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In yet another boom year for big shows, the heavy hitters of Ireland’s promoting business remain the same: Live Nation’s MCD Productions and longstanding rival Aiken Promotions. But the market is not just a heavyweight slugfest, with a variety of nimble challengers on the scene, including festival specialist POD and the DEAG/Kilimanjaro Live-backed Singular Artists.
MCD/Live Nation stages Electric Picnic in Stradbally, County Laois, and the pop and hip-hop-leaning Longitude at Dublin’s Marlay Park. The promoter, which is responsible for Oasis’s reunion shows at Croke Park next August, has also handled a packed schedule of headline blockbusters this summer, including Taylor Swift, Coldplay, and AC/DC Croke Park shows and plenty of arena, theatre, and club concerts.
Meanwhile, Aiken Promotions’ seven Springsteen shows in Dublin, Belfast, Cork, and Kilkenny, across two separate visits in 2023 and 2024, mean that the artist sold around 300,000 tickets in the calendar year – on an island of just over 7m inhabitants.
The promoter also brought Rammstein to the RDS Arena Dublin in June and took a hand in several festivals with POD: In The Meadows, All Together Now, and Forbidden Fruit. Other Aiken shows this year include Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, John Bishop, and Childish Gambino at the 3Arena, the Live at the Marquee series in Cork, and any number of smaller concerts, including many at Aiken’s own Vicar Street venue.
“Everybody talks about the resurgence of country music, but it has always been popular in Ireland.”
Main man Peter Aiken, who has a well-known history with Garth Brooks, culminating in five long-delayed, sold-out Croke Parks in 2022, believes country will be a stand-out performer in the coming years.
“Everybody talks about the resurgence of country music, but it has always been popular in Ireland,” says Aiken. “There’s some of it that’s a bit ‘Bon Jovi-light’, that’s not ‘real’ country. But we’re going to see over the next couple of years just how big country music is. I think the values of it are what people are looking for right now. This is a political statement on behalf of Aiken Promotions,” he jokes.
Aiken works with POD, the original founder of the Electric Picnic, across its festivals, which have all had a good year in relatively difficult circumstances, the company’s Will Rolfe says.
“I think festivals globally have had challenges, and they’ve also impacted Ireland,” Rolfe told IQ. “You just need to be at the top of your game and produce really good shows. The summer is definitely more geared towards outdoor concerts now than it is outdoor festivals, but there’s still a handful that are really strong, and thankfully, we have three of them.”
“I think festivals globally have had challenges, and they’ve also impacted Ireland.”
Singular Artists, launched out of the pandemic by former Aiken promoters Fin O’Leary, Brian Hand, and Simon Merriman, thrives in the club environment, but it staged its first 3Arena show in 2022 (for Yungblud) and has arena shows with Khruangbin and Fontaines D.C. to close out the year, as well as the summer Wider Than Pictures series (with Deacon Blue, The The, James, James Blunt, and Gossip this year) at the National Museum of Ireland’s Collins Barracks. Bigger things are also in the works.
“The clubs are crucial for our business because they are the grassroots, but as a promoter, you do need to have some outdoors on the cards,” says Merriman. “As a company, the next step is going into the world of festivals, more outdoors, and just continuing to grow.”
Selective Memory is another busy smaller promoter, bringing acts including Michael Head & the Red Elastic Band, Joan As Policewoman, Kelly Lee Owens, Stereo MC’s, and Hugh Cornwell to Dublin this autumn and winter. MPI is a well- established music agent and promoter with a strong domestic focus whose festival portfolio includes the Púca Festival (which runs every Halloween across the towns of Trim and Athboy in Co. Meath) and the Waterford Harvest Festival.