Ticketing marketplace XP, which aims to elevate live experiences and reward fandom, has raised $6.2m (£4.6m/€5.5m) in funding.

The funding round was led by Blockchange, with participation from L1D, Reflexive, and others. The capital is expected to accelerate XP’s mission to build a fulfilling ticketing experience for fans.

Eleven tribute concerts paying homage to Jill Sobule have been announced for late May through early September, most of them under the banner of “Jillith Fair,” with cities from L.A. to Northampton, Mass. all set to celebrate the lauded singer-songwriter, who died May 1 at age 66.

The shows begin May 31 with a concert in Northampton, Mass. hosted by Erin McKeown and featuring such guest artists as Marshall Crenshaw, Syd Straw and Madeleine Peyroux. Other cities picking up the banner for Sobule through Sept. 6 include L.A., New York, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. Additionally, the announcement of the shows notes that other cities will be coming on board with yet-unannounced concerts down the line, including Nashville, Minneapolis and New Orleans.

Sound Talent Group co-founder and agent Dave Shapiro died in a plane crash in San Diego, Calif. on Thursday morning, per the National Independent Talent Organization (NITO).

A founding member of NITO, and a reputable agent in the heavy rock music scene, Shapiro, 42, was in a private jet that crashed into a community of U.S. Navy-owned housing in San Diego on early Thursday morning. According to a recent report from the Associated Press, a total two people were killed, destroying at least one home and numerous parked cars.

A number of artists have cancelled or cut down tours in the last couple of years, citing the growing costs – and often the stress of dealing with them.

Now Chartmetric has been analysing its data to quantify this trend, looking at the top 1,000 ‘mid-level’ and ‘superstar’ artists in its database to see how many played at least 10 concerts in the years 2022 and 2024. “Between these two years, the share of mid-level touring artists decreased from around 19% to 12%. Among superstars, touring numbers went down at an even higher rate, from 44% to 36%,” it reported in a blog post.

Kendrick Lamar and SZA's "Grand National" tour is continuing to be a major success following their show in Seattle. Kendrick Lamar and SZA broke their own record for the highest-grossing hip-hop concert by selling 60,941 tickets to their show at Lumen Field in Seattle, earlier this week. The performance helped them bring in a total of $14.811 million, according to a report from OurGenerationMusic.

AEG Presents announced the promotion of Joe Jaeger to Vice President, Integrated Marketing and Strategy as part of the concert promoter’s Global Partnerships division. Jaeger, based in Los Angeles, will oversee the division’s marketing team and foster growth across AEG’s portfolio of live music venues. In his new role, Jaeger will report to Alexandra McArthur, Senior Vice President of Global Partnerships, AEG Presents.

While tents, cereal bars and loo rolls still spark joy for many making their the pilgrimage to the likes of Reading & Leeds, Download and Parklife, some of us would like their summer festival at the end of a tube ride home. 

I promise you, this article isn’t throwing any shade at those massive five-day music bonanzas – this writer cut her teeth eating lukewarm noodles at 5am while watching drunk lads set fire to their trainers – but if the sound of a longdrop door slamming starts to sound like a death knell, you know you’ve entered the era of day festivals

Universal Music’s little-discussed Global Talent Services (GTS) Latin artist services agency has officially acquired Rosa Lagarrigue Management (RLM). Global Talent formally disclosed the buyout today, seven months and change after setting sail “independent of UMG’s local music labels.” As part of the latter pivot, GTS became “a standalone company” and tapped longtime Universal Music Spain exec Narcís Rebollo to serve as president and CEO.

One of Glastonbury’s best loved stages, The Park Stage, has unveiled its full line-up for 2025.

Anohni And The Johnsons, Caribou, and The Maccabees are set to headline over the weekend, and they’ll be joined by new wave icon Gary Numan, Self Esteem, Beth Gibbons, and Future Islands.

Billie Eilish has announced 23 additional global arena dates for her current “Hit Me Hard and Soft” tour, with performances revealed for Japan and a second leg in the United States. The newly announced extension brings the total dates to 106 shows, with a pair of performances slated for Tokyo on Aug. 16-17 before she touches back down Stateside in Miami, New Orleans and Phoenix. Eilish plans to wrap the trek at San Francisco’s Chase Center with a pair of shows on Nov. 22-23.

Last week we wrote about a new rule in the US requiring the total price to be shown for tickets being sold online. Now regulator the Federal Trade Commission has issued StubHub with a public warning to abide by it.

“It appears to have misrepresented the total price of some of the tickets displayed for sale on its website, in violation of the agency’s new Rule on Unfair or Deceptive Fees,” explained the FTC in its announcement.

In his latest effort to distinguish himself as an insult-slinging music critic, President Donald Trump laid into Bruce Springsteen in an early-morning social media post, calling the rock legend “highly overrated,” “not a talented guy,” “a pushy, obnoxious jerk” and a “dried out ‘prune’ of a rocker,” among other epithets.

This came right on the heels of Trump similarly taking an early a.m. shot at Taylor Swift. These two broadsides against leading entertainers led the president of the American Federation of Musicians (AFM) to denounce the president’s attacks, saying the union “will not remain silent as two of our members — Bruce Springsteen and Taylor Swift — are singled out and personally attacked by the President of the United States.”

New analysis from the Centre for Economics and Business Research (Cebr) has suggested that a possible price cap on resale tickets for live events in the UK could cost the economy up to £183m (€217m/$243m), should 25% of those who currently utilise resale platforms choose to not attend nor resell.

The report from independent consultancy Cebr highlights that a cap on ticket resale prices could reduce the number of tickets resold through regulated platforms, with ticket-holders pushed towards unregulated resale channels such as social media to get their money back.

The people, who launched UK marketing agency Mustard Media, all learned their craft in the filed, working on the UK’s Warehouse Project and Parklife Festival, both of which have become popular events in people’s annual calendar. They turned Warehouse Project from a regional hot ticket in Manchester attracting some 2,000 guests per show, to a 10,000-cap “internationally renowned behemoth,” as Masterson puts it. In house, mind you. “Parklife Festival used to be 15,000 people. By the time we left, it was 80,000-odd a day, had become a major festival in the UK calendar, and got acquired by Live Nation,” Masterson recalls.

Tuesday, June 11 at 2pm eastern | 11am pacific

Successfully booking a small independent venue is difficult whether you're in a competitive or a tertiary market. But as a I've learned as both a long time booking agent and a talent buyer, there are tools and strategies to help find, negotiate and produce more successful shows.

Together we'll learn how to get to yes more often by anticipating the needs of artists and agents and understanding your unique place in the broader live music ecosystem.

Gateway Studios & Production Services (GSPS) has opened its new studio complex in Chesterfield, Missouri—the largest and most advanced rehearsal and production campus in the US.
The new campus is hosting clients on-site, with new bookings continuing to build. The 32-acre facility is designed to meet the demands of the most complex touring productions, television and film projects, and high-end corporate events. It offers a seamless, purpose-built environment for creatives and crews to prepare, collaborate, and execute at the highest level.

An analysis of 20 concerts in Maryland showed $6.2M in ticket reseller profit above original face value. The study was conducted by NITO (National Independent Talent Association) at the request of Maryland State Attorney General’s Office.

Resale platform StubHub accounted for more than 24% of resales. Overall, resold tickets were twice as expensive for fans as average face value tickets.

Average spend of £766 includes tickets, accommodation, £75 on food and drink, £60 on merchandise plus travel and new outfits

Live Nation Entertainment, the world’s largest live-entertainment company, has announced the election of Richard Grenell to its board of directors.

Grenell, who President Trump recently appointed president of the embattled John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, has also served as U.S. Ambassador to Germany, Acting Director of National Intelligence, Presidential Envoy for Kosovo-Serbia Negotiations and Presidential Envoy for Special Missions.

Breakaway, an independent live entertainment brand and touring music festival company, has signed with Creative Artists Agency (CAA) for representation.

Working within CAA’s media and entertainment partnerships division, Breakaway will launch a newly structured sponsorship platform in efforts to scale its national footprint and build out original intellectual property. Breakaway exists as Breakaway Projects, or an in-house record label and artist incubator, and Breakaway Presents, which covers its pop-up experiences.

Muddy fields, warm beer and questionable food stuffs were once synonymous with the festival experience.

Sure, should you be searching for weekend revelry in all its mud-soaked glory, there’s no shortage of options out there. But nowadays, festival-goers increasingly want gourmet foods and clean toilets alongside a great line-up, especially for older generations who no longer have the desire to rough it in the rave.

Live Nation Entertainment announced plans for its first Colombian concert venue as the company assumes operation of Arena Cañaveralejo in Cali, Colombia.

The venue, originally a bullfighting ring, first opened its doors in central Cali in 1957. The arena underwent a recent round of upgrades in 2020, reducing its capacity from approximately 17,000 fans to 14,368 as part of a multi-million dollar investment.

Bad Bunny has sold more than 2.6 million tickets for his upcoming world tour, which has also been expanded to 54 dates. The Puerto Rican rapper first announced his ‘Debí Tirar Más Fotos’ (I Should Have Taken More Photos) World Tour earlier this month. The tour is being promoted by Live Nation in partnership with Rimas Nation, and tickets went on sale on May 9.

Brockwell Live, the promoters behind London’s Field Day, Wide Awake and Cross The Tracks festivals, has announced that all of its festival will run as planned at Brockwell Park. The news comes after a local campaign group won a High Court legal dispute that found Brockwell Live did not possess the correct planning permission for its summer events.

The U.S. Justice Department has reportedly launched a criminal antitrust probe of major U.S. concert companies including Live Nation and AEG over the cancellation of concerts in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to Bloomberg, who first broke the story, the probe is examining whether the live events companies illegally colluded to establish refund policies and deals with artists for concerts that were impacted by public gathering restrictions during the pandemic.