Coldplay sued by former manager Dave Holmes

The four members of Coldplay are being sued by their former manager Dave Holmes over a contractual dispute, according to court documents filed in the UK.

Holmes had worked with the British group since before their 2000 debut album Parachutes, but the parties quietly went their separate ways last year, with the quartet continuing to be managed by the team of Phil Harvey, Mandi Frost and Arlene Moon.

A band representative declined to report further to Variety, which first reported the story, but a source tells the publication that the lawsuit refers to a contractual issue.  The legal documents have not yet been made public.

Coldplay, who have sold over 100 million albums worldwide, recently confirmed their Music of the Spheres World Tour will extend to a third summer, with more than 7.5m tickets already sold. The dates for 2024 include the band’s first ever shows in Greece, Romania and Finland, as well as their first show in Rome since 2003 and first visit to Budapest since 2008.

“We started to plan this tour when we were on the last tour, in 2017”

The trek, which began in Costa Rica in March 2022, was a new entry at No.6 in Billboard‘s updated list of the all-time top 10 highest-grossing concert tours, having garnered $561.2m at last count. It has already comfortably outsold Coldplay’s previous A Head Full of Dreams tour of 2016/17, which was attended by 5.38m people.

“We started to plan this tour when we were on the last tour, in 2017,” Holmes said last year as part of IQ‘s Music of the Spheres tour report. “It seemed crazy at the time, but we were holding venues for 2022 and 2023, as some stadiums actually need to be booked that far in advance.”

Meanwhile, it was confirmed yesterday (16 August) that UK-based agent Josh Javor, who spent 18 years at X-ray Touring, working closely with the late co-founder Steve Strange on acts including Coldplay, is joining WME as partner and co-head of the London music department.

Get more stories like this in your inbox by signing up for IQ Index, IQ’s free email digest of essential live music industry news.