Live Music Industry News

ROSTR, Inc. has announced EARLY, a new live showcase series designed to connect emerging artists with industry decision-makers and tastemakers. The initiative — which will debut at a ROSTR event in LA this October — is a collaboration with global live music discovery platform Bandsintown.

For years ROSTR’s world-leading music industry directory has connected agents, managers, promoters, labels, publishers, brands and more.

Across its conversations with these behind the scenes professionals ROSTR has identified two key industry needs:

• Artists are crying out for credible stages where the right industry people show up with intent to scout.

• Industry pros need curated, time-efficient ways to discover talent that is stage-ready and has momentum.

EARLY is that event – a live A&R environment that pairs an independent, curated lineup with a room full of decision makers, and converts one night of performances into weeks of industry attention and follow-up.

Can’t we all just get along? Insomniac has levied a firmly worded complaint against the operators of Miami’s Club Space over a partnership turned sour – including with an allegedly threatened “smear campaign” against Insomniac head Pasquale Rotella.
Live Nation’s Insomniac submitted the convoluted action closer to August’s beginning, naming as defendants promoters David Sinopoli, Davide Danese, and Jose Gabriel Coloma Cano as well as several of their businesses.

Coldplay are starting a run of 12 stadium dates in the UK, with 10% of the profits to be donated to the Music Venue Trust to support grassroots venues. NME has some new quotes from the band explaining why they took this step. “Organisations like Music Venue Trust are even more important in this country since Brexit, because it’s so much harder for new artists to play in Europe,” said Chris Martin. “I just know that I would always want people younger than us to have even more opportunity than we had, and certainly not less.”

Bandmate Jonny Buckland also talked up the importance of small venues. “There really is nowhere else for bands to start in, and there’s so many fewer of them left,” he said. “We need to protect these places. They’re a vibrant part of our culture.”

Multi-hyphenate artist Lindsey Stirling is ready to share her musical gifts with a 2025 winter US tour. The run of shows is in support of her most recent album, Duality.

Stirling’s 23-city “Snow Waltz Holiday Tour” will showcase her unique melange of music, dance, aerial acrobatics, and holiday cheer when it kicks off on November 18th in University Park, Pennsylvania. The jaunt will land in cities including Orlando, Austin, Las Vegas, and Louisville before wrapping up in Peoria, Illinois, on December 23rd. See the complete itinerary below.

Club Passim announced the details of the third annual Reimagining Lilith Fair, a live music event that pays tribute to the famed feminist music festival with a focus on the local music scene.

Curated and hosted by queer, Boston singer-songwriter Naomi Westwater, the event will feature conversations on intersectional feminism in the arts, original music, and 90s cover songs from spoken word artist Amanda Shea, queer musician, writer and activist Evan Greer, Naomi Westwater, and Berklee College of Music student and artist Analise.

Colombia-born singer-songwriter Maluma has signed with WME in all areas.
 
“I’m excited to be joining the team at WME! I’m just getting started and am looking forward to working alongside them in building this next chapter of my career,” Maluma says. “The sky is the limit, and I feel energized to be surrounded by a team that understands and believes in my vision.”
 
Maluma has scored 24 No. 1 singles on Billboard’s Latin Airplay chart and is the youngest artist to simultaneously hold both No. 1 and 2 spots on that chart.

These days, in particular, I am often asked whether radio was actually that much better “back in the day.”  The question is understandable.  The scaling down of radio, the impacts of consolidation, and shrinking staffs have all contributed to a very different radio industry today than it was decades ago.

Like Olympicss figure skating, the judging is highly subjective.  What sounds good to one set of ears may be perceived much differently by others.   And depending on when you first started listening to radio ostensibly as a kid (and that assumes you’re old enough to have grown up with radio), your yardstick for quality and entertainment value may be much different than others.

After several years of financial difficulties and catastrophic weather events, Burning Man CEO Marian Goodell has provided an update on the state of the festival as it prepares to launch in the Nevada desert later this month.

From outfitting venues to building one, Concert Stuff Group CEO Jim Brammer is part of a joint venture with Flow Automotive CEO Don Flow to construct a new 5,000-cap amphitheater in downtown Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

“For decades, our work at CSG has taken us all over the globe – outfitting venues, building stages and creating spaces where unforgettable moments come to life,” says Brammer. “But there’s something deeply special about bringing that experience home. Winston-Salem isn’t just part of the community where I live, it’s where I grew up, built my career and learned what community really means.”

Despite for-profit ticket resales being under heavy scrutiny in the U.K. by the media and politicians alike, a high number of tickets posted on StubHub International by a single reseller for the nearly sold-out Lewis Capaldi tour has drawn scrutiny.

A highly active “tout,” or ticket reseller, reportedly advertised more than 300 tickets to the tour on the platform at large markups, sometimes three times to face value. The news was first reported by The Guardian. “These listings give very clear reason to suspect industrial-scale criminality,” Reg Walker, a ticketing and security expert, told the publication.

Platinumlist, an entertainment discovery platform headquartered in Dubai, has rebranded its platform.

Platinumlist said the rebrand was in response to the booming events sector across the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region. Since its founding in 2009, Platinumlist has gone on to ticket over 100,000 events across nine markets in the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) and MENA region.

The redesigned platform aims to make the discovery and booking of tickets a speedy and more convenient experience. The rebrand features a new visual identity centred around the concept of a ‘portal’.

Backstreet Boys have added seven new dates to their “Into the Millennium” residency at the Las Vegas Sphere, including a special New Year’s Eve concert.

The newly announced dates also include shows on December 26th, December 27th, December 28th, December 30th, January 2nd, and January 3rd.

CTS Eventim finished the second quarter of 2025 boasting growth in group revenues, as well as a slight decline of its adjusted EBITDA. When looking at the group’s individual business segments, it becomes clear that the performance of the ticketing segment offset a decline in the live entertainment segment.

Revenue for the first half of 2025 grew by 7.6% compared with the prior-year period to reach €1.294 billion ($1.507 billion). Adjusted EBITDA declined by 0.8% to €200.5 million ($233.5 million). The adjusted EBITDA margin was 15.5 percent.

Coldplay kicked off their run of UK gigs last night (Monday) in Hull, with the band donating 10% of the proceeds to Music Venue Trust to support grassroots venues.

Oasis‘ Noel Gallagher has spoken for the first time about the Britpop band’s massive tour and reuniting with his brother Liam Gallagher, saying he’s “proud of him.”

The songwriter and guitarist called into TalkSport on Tuesday to chat football, but of course also ended up answering some questions about taking the stage with Oasis after 16 years. Asked his reaction to the tour so far, Gallagher said he’s “completely blown away — everyone is.”

If there was a mecca of indie rock, it wasn’t Manhattan’s CBGB or Minneapolis’ First Avenue or Chapel Hill’s Cat’s Cradle or Al’s Bar in L.A. It was Maxwell’s in Hoboken, New Jersey, just across the river from New York City — and you could almost guarantee that if a band like Nirvana, the Replacements, R.E.M., Soundgarden, Sonic Youth, Hüsker Dü or Hoboken locals Yo La Tengo was playing shows both in the city and Maxwell’s, the latter would be better.

An EY Media & Entertainment survey has found that 45% of UK consumers plan to maintain their spending on local and live entertainment over the next 12 months.

The survey, which polled more than 1,000 people, explored the perceptions, attitudes, and intentions of consumers towards entertainment activities.

When it came to purchasing decisions, overall cost and value for money were the most significant factors for UK consumers.

Twelve years. In music industry time, that’s roughly equivalent to 47 regular years, given how fast things move around here. When we started Artist Growth back in 2012, smartphones were still figuring out how to be smart, streaming was just a twinkle in Spotify’s eye, and nobody had yet invented the phrase “pivot to video” (thankfully).

But here we are, still standing, still growing, and still helping some of the most iconic names in music keep their acts together—literally. Universal Music Group, Sony, BMG, Concord Music Group, Roc Nation, Vector Management, Red Light Management… if you’ve ever bobbed your head to a song, chances are we’ve helped manage the chaos that brought it to your ears.

Boundary Brighton Festival, taking place on 26–27 September at the city’s Stanmer Park, has relaunched its ‘Pay What You Can Afford’ initiative. From 15-22 August, 1,000 tickets are available at any price fans can afford, starting from £10.

There is also a tiered rewards structure, which the festival says is “designed to support Brighton’s grassroots scene, give back to the local community, and keep the scene thriving for the young generation.“

Relive Pink Floyd live at Pompeii, Rolling Stone's Shine a Light and Taylor Swift's Eras Tour film online.

Sphere Entertainment Co., the company that owns and operates Sphere Las Vegas, recently posted its earnings for the period that ended June 30, 2025. Revenue totaled $282.7 million, which was a 3% or $9.3 million increase from the same period last year.

Live Nation has unveiled TIDES, a brand-new 1,500-capacity live music venue set to open soon in Kowloon.

Purpose-built for the demands of today’s touring landscape, TIDES is Hong Kong’s only mid-sized venue with fully integrated production capabilities and touring-grade infrastructure.

Named in homage to the sea and its maritime history, TIDES is located on the first floor of the iconic, ship-shaped Whampoa complex and was designed entirely in-house by Live Nation.

Stephanie Bax, President of Venue Development Asia at Live Nation, commented: “TIDES gives Hong Kong promoters and artists a much-needed alternative. The design prioritizes efficient setup, making it seamless for acts to include Hong Kong in their tour plans. With integrated production and a layout built for audience connection, the venue offers both international and local artists a professional platform to grow their fan base.”