Kili buys Scotland’s Belladrum Festival

Deutsche Entertainment AG (DEAG) has, through its UK subsidiary Kilimanjaro Live, acquired Belladrum Festival in Scotland.

Belladrum, in full the Belladrum Tartan Heart Festival, has taken place at the Belladrum Estate near Inverness since 2004. It has since grown into a major camping event, with its 15th edition – headlined by Paloma Faith, Primal Scream and Amy MacDonald, and running from 2 to 4 August 2018 – expected to its tenth sell-out since 2009.

Kilimanjaro has exclusively booked Bella for the past eight years, during which time the festival has featured several Kili-promoted touring acts, including Ed Sheeran, Bastille and Catfish and the Bottlemen. Some 17,000 people attended Belladrum 2017.

Kilimanjaro has been without a camping festival since the last edition of Sonisphere, at Knebworth, in 2014.

“Our shareholding in Scotland’s well-established Belladrum Festival further improves our basis for profitable growth”

DEAG CEO Peter Schwenkow, who has consistently spoken of the company’s goal of growing its UK operation, says the 100% buy-out is “in line” with those plans. “Our strategy is to focus particularly on the growing UK market in addition to Germany,” he comments.

“Our shareholding in Scotland’s well-established Belladrum Festival, through our subsidiary Kilimanjaro Live Limited, further improves our basis for profitable growth in this market. Belladrum has generated consistently positive operating results in recent years – a critical criterion for us. We also expect this acquisition to offer a positive boost for our ticket platform myticket.co.uk.”

It follows last August’s acquisition of Flying Music Group, also through Kili.

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