FKP acquires minority stake in smash!bang!pow!

FKP Scorpio has acquired a 25% stake in Danish concert promoter, booking agency and artist management company smash!bang!pow!.

The partial acquisition – described as an “exclusive partnership” which sees FKP become an international partner to smash!bang!pow! (s!b!p!) – has already borne fruit, with the two companies co-promoting the BBC’s Blue Planet II at the Forum Horsens (4,000-cap.) on 25 February 2019 and Tash Sultana at KB Hallen (4,900-cap.) in Copenhagen on 28 July 2019.

The partial acquisition comes just seven months after the Hamburg-based promoter, itself majority owned by CTS Eventim, effectively pulled out of the Danish festival market by selling its Northside and Tinderbox festivals to Beatbox owner Down the Drain Holding.

“The Danish music scene is in an incredibly exciting development right now, and the Danish concert market is flourishing,” says FKP Scorpio CEO Folkert Koopmans. “We’re pleased, therefore, that through our collaboration with smash!bang!pow! we get a local partner with a healthy approach to the business and an agency culture that is driven by a real love for the music and the scene in which it stems.”

“Through our collaboration with s!b!p! we get a local partner with a healthy approach to the business”

As part of the alliance, several new staff will also join s!b!p! in Copenhagen, including booking agent Viktoria Skovhus and junior promoter Emma Hestbæk.

Nikolaj Thorenfeldt, director of smash!bang!pow!, adds: “As an independent concert promoter, we’ve reached a glass ceiling for our growth.

“We want to climb higher up the food chain, and this requires more resources and a strong international network. That’s what we get in the partnership with FKP Scorpio.”

FKP Scorpio is one of Europe’s leading festival and concert promoters, with a roster of events that includes Southside and Hurricane in Germany, Best Kept Secret in the Netherlands, Provinssi in Finland and Greenfield in Switzerland. It also promoted much of the European leg of Ed Sheeran’s huge ÷ tour, selling more than 750,000 tickets this summer.

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