Seven months later, the due royalties dispute between Spain's SGAE and Bilbao BBK Live organizer Last Tour is showing few signs of resolving.

eatGeek, the high-growth technology platform transforming the live event experience for fans, teams, and venues, today announced the hiring of Matt Herman as Chief Marketing Officer. In this role, Herman will oversee SeatGeek’s marketing organization, guiding brand strategy, growth marketing, and communications as the company continues to scale its platform and expand partnerships across major sports and entertainment properties.

Herman joins SeatGeek from Wayfair, where he led Search, Recommendations, and Marketing Technology across the company’s $12 billion e-commerce platform. In that role, he oversaw the development of scalable systems for personalization, search, customer communications, and marketing measurement—driving stronger engagement and conversion across Wayfair’s global business.

Former FKP Scorpio promoter Thilo Elsner has collaborated with Florida Entertainment to launch Florida Touring Co.

Elsner has more than 12 years of experience in the live sector, including almost 10 years as head promoter of spoken word and comedy at FKP Scorpio.

The first shows in the portfolio of Florida Touring Co include the arena performances of German true crime podcast ‘Mord auf Ex’ in January 2026. Well over 60,000 tickets have already been sold for the live shows across Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

In August we reported on a crowdfunding campaign launched by Serbia’s Exit Festival. Its support for student protestors in the country had led to threats that it could lose its public funding and government-controlled sponsorships.

The festival’s next move in response is… a global tour. It will be holding events in Croatia, Macedonia, Malta, Egypt and India between May and November next year, although the latter month will also see it return to Serbia for an event too.

More gigs would be a good thing, and a voluntary £1 levy for grassroots venues could help..

East London icon Troxy has begun its most ambitious transformation in decades, designed to revive hidden heritage, boost fan experience and comfort, increase accessibility and capacity from just over 3,000 standing to 3,600, improve operational flow, and set the building up to welcome “high-impact production”, as a press release

At the heart of the works is the revival of Troxy’s long-sealed basement, which is being completely reimagined to include a permanent cloakroom, a new high-capacity toilet block, and structural upgrades to fire escapes that unlock more standing room in the main auditorium.

Electronic music app Dancefloor has launched the Nightlife Dividend Programme which has been designed to help sustain the UK’s nightlife community.

The initiative features a profit-sharing system built on collective success which will see a quarter of Dancefloor’s booking fees redistributed back to venues and promoters every month.

“Our night-time ecosystem is at breaking point, we’ve all seen incredible local venues and promoters struggle or disappear,” said founder and chief executive of Dancefloor, Ben King.

Taking place from 6-10 March on the Grampian Plains, Pitch Music & Arts has announced the line up for its ninth edition. Acts including Charlotte de Witte, Eris Drew & Octo Octa lead the charge, while Amsterdam favourite MARRØN, and UK trio Girls Don’t Sync, are both set to make their Pitch Music & Arts debut.

International artists set to join the lineup include Ewan McVicar, alongside UK-born, Berlin-based selector Palms Trax, and Palestinian techno force Sama’ Abdulhadi.

Live music discovery platform Bandsintown has reached 100 million registered fan users across 196 countries despite what the company describes as persistent challenges with event awareness.

The company, which connects concertgoers with touring artists, says it now has a network of over 700,000 registered artists and 65,000 venues and promoters. The platform runs a catalog of 2.3 million events and employs AI to generate 450 million personalized recommendations each month, directing users to shows based on their listening history and location data.

Bandsintown says those recommendations appear to be translating into ticket sales. The platform logs nearly 20 million monthly click-throughs to ticketing pages, with the company reporting that more than half of its users have attended concerts because of platform suggestions.

AXS and Lawson Entertainment form a ticketing joint venture in Japan, AXS Tickets, establishing a major expansion of AXS’ business in Japan. AXS and Lawson Entertainment, one of Japan’s major entertainment and ticketing companies, have formed a new joint venture named AXS Tickets. This move establishes a major expansion of AXS’ business operations in Japan.

Marathon Live, the independent concert promotion and venue company, announced the launch of a dedicated facilities management division, servicing live entertainment venues across the U.S.

The newly launched division will offer a range of services, including general operations, talent buying, food & beverage management, sponsorship, marketing and social media, customer relationship management, ticketing, production operations and design, as well as facility design and development. The division is specifically geared toward venues seeking to increase their reach and reduce overhead through a strategic partnership with a larger independent network.

The new division will be overseen by Marathon Live CEO Mark Dinerstein, Casey Osburn, SVP of Operations, and Josh Billue, Chief Development Officer.

A federal judge rules that Fugees rapper Pras Michel must pay over $64 million to the US government on the charges for which he was convicted in 2023. Pras Michel—the Fugees rapper who was convicted on illegal foreign lobbying and conspiracy charges two and a half years ago—must pay the U.S. government a staggering $64.9 million for his crimes, a federal judge ruled on Thursday (October 30).

Venu Holding Corporation, an owner and operator of live music venues, has entered into a strategic partnership with Primary Wave Music to bring artist-inspired experiences to its entertainment venues in the US.

Primary Wave Music is a music publisher that is home to more than 200 legendary artists and estates, including icons such as Luther Vandross, Whitney Houston and James Brown.

Ticketmaster cancels tickets flagged for suspicious activity to combat resellers, but the move affects legitimate fans.

Fans of Ariana Grande have fought hard to secure tickets to the superstar’s first tour since 2018, but now some are distraught to find their tickets cancelled by Ticketmaster, especially when some fans paid an exorbitant price on the resale market.

Live Nation has announced that they are opening a new music venue in Nashville called The Truth. The 4,400 capacity indoor music venue is set to open fall 2026 in the Wedgewood Houston neighborhood.

“The legendary songwriter Harlan Howard said all you need for a good country song is three chords and the truth. The Truth is built on that same idea,” says Sally Williams, President of Nashville Music & Business Strategy, Live Nation. “Our goal is to create a space that could only exist here—where raw, honest music meets world-class production, and where fans and artists from across all genres can connect in a way that feels unmistakably Nashville.”

The Wizard of Oz at Sphere sells more than 1 million total tickets, raking in over $130 million in sales and surpassing residencies like the Eagles and U2.

Sphere Entertainment, the company behind the Las Vegas Sphere, has announced that The Wizard of Oz, the venue-specific immersive experience, has sold over a million total tickets. Further, this unique version of the classic film has generated over $130 million in ticket sales as of October 17.

Earlier this year, UK live-music umbrella body Live commissioned a report from Women In Ctrl about the diversity of the boards and management of 15 live organisations. It found that 41% of board members were women and non-binary people’ but only 8% were women from a global majority background. “While some organisations have achieved strong gender diversity at board level, others have significant ground to cover,” noted Live’s head of partnerships Gaby Cartwright (pictured left).

Dancefloor, an event discovery and ticketing platform tailored to meet the needs of the electronic music sector and its fans, announced the launch of its Nightlife Dividend Program, a new initiative designed to help the fight for survival of independent venues and promoters across the UK.

Dancefloor’s new model introduces what it has described as “a first-of-its-kind profit-sharing system built on collective success.

“Every month, 25% of Dancefloor’s booking fees are pooled and redistributed back to the venues and promoters selling on the platform to provide a new, automatic revenue stream on top of existing ticket sales.”

First held with a single stage in 2004 by founder Alex Trenchard and expanding to a two day festival in 2006, the festival was postponed in 2023 and due to make a return in 2026.

According to the BBC the organisers have said: “Due to significant financial losses sustained in 2022 and 2023, we were unable to run the festival in 2024 and 2025.

“For the last 18 months we have engaged with a number of potential investors to continue the festival, including one party for the last 13 months.

Viagogo is violating the EU’s Digital Services Act, according to Euroconsumers, which has filed a complaint with the regulator in Ireland. A Viagogo spokesperson insists the company is DSA compliant, but Euroconsumers says it violates various rules, including know your business customer requirements

MRG Live, the Canadian concert and live events company, announced the addition of Samantha (Sam) O’Connor, as Senior Talent Buyer.

Best known for leading the Toronto-based hip-hop promoter and culture platform RAPSEASON, O’Connor joins MRG with a mandate to continue growing the RAPSEASON brand and shows.

Through a partnership with MRG Live, O’Connor will expand Rap Season to new markets across MRG’s network which includes Canada coast-to-coast. In addition, RAPSEASON branded content will also be integrated with the company’s media publication, Beatroute.

Rooster Walk 2026 announced its initial lineup for the 16th annual music and arts festival taking place May 21 – 24 at Pop’s Farm in Martinsville, Virginia. The Memorial Day Weekend event will see performances by moe. and Daniel Donato's Cosmic Country, along with dozens of others.

The lineup also features Mountain Grass Unit, Eggy, John Brown’s Body, Yarn, Holy Roller, Caitlin Krisko & The Broadcast, and Tan and Sober Gentlemen.

Other performers include Isaac Hadden, Kindred Valley, Paul McDonald, The Ain’t Sisters, Jacoozy, Moga Family Band, The Big Fat Gap, Mountain Walrus, Jayce Turley, Feel Free, and Gabriel Van. An additional +20 acts, including the main headliner, will be announced soon.

After weeks of deliberating, the judges have cast their votes, and we are thrilled to present the UK Festival Awards 2025 Shortlist.

We’d like to thank our judging panel, who have read all of the applications and made their choices. Now it’s your turn!

Voting is now open to the public. The public vote makes up 30% of the votes, with the judges making up the remaining 70%. Voting closes 4 November 2025