Live Music Industry News

Today sees the launch of a new service that aims to help artists find providers and services for their tours – from van rentals and merch printing to tour managers and lighting or sound engineers.

It’s called Toury, and is a project being launched by Guillaume Brevers, the founder of booking agency Hometown Talent.

“Toury allows artists and their teams to post requests, connect with professionals worldwide, compare quotes, and make informed decisions, all on one platform,” he told Music Ally.

VenuWorks, the venue management company, announced that longtime team member Michael Silva has been promoted to the role of Chief Operating Officer.

Silva first joined VenuWorks in 2014, and has since held a variety of senior roles, including the Executive Director of the California University of PA Convocation Center, the Topeka Performing Arts Center, and CR Events Live which includes the Alliant Energy PowerHouse, the Paramount Theatre, the McGrath Amphitheatre, and the ImOn Ice Arena.

“The Greatest Night in Pop” is a documentary for anyone who loves “We Are the World” (that would include me), or even for those who look at that legendary charity single with some serious questions but are fascinated by the phenomenon of it (that’s me as well). In a sense, “We Are the World” always was a documentary — the famous music video that captures the song as it was being recorded, in an into-the-night session that took place at A&M Recording Studios in Los Angeles immediately after the American Music Awards on January 28, 1985. (The organizers of USA for Africa realized that only by pinning the recording session to that night could they be sure all the stars they needed for the song would be in one place at the same time.)

Spotify’s annual year-end Wrapped promotion made a bigger noise than ever in 2023, but the streaming service says it also paid off in terms of sales of merchandise and tickets.

“The number of artists who made at least one merch sale on Wrapped launch day was 4X this year vs. last,” said an email from the Spotify for Artists team to musicians. “Launch day concert ticket sales beat last year by almost 3X.”

With ticket scalping plaguing the local music scene, South Korean singers are adopting various methods to prevent fans from having to pay extortionate sums for concert tickets.

Singer Jang Beom-jun recently announced that the ticket sales for his concert next month will be using the blockchain system, with the tickets being sold as non-fungible tokens that cannot be sold to anyone but the initial buyer. Jang had sold out the concert scheduled for this month, but cancelled all reservations due to ticket scalping.

Prior to her year-end concert last year, K-pop megastar IU implemented a system where a person illegally selling a ticket would be banned for life from her fan club, and the person who reported such activity would get the ticket instead.

Tom LaPenna’s Lucky Man Concerts announced the addition of industry veteran Jesse Morreale as Executive Vice President of Talent & Venues.

In his new role, Morreale will take point on bookings for venues of all capacity levels with a focus on arenas and other larger venues. He will also onboard oversight of LMC’s growth strategy related to venue and market development and expansion.

As the pandemic drifts out of view and morphs into a pub quiz question, Untitled Group posts its biggest-ever year.

The Melbourne-based independent concert and events promoter wraps its 2023/24 festival season with over 500,000 tickets sold, a “record-breaking” result, reps say.

Amadeus’ Travel Trends 2024 report has predicted that many European travellers will follow their favourite acts on tour this year, accelerating a boom in concert and festival attendance from 2023.

The new research project, carried out by YouGov for Amadeus across four European markets, found that there is still a desire to travel after the COVID-19 pandemic brought the world to a standstill.

Following Coldplay’s announcement of concert dates in Romania and Greece in 2024, flight searches to Athens increased by 62% in the same week.

Gary Smith, the co-founder of US concert business magazine Pollstar, has died aged 77, it has been announced.

Smith, who established the publication in 1981 as Promoter On Line Listings alongside Gary Bongiovanni, passed away “peacefully and unexpectedly” at home in Fresno, California on Saturday 20 January.

Smith led Pollstar – initially a service providing printed pages for subscribers to assemble in their own binders – throughout its history, overseeing the launch of weekly print magazine, the Concert Industry Consortium (now the Pollstar Live! conference and awards) and the magazine’s online presence.

Primary event ticketing platform, Skiddle, has recently unveiled its impressive business results for the 2022-2023 fiscal year, showcasing substantial growth for the company headquartered in Preston.

Established in 2001 as an events guide, Skiddle has evolved into the UK’s foremost independent ticketing service. The self-service, promoter-friendly platform allows for free event listings and offers a range of intuitive features to streamline event organisation. Additionally, its website and app serve as a central hub for a wide spectrum of experiences, including live music festivals, club shows, gigs, sporting events, family-friendly attractions and theatre productions, to name but a few.

Berlin-based live entertainment group DEAG has announced that it will re-list its shares on the Frankfurt stock exchange in the first quarter of this year, “subject to market conditions”.

Speaking about the proposed listing of the company’s shares, Detlef Kornett, co-CEO, said that DEAG believes there is “enormous growth potential in our business… the road ahead of us is paved with opportunity”, highlighting the company’s “recurring revenues from over 30 festivals, [and] intellectual property created from children’s musicals to light trails”.

DEAG is the owner of UK live promoter Kilimanjaro, Inverness music festival Belladrum, Nottingham-based Gigantic and ticketing company MyTicket.co.uk, and a range of other live music businesses across Europe. 

On Saturday (January 20), during an EDM concert at Exchange LA in Los Angeles, chaos ensued as a section of the venue’s ceiling tile collapsed, bringing the show to an abrupt halt. The incident disrupted the performances of headlining artist Dutch DJ Brennan Heart and other scheduled acts, including Lucky Rabbit, TYEGUYS, and JayR.


Ceiling tile on dance area at Exchange LA (Photo: TikTok-@staticrun)
Social media quickly buzzed with videos and accounts of the aftermath, with some attendees sharing their experiences of being close to the falling debris, being hit or nearly hit. The venue’s management acted swiftly, ceasing the music and evacuating attendees for safety reasons. Screens in the venue turned red and displayed the message EXIT DANCEFLOOR, emphasizing the urgency of the situation.

Nashville’s newest independent concert venue, Cannery Hall, officially opened its doors on January 17th and announced that Andrew Hall has joined the team as a Senior Talent Buyer.

In his new role, Hall joins Cannery’s current talent buyer, Tyler Key, and will take point on bookings and partnerships with artists for the venue’s three stages: The Mainstage, The Mil, and Row One Stage.

A veteran of the live events industry in the region, Hall joins The Cannery after five years at the True Grit Talent Agency, following its acquisition by William Morris Endeavor. His past talent buying roles include serving as the inhouse buyer at 3rd and Lindsley Nashville for the last few years.

SymphonyOS is the startup that makes AI-powered marketing tools for artists, independent managers, labels and other creators.

After raising $1m of pre-seed funding last August, distributors have become one of its key ways to sign up customers. We reported on its deal with UnitedMasters in September, and now it has added another, with CD Baby.

Two of the UK’s best-loved independent festivals, Barn On The Farm and Splendour, have been called off for 2024.

Splendour Festival will not take place in 2024, costing the English city of Nottingham “millions” according to the organiser. 

The cancellation of the festival was announced yesterday (Wednesday), after delays in Nottingham City Council’s tendering process. The council had put the 15-year event out to tender for the first time, meaning the usual organiser DHP Family had to compete against other companies for the contract.

Alarm in sector as cost of living crisis and rent rises mean that 125 independent venues either closed or stopped hosting live music in 2023

Madonna and Live Nation have claimed that the late start of one of her shows last month was the result of technical issues and not bad time keeping. They were responding to a lawsuit in which fans claim that the late start time constitutes false advertising and a breach of contract

he National Independent Venue Association has partnered with Paste Magazine and The Black List to reveal the second annual Live List, showcasing the independent entertainment industry’s favorite live performers.

The list was assembled from votes collected from more than 1,000 NIVA members, including independent performance venues, festivals, and promoters working on the frontlines of the live entertainment sector.

The 2024 Live List features 47 artists, including Alana Springsteen, Bar Italia, Bob the Drag Queen, LA LOM, Liz Miele, Medium Build, Otoboke Beaver, Paris Texas, Say She She, Thus Love, Young Gun Silver Fox, and more.

Ticketing firm Eventbrite has published its annual trends report, and as you’d expect, it focuses on positivity and optimism within the events industry.

70% of event organisers feel “somewhat-to-extremely” optimistic about the year ahead, for example, while 55% are planning to put on more events this year than last.

It also claims that 76% of attendees are planning to spend “as much or more” on events in 2024. Although with 68% of organisers planning to increase their ticket prices, that may be unavoidable anyway.

Usher, Janet Jackson and Backstreet Boys are just a few of the acts slated to perform at this year’s Lovers & Friends festival.

The event, which will return to the Las Vegas Festival Grounds on May 4, will also feature a substantial slate of artists on the bill, including Snoop Dogg, Gwen Stefani, Nas, Alicia Keys, Nelly Furtado, Ludacris, Mary J. Blige, Ciara, TLC, Timbaland and more. Usher will celebrate the 20th anniversary of his Confessions album by performing it in its entirety, while Lil Wayne is scheduled to give a full set of his 2008 album Tha Carter III.

Lightning in a Bottle has announced the lineup for the 2024 festival with Labrinth, James Blake, M.I.A., Bomba Estéreo and more on the bill.