t follow, and “Following”, which sticks to the subreddits they’ve joined. The update is rolling out to all users over the next few weeks.

Well, not just music startups, as we’ll explain. Securing deals with music rightsholders is a huge part of any music startup’s workload, but so is attracting investors and advisors. A new platform called Duets Network wants to help with that.

Its co-founders are investment veteran Caitlin Glazebrook and – relevantly for Music Ally – Cristina Pimentel, who spent nearly eight years in digital business and innovation roles at Universal Music Group.

Indian live entertainment company SkillBox has launched Zenith Studio, an “AI-powered ‘event creation’ engine” that enables organisers to generate listings, descriptions, ticketing information and artwork using a single-line prompt or uploaded poster. Its launch has been accompanied by a new logo and redesigned app and website that “reflects the breadth” of its businesses.

The world premiere of the David Bowie immersive concert experience, “Stage,” has been set for Feb. 14 at Berlin’s Uber Arena. It will play during the Berlin Film Festival, representing a rare foray into alternative programming at the European film event.

The experience, which combines previously unseen Bowie concert footage and immersive sound and light, is designed around recently discovered and restored footage from the 1978 Isolar II World Tour, during which Bowie performed material from his album “Heroes.”

Universal Music Group posted 3.394 billion euros (about $3.78 billion) in revenue in its third quarter, the world’s largest record company said in its quarterly earnings report published Thursday, a nearly 12 percent increase from 2025.

Recorded revenue grew just over 7 percent excluding revenue from its acquisition of Downtown Music and nearly 15 percent overall, up to 2.55 billion euros or $2.84 billion. Music publishing revenue grew 7.5 percent, or about 1.5 percent when excluding the Downtown revenue, up to 590 million euros or about $659 million. On the company’s earnings call Thursday, Chairman and CEO Lucian Grainge called the Downtown acquisition “the most important acquisition UMG has made since EMI.”

On behalf of the organization operating the venue formerly known as World Café Live, and pursuant to a recent court-approved agreement with the University of Pennsylvania, we are making the difficult decision to wind down our operations. We were unable to come to terms on a new agreement and lease with the University, so our last events will take place on Saturday, October 31, 2026. We will work with our ticketing partner to issue refunds for events scheduled after 10/31 and will work toward relocating shows and private events that must be cancelled.

Amid an intensifying subpoena clash with Universal Music Group (UMG) and Sony Music, DistroKid now has until November 6th to respond to a demand for documents concerning its AI-detection data.

There is something rather exhausting about discovering a band you like and then having to investigate whether you arrived at the opinion yourself. In 2026, Geese became the occasion for precisely this exercise. As WIRED reported in April, promotional firm Chaotic Good Projects had worked with the band and Cameron Winter, distributing performance and interview clips on TikTok. Discussion of the firm’s broader marketing methods soon became an argument about manufactured enthusiasm. An industry adept at selling music had acquired another task: explaining which parts of the applause were marketing.

British singer-songwriter Sam Fender has removed premium front-standing tickets from his upcoming 2027 UK stadium tour after publicly criticizing ticket prices that he said were higher than he had intended.

The decision follows complaints from fans who discovered that tickets for Fender’s Proper Massive Stadium Tour included separate pricing for standing areas closest to the stage. According to Music Week, front-standing tickets for London’s Wembley Stadium were originally listed at £130.75, compared to approximately £98.85 for general standing.

Ticketmaster is launching an integration with CashorTrade that allows verified tickets to be resold on the latter’s marketplace at face value or below.
Bots are crashing shows and fans are left destitute after their favorite artist comes to town. Can this mess be solved by… Live Nation and Ticketmaster?

So, in talking about the marvel that was Phoebe Bridgers‘ opening night at L.A.’s Intuit Dome Friday night, which part of the show do you talk about first? Would it the emotionally riveting middle section of the show, in which Bridgers used the no-phones setting to elaborately explore, in song and in monologue, her complicated family dynamics, including figuring out how to grieve the death of a sometimes abusive father who had both a positive and impact on her life? You don’t get moments of candor and quiet devastation like that in an arena show every day, or decade.

Today there’s an update on that: the Financial Times reported that Spotify is “targeting an early 2027 launch” for the new tool “with a potential unveiling around the Grammy Awards in February”.

The report also suggested that the paid add-on may cost “an additional $4 to $5 a month”, and also that Spotify is still negotiating with Sony Music and Warner Music Group for them to join UMG, Merlin and Believe in licensing the tool.

There are no flies in the ointment of the overwhelming touring success of Noah Kahan. The fan enthusiasm that led to across-the-board sellouts for his “Great Divide World Tour” this past summer is highly likely to continue when his “The Last of the Bugs World Tour” hits stadiums in North America and Europe in the spring and summer of 2027. The highly anticipated dates were announced Thursday morning as an online countdown clock drew to a close.

Meta has been taking some heat recently for an imminent change to the terms of service for its business accounts – that’s anyone using Facebook, Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp as a business rather than an individual.