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Jon Ollier on touring, breaking acts & Ed Sheeran

The leading agent and One Fiinix Live founder gives his verdict on the current health of the UK live business in an interview with IQ

By James Hanley on 07 Nov 2024

Jon Ollier


One Fiinix Live founder Jon Ollier has talked the state of the business, breaking talent and Ed Sheeran in a new interview with IQ.

Ollier, who launched the UK-headquartered independent in November 2020, has touched upon an “incredible” year for the company, which represents the likes of Sheeran, 2Cellos, Calum Scott, Picture This, Black Stone Cherry and new signing Tash Sultana.

“We’re achieving everything that we set out to achieve,” he says. “We have a group of people that pull each other through and fight for each other, and we continue to make great strides. I think we’re really coming into our own

“We’re doing more stuff on a much bigger scale than any other independent agency. We’re seeing a lot of our agents develop their careers and push things forward, so I’m very excited about the future.”

The firm has widened its horizons over the last 12 months with the hirings of US-based agents John Pantle and Bex Wedlake.

“We put a lot of investment in at the start of the year and added the whole of the US team less than 12 months ago,” notes Ollier. “We expanded our London office and are seeing the emergence of six or seven acts up to arena level, which is all really positive.

“Obviously, we’re going through what other small businesses are going through in terms of inflation, the budget and the bloodbath that we’ve seen in festivals this year. Those sorts of challenges remain, so it’s a double-edged sword at the moment.”

“I’ve never been of the belief that a whole lot of music discovery goes on at festivals”

Ollier chaired a panel at this year’s ILMC that analysed whether a mid-level touring crisis was emerging amid the boom at the top end of the business. He suggests the main impact is being felt lower down the scale.

“Artists that would tour roughly the same size venues every two years – and do really good business – are the ones we’re seeing struggling at the minute, because people have a finite amount of money in their pocket,” he says.

Ollier reflects on the importance of festivals in an artist’s touring campaign.

“I’ve never been of the belief that a whole lot of music discovery goes on at festivals,” he opines. “As soon as festivals got beyond two or three stages, the idea that you have a captive audience isn’t really true. But what they have always done is help you to establish that cultural identity that comes with having played festivals we consider to be a sort of rite of passage, or that some of the tastemakers and gatekeepers involved in the business would expect you to play in order to demonstrate your cultural relevance.

“The side of it that is really tricky is that each and every manager and client believes they absolutely have to play hundreds of festivals every year – and that can be quite a difficult conversation to have.”

Another concern for the UK sector has been the lack of breaking acts in recent years. While there have been isolated success stories such as The Last Dinner Party, Ollier points out that genuine British mainstream breakthroughs have been thin on the ground.

“We’re not seeing a Chappell Roan or Noah Kahan really break into those upper echelons out of the UK”

“We’re not seeing a Chappell Roan, or a Noah Kahan, or anyone really break into those upper echelons out of the UK since, I guess, Lewis Capaldi,” he says. “I don’t think we’re being helped by the chaos at the labels at the moment. It strikes me they are trying to move their business model to be more like just rights-holders, like publishers are, and have a much less proactive role in an artist’s career.

“They’re putting the responsibility for creating success back onto the artist and the management, and then every time lightning strikes, they jump on it and can really move things along. You see that when you have things like Noah Kahan or Chappell Roan happen, where it comes out of the blue, but it feels more of a lottery. We’re not getting that support. We’re not getting that strategy from the labels.

“It is fun breaking artists, it is fun working with breaking artists, but very few artists are breaking out of the UK at the moment – that’s just a fact.”

On a more positive note, Ollier’s longtime client Ed Sheeran sold more than 600,000 tickets in an hour for his 2025 European +–=÷× (Mathematics) Tour, while sales for his French stadium dates were described as “absolutely magnificent”.

“It’s done incredibly well for next year, in a way, more than we anticipated, which is fantastic,” Ollier tells IQ. “There are going to be some other bits and pieces that go on sale over the course of the next few months in other areas of the world, but by and large, it’s business as usual. He will continue to tour. He will be in Europe next year and he doesn’t envisage slowing down any time soon.”

“The short term is never something I’m concerned about… We’ve got to be thinking about what the next five years look like”

This year has also seen Sheeran set multiple ticket sales records the world over, with destinations including Bahrain, the UAE, India, Taiwan, Japan, the Philippines, Taiwan, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Baltic States, Malta, Romania and Cyprus.

“It’s something that he’s always wanted to do,” explains Ollier. “It’s a gift we’ve been given to be able to do it, because not a lot of people can go and play all of those places. We have to plan these things years in advance and potentially doing it right in the midst of the cost of living crisis and war in Europe and all the rest of it, was incredibly challenging.

“If we’d have had more foresight, you’d perhaps sidestep these things, but we went and did it and it was a great success. It is key to his vision, because he wants to get as far and wide and visit as many fans as he possibly can.”

In line with the rest of the industry, Ollier is predicting a stacked 2025.

“Next year is going to be a big year, for sure,” he says. “There’s lots going on, but the short term is never something I’m concerned about, because we can see what’s in the pipeline. The thing I’ve always got my eye on is the longer term, and making sure that we don’t lean on big years in the short term. We’ve got to be thinking about what the next five years look like.

“Our ambitions are to remain humble. We want to do a good job for our clients. We want to run a good company and we want to look after our people, and we will hopefully be able to achieve that.”

 


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