FEST Team and Charmenko on post-acquisition ambitions

Bulgaria’s FEST Team has shared ambitions to offer full-service tours of Eastern Europe following the firm’s acquisition of Charmenko, which closed this week.

FEST Team is a Sofia-based full-service promoter, founded in 2012, that organises festivals such as the biggest rock and metal festival in Bulgaria, Hills of Rock Festival, with headliners such as Korn, Slipknot, Bring Me The Horizon, the Sofia Solid series, and Spice Music Festival. The firm has also promoted concerts with the likes of Arctic Monkeys, Ed Sheeran, Andrea Bocelli, Guns ‘n Roses, Robbie Williams, Rod Steward, Iron Maiden and more.

Founded in the late 1980s, Istanbul-headquartered Charmenko is an Eastern European promoter, talent buyer and artist agency, with staff and offices in Poland, Czechia & Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia and Serbia.

While the two firms previously maintained a co-promoting partnership in the Baltic States and Bulgaria, FEST Team CEO Stefan Elenkov hopes the acquisition will transform Eastern Europe’s touring offering.

“This [kind of tour] can create revenue potential similar to a Central European tour with the same or bigger profits”

“Our goal over the next two to three years is to establish a solid and well-structured network for mini-tours for developing or new artists across Eastern Europe together with our current partners,” Elenkov tells IQ. “But this goes beyond just booking artists – we aim to provide a full-service package, covering everything from production – staging, lighting, and sound, backstage services, logistics, ticketing and marketing. FEST Team prides itself on being a 360-degree company that can facilitate these tours seamlessly, while Charmenko will open the right doors with agents and talent buyers.

“We want to sit at the table with agents and our partners and present a structured, well-organised touring model, offering, for example, a 10-city circuit across Eastern Europe within two to three weeks. This can create revenue potential similar to a Central European tour with significantly optimised costs with the same or bigger profits.”

Elenkov argues that optimised production and logistical costs in Eastern Europe mean that profit margins for touring artists could be much bigger than in Western Europe.

“We’re not going to make any compromises, we are optimising the process. The quality of services here is the same as Western standards, at prices relevant to local reality. When you have in mind that artist fees and ticket prices in our region are comparable to Central and sometimes Western Europe, the potential for increased profits, especially in percentage-based deals, becomes clear.”

“I think we can develop our talent-buying work further in the wider region for festivals, self-promoting venues and indie promoters”

“Fest Team cannot compete with massive markets like Germany, France, or the UK, that’s not our aim. Instead, we want to position our region as a strong secondary touring market, capable of offering a competitive addition to Central Europe. Once we prove this model works, we believe more artists will see Eastern Europe as a must-visit touring destination.”

Charmenko’s founder and owner, Nick Hobbs, tells IQ the acquisition will also be beneficial for the firm’s talent-buying business, which operates on behalf of events, venues and concert organisers in Finland, the rest of the former Yugoslavia, Romania, Moldova, Greece & Cyprus, the Caucuses and Egypt, as well as the Baltic States and Bulgaria.

“I think we can develop our talent-buying work further in the wider region for festivals, self-promoting venues and independent promoters. I also feel that we can strengthen what we do as promoters and co-promoters, especially by focusing on what’s best for artist development, which isn’t always the highest offer in my view,” he tells IQ. “I expect us to further develop our own roster of artists, especially by focusing on talent from the less obvious parts of the globe, for whom Britain and North America are perhaps not primary international markets.”

Hobbs founded Charmenko in London in the 1980s before relocating to Istanbul in 2003. The firm later opened offices in Czechia and Poland (2004), Serbia (2018), and Croatia (2021).

It has promoted concerts with the likes of Ed Sheeran, Måneskin, The Chainsmokers, Arctic Monkeys, Marshmello, Rammstein, The National, Green Day, Die Antwoord, Central Cee, Franz Ferdinand, Sting, Tame Impala and Iron Maiden.

At the end of last year, FEST Team’s Elenkov told IQ that the Bulgarian market is open for international stadium shows. Read the full article here.

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