The Country Music Association (CMA) and singer Morgan Wallen have presented promoters Jim King and Anna-Sophie Mertens with a token of appreciation for their efforts in growing the genre outside North America.

King, AEG Presents’ CEO, European festivals, and Mertens, Live Nation VP, touring, were honoured prior to Wallen’s 50,000-cap headline performance at BST Hyde Park in London earlier this month.

“This is a milestone for the country genre and it’s important that we acknowledge the promoters who are supporting country music’s rapidly growing and mainstream appeal in the UK,” says Milly Olykan, CMA VP, international relations and development.

“As the fastest-growing genre in the UK, thanks to countless artists who are focused on building a global audience, we are grateful for the foundation that has been laid that has led to opportunities like BST Hyde Park, and we are more excited than ever to see what’s to come.”

Morgan Wallen became the first country artist to headline BST Hyde Park

Wallen took the stage later that 4 July evening, becoming the first country artist to headline the AEG-promoted London concert series in the process, with country icon Shania Twain also headlining the festival three days later.

K-pop superstars Stray Kids brought this year’s BST Hyde Park to a close last night. Other 2024 headliners included SZA, Kings of Leon, Andrea Bocelli, Robbie Williams, Kylie Minogue and Stevie Nicks, who brought out special guest Harry Styles for the climax of her 12 July show.

Live Nation, meanwhile, launched country and Americana festival Highways with the Royal Albert Hall in 2023. The event returned to the London venue with an expanded two-day format in May, featuring acts such as The Cadillac Three, Brett Young, Shane Smith & the Saints and The War and Treaty.

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Lewis Capaldi‘s backroom team have spoken to IQ about the Scottish superstar’s biggest tour to date.

The 26-year-old singer/songwriter, whose new Netflix documentary How I’m Feeling Now dropped yesterday (5 April), broke the record for Scotland’s highest-selling indoor show earlier this year after shifting more than 15,000 tickets for his DF Concerts-promoted date at P&J Live in Aberdeen.

He also performed a sellout date at the 14,300-cap OVO Hydro in Glasgow as part of his 2023 European arena tour.

“His shows in Scotland for this tour were amazing,” says DF promoter Craig Johnston. “He has been very open about his mental health and that anxiety can cripple him sometimes, so it was so powerful to see him enjoying the shows, because hometown shows come with huge pressures. Our Aberdeen show became the highest-selling indoor show in Scotland’s history: it’s an incredible achievement.

“Lewis has an amazing talent of making everyone, even people who have never met him, feel like they are his best mate, and that is an incredible tool for us when selling tickets.”

Capaldi was forced to reschedule his remaining European tour dates in Germany, Spain, Switzerland and Italy last month due to illness, but has a stacked slate of high-profile concerts booked for this summer.

“The focus now turns to 2024. We’ve got dates held internationally, and we’re looking at bigger venues, especially in the UK”

“He’s confirmed for Electric Picnic, and Reading and Leeds festivals, and we’ve recently announced additional outdoor shows in August for Manchester, Belfast, Chepstow, and Edinburgh at the Royal Highland Centre,” says Ryan Penty, who represents the star along with Alex Hardee at Wasserman. “But the focus now turns to 2024. We’ve got dates held internationally, and we’re looking at bigger venues, especially in the UK where the sales we had for the arena tour were ridiculous.”

Capaldi, whose second album Broken By Desire To Be Heavenly Sent is out in May, performed at the International Festival Forum (IFF) in 2017.

“The thing about Lewis is we never skipped a moment of building,” notes Penty. “In London, for example, we started at The Waiting Room [120 capacity], then we played a show at Oslo [350-cap] where there was an 18-plus age restriction, which was a little bit of a hiccup, at the time. But from there we played the Scala [800], then we went straight to Shepherd’s Bush Empire [2,000], then Brixton Academy [4,921], then Wembley Arena [11,500] for two shows on the weekend before the pandemic. And then last year we played two nights at The O2 [18,500]. That sort of sums up the hard work Lewis and the whole team have put in everywhere, just organically growing the audience each time.”

Speaking in the latest issue of IQ, Penty continues: “Lewis doesn’t do any VIPs – there’s no meet and greets, there’s no golden circle, there’s no end-of-the-aisle uplift or anything like that. He’s always wanted to keep the face value ticket prices affordable, so on the UK dates for this tour, we’re at £45, £55, and £65, which is the top price for the very best seats.

“This tour is only the beginning of the many things we have planned on the live side for Lewis Capaldi in 2023 and beyond”

“We don’t want his fans to feel like he’s ripping them off at any point, and I know he just wants to make sure that everybody feels like they’re not excluded from seeing him because of the price. Originally, the tickets were going to be even cheaper, but we had to push the price a little because the costs of everything have gone through the roof since this tour was routed two and a half years ago. But in the end, we worked hard to keep ticket prices reasonable. At the end of the day, if the fans come and have a good night, and they’ve had value for money, they’ll come back.”

Echoing Penty’s thoughts, Anna-Sophie Mertens, VP of touring at Live Nation suggests that Capaldi’s current tour is “only the beginning”.

“Lewis has a great team, from his band, his tour and production managers and road team who have, for the most part, been there right from the start,” says Mertens. “A particular mention needs to go to Ryan Walter, Lewis’s manager, who right from the start had a strong vision in place and ensures every step, every release, every artwork, every tour announcement and on-sale is meticulously planned and slotted into Lewis’s career. It was always a perfect execution of putting the right building blocks in place.

“This tour is only the beginning of the many things we have planned on the live side for Lewis Capaldi in 2023 and beyond. I am extremely excited for things to come.”

IQ subscribers can access the full tour feature here.

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It’s official: country music is cool.

Long stigmatised as restrictively America-centric, country, shed of many of its unfashionable ‘country and western’ trappings, is finding a new generation of loyal fans in the UK, Europe and Australasia, playlisted on commercial radio and championed by tastemakers at Vice, i-D and the NME.

Riding on the rise of festivals like AEG’s UK-born Country to Country phenomenon (now in five countries and counting), crossover success for artists such as Florida Georgia Line, Midland, and Kacey Musgraves, European radio support and the backing of the Country Music Association, country is increasingly big business outside its US heartland – with visiting Nashville A-listers, as well as a mounting number of homegrown acts, helping to build a major new touring market.

(A slice of the) American pie
According to WME Entertainment agent Akiko Rogers, global bookings for WME’s country and Americana artists have increased 14-fold in the past decade alone. “In 2009, 27 international dates were booked out of Nashville, all comprising country artists,” says Rogers, whose roster includes both country (Thomas Rhett, Frankie Davies) and non-country artists (Greta Van Fleet, Alanis Morissette), as well as those sitting somewhere in between (rising southern rockers the Marcus King Band).

“In 2018, that number went to 400 booked international dates comprising country and Americana artists, and sometimes a hybrid of both.”

Global bookings for WME’s country and Americana artists have increased 14-fold in the past decade

“The market interest in country music only continues to grow with the demand for US acts to tour internationally,” adds US-born, London-based UTA senior agent Sean Goulding, whose country and Americana roster includes Jimmie Allen, Ashley Campbell, Logan Mize, the Wood Brothers and High Valley. “C2C [Country to Country] London, the landmark international country music festival, has been growing steadily since its inception in 2013, which is a good indicator of the genre’s impact. Having expanded to Scotland and Ireland previously, it’s now visiting Amsterdam and Berlin this year. A number of our clients have performed at it over the past few years, using it as a springboard for the international market.”

The majority of promoters, agents and managers interviewed by IQ highlighted the C2C phenomenon, as well its various international spin-offs (in addition to Britain, the Irish republic, the Netherlands and Germany, there are also two Country to Country festivals in Australia) as being key to country music’s explosive growth in new markets over the past five years.

Chris York of SJM Concerts, which created C2C in partnership with AEG, says the festival’s genesis formed part of a “conscious decision” to build and grow the market for country music in the UK. “I’d always perceived country as being promoted in a very old-fashioned way,” York explains. It was all about, ‘We’ll pay them some money, put on a show at Wembley, maybe get a tour out of it…’ They weren’t interested in building a community.”

In contrast, York continues, C2C – bolstered by support from radio DJs such as Radio 2’s Bob Harris and Chris Country’s Chris Stevens – helped to establish a tight-knit community of fans, to the point where there is also now a sizeable country touring market in the UK.  “We did 45,000 tickets in London [for C2C 2018]. Four or five years ago that would have been beyond comprehension.”

“We did 45,000 tickets in London. Four or five years ago that would have been beyond comprehension”

Live Nation’s Anna-Sophie Mertens started promoting in her own right three years ago, and is now the “go-to person” for country shows in the company’s UK office, she explains. She says the number of country acts who want to play in the UK has more than doubled since then, including both big names worthy of headlining C2C and smaller emerging acts keen to stake a claim in the increasingly crowded country touring market.

Spurred on
Add hit drama series Nashville into that mix, too, suggests Milly Olykan, vice-president of international relations and development at the influential Nashville-based Country Music Association (CMA). “The contributing factors in those first five years [since the launch of C2C] were the internet, the TV show Nashville and Taylor Swift, but now we can add to that with the growth of C2C and, as a result, the volume of live touring and the radio support of the BBC,” says Olykan, who, as VP of live music at AEG Europe, set up C2C UK alongside York. “Radio 2 and Bob Harris have been long-time supporters, and this year we saw BBC Radio 1 play-listing country for the first time.

“We’ve got a momentum going now, and more and more fans are discovering they like country music.”

Anna-Sophie Mertens says the number of country acts who want to play in the UK has more than doubled in the past three years

In Germany, promoter Oliver Hoppe of Wizard Promotions also identifies Nashville as being a key driver of interest in country music – and ticket sales. “Our most successful tour so far is Charles Esten from the Nashville TV show,” he says. “1,500 tickets, five dates, all sold out.”

Hoppe, who describes himself as the main “country guy” in Germany, says the popularity of country music accelerated “six or seven years ago” after the CMA set its sights on conquering Europe. “A year or two before C2C in London started, we started to pick up shows here in Germany,” he explains. “Ossy [Hoppe, Wizard Promotions founder] used to bring Garth Brooks here in the ’90s, [but] that was a completely different animal – it was a worldwide phenomenon, and he played arenas over here that sold out instantly.

“It really picked up when the CMA put Europe on the agenda and we started doing grassroots work bringing over country and Americana acts.”

Hoppe says while the market is still “some years behind” Britain, “country is on the rise in Germany.

“It was a trickle at the beginning, but for every show we put on, more people come the second time around. We started with one country tour – the Band Perry, in 2012 – and now we’re at 25. We’ve been growing the market very organically but the interest is definitely there.”

“Country is one of the few genres of music where radio airplay can definitely move the needle”

The growth of country festivals such as C2C and CMC Rocks in Australia has been “instrumental in swinging the pendulum” towards country music outside the US, maintains Rogers. “Artists who historically did not want to travel outside of the US are standing in a queue to bring their music across the pond, to share experiences and life stories… I always love it when they return to the US with their stories of fans in Germany, Sweden, Belgium or Denmark singing all their songs back to them.

“It is so gratifying when a country artist plays a support slot on a festival, goes back in six to eight months and plays a headline club tour, goes back in another six to eight months after that and headlines a theatre tour, and then ends up headlining that same original festival.”

Like York, Rogers sees radio, as well as record label promo, as being a “huge factor” in country’s rise in Europe. “Country is one of the few genres of music where radio airplay can definitely move the needle,” she says.

Continue reading this feature in the digital edition of IQ 82, or subscribe to the magazine here

Nominations are open for the New Bosses 2018, the latest edition IQ’s annual list of ten future music industry leaders, as decided by their peers.

Anyone working in the music industry, anywhere in the world, is eligible, provided they are aged 30 or under and they have not featured in our New Bosses list before.

Ideally, we’re looking for those who are making a difference – the young players already changing and shaping the industry.

If you know someone who deserves recognition, please help to make their year and let us know. The process remains strictly anonymous, and the deadline for sending in your nominations is Friday 27 July.

We’re looking for those who are making a difference – the young players already changing and shaping the industry

We’ll be publishing a profile on each of the ten most nominated rising stars in the next issue of IQ, and this will also form the nominations for the Tomorrow’s New Boss award at ILMC in March 2019.

To nominate someone you know to become one of the New Bosses, email [email protected] and tell us their name and where they work.

Click here for a recap of the New Bosses 2017, in three parts (parts two and three can be found in ‘more news’, at the bottom of the story). New Boss Anna-Sophie Mertens, a promoter at Live Nation UK, won the Tomorrow’s New Boss award at ILMC 30.

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Welcome to the new New Bosses 2017, the tenth outing for IQ’s annual spotlight on ten future live music industry leaders, as decided by their peers.

With the feature entering double figures, we’ve witnessed many past winners go on to actually become bosses – and this year’s crop already includes company leaders.

The selection process for this year’s New Bosses shortlist was fiercer than ever, but the calibre of young professionals who are helping to improve the entertainment industry around the world underlines the maturity of the live music sector in particular – and its ability to attract some of the brightest and the best.

Anna-Sophie Mertens

Promoter, Live Nation (UK)
Age: 30

Hailing from Hamburg, Anna-Sophie completed a BA in music, theatre and entertainment management at the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts (LIPA) in the UK. During her studies, she also worked on projects including Rock am Ring and Rock im Park. She joined Live Nation UK in 2008 as a freelance promoter rep, but in 2015 became a promoter in her own right, working with talent such as Sigrid, Lewis Capaldi, Ariana Grande, John Mayer, Emeli Sandé, Ward Thomas, The Cadillac Three, Greta Van Fleet, Billy Lockett, Joy Crookes, Isaiah Rashad and many more.

Was it a difficult decision to move to London?
I didn’t have much of a choice. I stopped by Live Nation’s office for a coffee on Friday afternoon and next thing I know I was offered a temp role starting immediately. I went back to Liverpool, packed a suitcase and was living in London three days later.

What are you currently working on?
Wrapping up the last few tour on-sales for 2017 and plotting the next steps for acts like Sigrid… If 2017 is anything to go by, she is going to have an incredible 2018!

Would you encourage people to study at university before coming into the live music industry?
I had the best three years in Liverpool and you gain access to an incredible network of people. I continue to bump into alumni, and because you shared the same experience at LIPA they are more inclined to help you out, put you in touch with someone or point you in the right direction.

What would you like to be doing in five years’ time?
More of what I am doing now!

Zoe Swindells

Programming manager, The O2 (UK)
Age: 25

Zoe’s love of music led her to the University of Salford in the UK, where she graduated with a first-class honours degree specialising in music production and music business. Directly after her degree, she moved to London, where she landed a position managing recording studios. At The O2, Zoe started out as programming assistant, gradually taking on more responsibility until she was promoted to programming manager in October 2016.

What advice would you give to anyone wanting to find a career in the live music industry?
If you can’t find someone to give you experience, make it yourself! Organise a gig, produce a band, network and make friends with as many people as possible. Just put yourself out there.

What’s the best thing about your job?
Witnessing the growing buzz of the crowd, from when they walk into the arena to the point the house lights dim and the show begins. Nothing beats the power of that one song bringing the artist and audience together – it’s such a ‘goosebump’ moment.

What do you see yourself doing in five years’ time?
As long as I’m happy and still working in music in five years, that’s all that matters to me!

Is there any practice that you would like to introduce to improve the way the business is done?
I really like the ReBalance project, aimed at female musicians and audio engineers. I’d love to promote and encourage similar initiatives across the whole of the music industry.

Where is your favourite small venue and which dream act would you like to see playing there?
It has to be Islington Assembly Hall and my dream act to have seen there would have been Jeff Buckley. However, Portishead might be more of a possibility!

Ryan Penty

Agent, Coda Agency (UK)
Age: 27

Ryan graduated from the University of Hertfordshire in the UK in 2011 with a degree in music and entertainment industry management. He joined Coda as an intern and worked his way up to join Alex Hardee’s team in 2013. Since then he has been working with the likes of London Grammar, Sean Paul, Clean Bandit, John Newman, Mika, Hurts and Ella Eyre, as well as hotly tipped newcomers Mullally, Lewis Capaldi and Billy Lockett.

What made you decide to get into the agency side of the business?
I originally wanted to be a promoter, but there is a lot more strategic planning involved in being an agent. I love being completely hands-on with the direction of an artist’s career.

What is the biggest lesson you’ve learned to date about being an agent?
Get the money in early!

How competitive is it being an agent?
You need to be on acts really early now. Being an agent is becoming more and more about scouting new talent and that’s definitely a strength of Coda.

Who do you turn to for advice?
There is no better mentor than Alex Hardee. He’s done it all, seen it all, told some terrible jokes and still come out on top.

If you had to choose one highlight from your career, so far, what would it be?
I’m really proud of how I’ve helped Coda to become the company it is today. It is forward thinking, constantly
adapting to the changing industry and a real testament to all the hard work everyone puts in daily.

Andrés Guanipa Figueredo

Marketing social media manager, Move Concerts (AR)
Age: 28

Born and raised in Maracaibo, Venezuela, in 2010, Andrés graduated with a degree in marketing and public relations. For two years, he worked as a production assistant at agency/promoter Tresymedio, before moving to Argentina in 2013, where he became a marketing assistant and social media manager at Move Concerts.

Was it a difficult decision to move to Argentina?
I knew the decision was the right one. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t tough to leave my family, friends and my comfort zone, but if I had to choose, I’d do it again.

What would you like to be doing in five years’ time?
Hopefully, I’ll be back in Venezuela bringing international shows and entertainment to big venues again. We need a change of government ASAP, and when it happens this will be an option.

What one thing would you like to see happen in Argentina to improve the live music business there?
More quality venues. There are few venue options for a country that receives so many great talents, and none of them offer the whole package when you organise a big concert.

As a New Boss, what advice would you give to anyone wanting to become involved in the music business?
Never say no to an invitation; don’t stay at home. Opportunities are real and come from real people. Only by communicating will you get results.

What is the biggest challenge about working in Argentina?
Everybody knows everybody. So, when I arrived, nobody knew who I was, and the challenge has been making a good impact on everyone I’ve worked with, because once you make a mistake everyone will remember you for that.

The remaining six New Bosses will be profiled in future editions of IQ’s Index newsletter. Alternatively, read it in full now in the digital edition of IQ 73: