The Music Hall Of Williamsburg concert venue in New York City will close at the end of 2026. The Brooklyn-based venue’s promoters, The Bowery Presents, confirmed it will keep hosting shows throughout next year.

The Bowery Presents co-partners Jim Glancy and John Moore made the announcement in a memo obtained by Variety and BrooklynVegan.

The O2 hosted 239 arena performances in 2025, marking a 19% uplift and sold more than 2.9 million tickets. This year saw the London venue welcome 55 first-time performers, a 34% increase on 2024, as well as global headliners and homegrown talent. The venue also hosted artists from countries represented for the first time including China, Singapore, Japan and Turkey.

Artists such as Sabrina Carpenter, Tate McRae, Pitbull and Tyler, the Creator all delivered multiple sold-out nights during their debut runs.

A federal judge in Los Angeles has certified a nationwide class action accusing Live Nation Entertainment and its Ticketmaster unit of using monopoly power to inflate ticket prices and fees — a major step for a consumer case that targets more than a decade of ticket purchases.

In a December 12 order, U.S. District Judge George H. Wu ruled that the plaintiffs met the requirements to move forward as a class under federal rules. Reuters reported the lawsuit seeks damages spanning roughly 15 years and is tied to purchases of more than 400 million tickets.

The class covers U.S. consumers who bought primary tickets and paid associated fees for events at major concert venues through Ticketmaster or an affiliated Live Nation entity dating back to 2010. Live Nation and Ticketmaster have denied wrongdoing.

Discovering the next big thing is a multi-billion pound industry. The CMATs of this world don’t come overnight. They are born through countless meetings, focus groups and dozens of executives all bringing their two cents to the table. It’s largely remained that way since The Beatles proved there’s big money to be made in boy bands.

But Michael Adex and the global dance brand Cream may have found an alternative way to do it. And it’s through music festivals (sort of).

Michael Adex is the founder and CEO of NQ, the Manchester-based talent management company that’s home to artists such as Aitch, WizTheMC and whYJay. For his efforts, he’s also a Forbes 30 under 30 alumni. With a self-proclaimed ethos of ‘northern roots, global talent’, NQ is a place where artists both start and develop their journey in music, but it also acts as a hub for underrepresented artists to make it from the north of England.

Last month, a federal judge partially dismissed Swifties’ Eras Tour-focused antitrust lawsuit against Live Nation and its Ticketmaster subsidiary. Here’s a closer look at the development and the high-stakes legal battle’s direction heading into 2026.
We previously broke down the partial dismissal (and different components of the case) in detail. But with so many moving parts in play – referring to several ongoing Live Nation actions and the Swifties’ forthcoming fifth amended complaint – a recap will prove useful on multiple levels.

Additionally, recent weeks have delivered other Live Nation/Ticketmaster litigation twists, which are also covered here.

Ticketing platform BookMyShow has released its annual wrap-up of the year gone by. It listed tickets for 34,086 live entertainment events in 2025, up from 30,687 in 2024, and 26,359 in 2023. That, however, is a slowdown in growth from 16% to 11%, which was perhaps expected after a post-pandemic boom. Importantly, it represents only those events listed on their platform. 

Live entertainment includes not just music concerts but also sports, comedy and theatre events, of course, but this was a landmark year for gigs with the highest number of performances by international acts until date, starting off with Coldplay’s record-breaking India tour in January, which was produced and promoted by BookMyShow. During 2025, the company also brought down Cigarettes After Sex, Ed Sheeran, Guns N’ Roses, Post Malone and Travis Scott for shows across the country and staged the third edition of Lollapalooza India in Mumbai, which was headlined by Green Day and Shawn Mendes. 

Charles Attal, partner in C3 Presents, and Kevin Shivers, EVP & Managing Executive, Wasserman Music, are confirmed to take part in a Rainmakers conversation at Pollstar Live! 2026 in which they’ll share stories from the trenches and the lessons learned along the way, breaking down the forces reshaping dealmaking and artist development across the global touring ecosystem.

The duo will also discuss how mentorship has shaped their own paths and why investing in the next generation of live-music professionals is essential to the industry’s future.

Earlier this year the US Copyright Office undertook an inquiry into why there are so many songwriter performing rights organizations in the US. One of the Congress members who prompted that inquiry now wants the FTC to investigate if two of the smaller PROs are employing illegal deceptive practices

SeatGeek has become a pilot partner of Google’s new agentic artificial intelligence (AI) search experience.

The collaboration makes SeatGeek one of the first ticketers whose event listings can be fully understood and acted on by Google’s autonomous features.

This is claimed to give fans more ways to discover and book events.

Two concert charts in two days, and Coldplay tops them both. Fresh from being declared the most popular touring artist of the millennium so far by Pollstar, now Coldplay head the annual Boxscore charts published by Billboard – for the second year in a row.

This is measuring global gross ticket sales for the period between the start of October 2024 and the end of September 2025. Coldplay’s ‘Music of the Spheres’ tour grossed $464.9m over the 12 months, ahead of the $407.6m for Beyoncé’s ‘Cowboy Carter Tour’.

Kendrick Lamar and SZA, The Weeknd and Shakira all broke the $300m mark too – a first for these rankings.

Coldplay are the top touring act of the last 25 years according to a new chart.

Released by Pollstar, the ‘25 Most Popular Touring Artists of the Millennium’ found that the British band have sold nearly 25 million tickets since 2001. Coldplay also hold the record for the most tickets sold on a single tour for ‘The Music of the Spheres World Tour’, with 13.1 million tickets since launching in 2022.

The tour also holds the record for the best-attended tour of all time, and has the second highest gross of any tour on record with a reported $1.52bn (£1.1bn/€1.3bn).

Conway Entertainment Group Live (CEG Live) has launched its consulting services, headquartered in Nashville. CEG Live will specialize in driving the growth, development, and success of entertainment venues through a combination of live event management and venue consulting services. CEG Live provides venue booking, tailored strategies and direct support to venues.

The company will be led by Tony Conway, with additional day-to-day operations assistance from Blake McDaniel, Scott Welch, Sherry May and Brandon Mauldin.

The government is fighting Live Nation and Ticketmaster's attempt to prematurely end the blockbuster antitrust case

Concerts discovery service Bandsintown has released its 2025 ‘High Notes’ report, based on data from 8bn events, 100 million fans and 700,000 artists on its platform.

Findings included a 65% surge in trap music, making it this year’s fastest-rising genre — accompanied by a notable 37% rise for shoegaze. Rock charted as number one for fan engagement according to the data.

Bandsintown’s top five rising artists were Sombr, Lola Young, Jennie, Doechii and Ella Langley. Established artists with the most new followers included Billie Eilish, Taylor Swift, The Weeknd, Eminem and Kendrick Lamar.

The Rolling Stones have called off plans for a 2026 stadium tour of the United Kingdom and Europe, a source close to the band confirms to Variety, following reports that guitarist Keith Richards was unable to “commit” to it.

While never officially announced, the group’s touring pianist Chuck Leavell and a spokesperson recently told press in the U.K. that the band has nearly completed a new album — their second with 35-year-old producer Andrew Watt — and planned on touring the U.K. and Europe. However, Richards, who turns 82 on Thursday, is said to be unable to commit to the rigors of another tour. Live dates in recent years have shown that he has faced challenges due to a long battle with arthritis, which he has called “benign” and said has forced him to change his style of playing.

Quebec is moving to crack down on ticket scalping and hidden subscription renewals with a new bill tabled Tuesday by Justice Minister Simon Jolin-Barrette that would overhaul key sections of the province’s Consumer Protection Act (CPA).

"Neither the Quebec entertainment industry nor Quebec artists see any of the profits made by resellers," Jolin-Barrette said during a news conference in Quebec City on Tuesday.

"The companies behind these unfair practices are nothing more than parasites on Quebec culture."

In 2023, live music contributed 1.1% of the UK’s total emissions, while live music constituted 0.2% of total emissions in the US. This is equivalent to the annual emissions of 2.8 million automobiles in the UK, and 3.1 million in the US.

The stats have been published by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) Climate Machine, which has released the first comprehensive annual carbon emissions calculation of the live music industry in the US and UK. MIT Climate Machine is an interdisciplinary research group established under MIT Environmental Solutions Initiative.

The LIVE Awards 2025 took place in association with Skiddle at The Troxy, in East London, Dec.10. Here are the winners.

Attended by over 500 guests including promoters, venues, agents, festivals, artist managers and more, the event was hosted by comedian Tom Ward and saw awards collected by individuals and companies from across the live music community.

Chosen by a panel of industry experts and covering all sectors of live music, The LIVE Awards recognises and celebrates individuals and organisations who have made a significant impact during the last year, with 15 awards in total handed out throughout the evening, culminating in the presentation of The LIVEtime Achievement Award to Stuart Galbraith, Founder & CEO of Kilimanjaro Live.

Galbraith, a 2022 Pollstar Impact International honoree, has been a key player in the growth of UK live music over the last four decades.

StubHub’s recent financial disclosures are shining new light on a long-standing frustration among small and mid-tier ticket sellers—delayed payouts. While StubHub officially states that payments to sellers are remitted five to eight business days after an event takes place, the on-the-ground reality seems more complicated. Numerous independent sellers have taken to social media to complain about chasing StubHub support for weeks or months to receive money owed after completed transactions.

During a recent earnings call, StubHub Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Connie James addressed the company’s cash flow mode, offering some insight into how this delay benefits the platform financially. “Our marketplace model has inherent favorable cash flow characteristics,” James told investors. “We collect cash from buyers at the time of purchase, but remit payments to sellers at a later date—often after the event occurs.”

The ABBA Voyage show has contributed £2.06billion to the UK economy, a new report has revealed.

The ambitious virtual show, which features CGI reincarnations (or ‘ABBA-tars’) of the Swedish pop band, began in 2022 at the purpose-built ABBA Arena in east London. It is currently taking bookings until June 2026.

Pollstar is proud to present the 25 Most Popular Touring Artists of the Millennium, led by Coldplay, U2, Ed Sheeran, Dave Matthews Band and Taylor Swift. Based on worldwide ticket sales reported to Pollstar from 2001 through the end of 2025, the 25 headlining acts collectively sold more than 340 million tickets over the past 25 years, generating grosses exceeding $35.7 billion. Reflecting pure ticket sales, the list showcases the most popular artists on the planet—those seen by more people than any others (full chart below).

Coldplay came in at No. 1 with over 24.8 million tickets sold at 731 concerts since 2001. That year, the band toured in support of their debut, 2000’s Parachutes, and now, seven tours later, their “Music of the Spheres World Tour” sold a gargantuan 13.1 million tickets since launching in 2022. It holds the record for the best-attended tour of all time and has the second highest gross of any tour on record with $1.52 billion reported during its multi-year run, and it hasn’t officially wrapped yet.

PickleJar Entertainment Group has expanded its flagship country radio program PickleJar Up All Night across more than 80 local radio network affiliates.

Hosted from Nashville by Katie Cook and Scott Gaines, the show is available weeknights from 7 p.m.–midnight or from midnight-6 a.m. ET, and blends emerging artist discovery, fan-driven interaction, exclusive interviews, and authentic Nashville storytelling into a nightly destination for country music culture. The affiliate distribution agreement accelerates PickleJar’s media footprint while aligning affiliate broadcasters with scalable, recurring revenue streams that tie venue technology and content syndication together for the first time in broadcast radi

The 20,000-capacity venue will feed revenue back into smaller venues to ‘nurture the next generation of breakthrough artists’