Gracie Abrams is heading for “bigger and better things” say the powerhouse team behind the pop sensation as they plot the next chapter for the breakout star.

The American singer-songwriter has stepped up a gear internationally since landing a support slot on Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour and releasing her second studio album The Secret of Us to critical and commercial success in 2024.

The 25-year-old, who is represented by CAA agents Carole Kinzel and Shirin Nury for North America and Andy Cook and Emma Banks for the rest of the world, made her European arena headline bow earlier this year after sales for the initial North American stint of The Secret of Us Tour blew up.

“We decided that Gracie had enough going on to justify pushing into arenas in most markets,” says Cook, speaking in the latest issue of IQ Magazine. “Knowing how strong the US sales were helped when making that decision.”

Abrams sold more than 200,000 tickets for her arena dates in Spain, Portugal, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Italy, France and the UK & Ireland across February/March.

“The demands on her time are insane, but she’s not just an incredibly hard-working artist, she does everything with such class”

“Most markets went straight into arenas in Europe on this tour, but not all,” says Cook. “There were a couple of markets that Gracie had never been to before, where we had to be a bit more conservative to begin with. But ultimately, we ended up upgrading those and moving into full-size arenas, and they all sold out very comfortably.”

Cook hails Abrams as “one of the hardest working artists” he has ever encountered.

“The demands on her time are insane, but she’s not just an incredibly hard-working artist, she does everything with such class. She’s a real force of nature,” he says.

“It feels like we’re just getting started – Gracie is going to go on to even bigger and better things. It’s really exciting to be part of. She has a fantastic team, and there’s a very open line of communication between everyone.”

Following her arena-headlining run across Europe, Abrams headed to Asia for the first time this spring, with a stint across Australia and New Zealand to follow imminently. She will perform multi-night runs in Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, and Perth, as well as one-off shows in Auckland and Adelaide.

“We’re currently tracking to 150,000 sales on this run, with all shows sold out,” says Louis Schlaghecke of promoter Frontier Touring. “It’s a fantastic escalation from Gracie’s last sold-out run here in 2024, where she sold around 22,000 tickets.”

“For the long-term vision, it is strategic to not forget to play for people who don’t know all your songs by heart”

Abrams, who first hit the road less than five years ago, will then return to Europe for a festival run this summer, with slots booked at the likes of Glastonbury, Rock Werchter, Mad Cool, Lollapalooza Berlin and the LN-backed Main Square Festival in Arras, France.

“More and more artists tend to skip festivals to prioritise the headline business. [But] for the long-term vision, it is strategic to not forget to play for people who don’t know all your songs by heart,” says Live Nation France promoter Armel Campagna.

She will also play in Poland for the first time at the 75,000-capacity Open’er Festival in Gdynia.

“She’s got the young audience and the young followers, and she’s a great songwriter from the young generation,” says festival organiser Mikołaj Ziółkowski. “There will be quite a mixed audience at our festival, and we are building the audience with people who are trying to experience something new,”

Following her festival run, Abrams will return to North America for a ‘deluxe’ tour leg from July to August, which includes two sold-out shows at New York’s Madison Square Garden (19,500). However, South American fans will have to wait a little longer for Abrams’ debut on the continent.

“It’s impossible to fit everything in one tour, but she’s set for a long touring career ahead and will continue to hit new cities in the future,” says Live Nation’s SVP of touring Lesley Olenik. “The tour’s success is a true reflection of her talent and authenticity as an artist, but the biggest driver is her deep connection with fans – when you’re in the venue, every single fan is belting [out] her lyrics, crying, and most of all, connecting with the community around them.”

Subscribers can read the full Gracie Abrams tour report in IQ issue 134, or online here.

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CAA’s Maria May has been announced as the recipient of the International Music Summit (IMS) Legends Award 2025.

The leading agent, who is being recognised for her outstanding contribution to electronic music culture, will be presented with the award during The Beatport Awards on 24 April, with a dedicated industry lunch celebration held during IMS Ibiza.

News of her award comes shortly after May was celebrated in issue 132 of IQ Magazine. The feature, which covers her 30-year career, can be read here.

May and her team represent artists including David Guetta, Black Eyed Peas, Róisín Murphy, Sara Landry, Layla Benitez, Hernan Cattaneo, Hugel, Meduza, Marlon Hoffstadt, Malugi, Paul Kalkbrenner, Robin Schulz, Icona Pop, The Chainsmokers, Jonas Blue and Purple Disco Machine, among others.

Across three decades in the business, she has also worked with the likes of Frankie Knuckles, David Morales, Layo and Bushwacka, Hercules and Love Affair, Azari and III, Moloko, Soulwax , 2manydjs, Lee Burridge and X-press 2.

“To receive this recognition is both humbling and very exciting,” says May. “Not merely because of what it represents for my career, but because of what it stands for in the wider culture of electronic music. The first woman to be publicly recognised for her efforts with an award of this gravitas has been a long time coming.

“Watching electronic music evolve from underground rebellion to a global movement and being one of the many architects of the global business phenomenon that we have created and now being recognised for these efforts is something I never imagined when I went to my first rave.

“I really hope that this means the playing field is becoming more even and that the path to the top is wide open. Hopefully, we all will finally recognise the efforts of all the women in dance music and their roles in shaping the business to where it is now. Above commercial success, the most meaningful work for me has been building bridges between cultures, genres, generations, and genders. Fighting the fight when no one else would or could or cared.”

Beyond her role at CAA, May is a board member of female-led collective Lady of the House, which amplifies women’s contributions to the dance music industry. Additionally, she serves on the board of Beatport and the advisory board of the Frankie Knuckles Foundation. May was a founding advisory board member of the Association For Electronic Music (AFEM) for a decade and a long serving board member of Night Time Industries Association (NTIA).

“This award is not just about me. It’s for the women who came before me, the ones who were overlooked but laid the groundwork anyway”

“When I began this journey, the dance music industry wasn’t built with women in mind,” continues May. “Despite this, we were always there. Behind the decks, behind the scenes, on doors, artist management, agencies and in promoting and security. Doors did not automatically open unless we pushed them ourselves. Our community didn’t recognise our work.

“I stand on the shoulders of women who worked twice as hard as me to be taken half as seriously. Their tenacity, and their refusal to shrink has carried me forward every day. It has been my mission not just to succeed within this space, but to reshape it. I have worked to ensure that women, especially those without connections, without privilege, who come from places like I did are seen, heard, and supported to thrive.

“Because representation is not a trend, it is a responsibility. That purpose has guided my journey, whether through my day-to-day at my amazing agency CAA or supporting initiatives like Lady of the House, I have worked hard to bring more women into the room, and more importantly, to keep them there, empowered, paid equitably and respected.”

She adds: “This award is not just about me. It’s for the women who came before me, the ones who were overlooked but laid the groundwork anyway. It is for the women beside me now, fierce, brilliant, relentless who continue to strive. And it’s for the women still coming — who I hope will never have to ask for permission to belong here.”

May joins previous IMS Legends Award winners including Underworld, Nile Rodgers, Carl Cox, Fatboy Slim and Simon Dunmore from Defected.

“I have enjoyed watching Maria’s career grow from my first meeting with her in the offices of ITB in 1994, seeing her develop with her acts into a global force of nature when it comes to agenting talent,” adds IMS and AFEM co-founder Ben Turner. “Her role behind the scenes in affecting how the industry operates may not be seen by so many, but is felt by everybody. She challenges the industry to think and be better. She cares as much today as she did as an passionate agent in her early 20s on the dancefloor at Liquid in Miami listening to Frankie Knuckles and David Morales – which is how I will always visualise her!

“Both IMS and the clubbing industry of Ibiza are truly proud of her achievements. Electronic music is in a better place because of the person that is Maria May.”

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Dua Lipa’s longtime WME agent David Bradley has lifted the lid on the star’s “mind-blowing” ascension from UK grassroots music venues to extensive world tours, ahead of her summer stadium run.

The latest step in Lipa’s carefully considered climb is her global Radical Optimism Tour, which encompasses 77 dates in arenas and stadiums across Asia, Australia, New Zealand, Europe, North America and Latin America.

“Dua’s touring strategy has been global from day one, but she’s never skipped steps,” Bradley tells IQ. “She put in the work and toured extensively in Europe, the Americas, Asia and Australia, long before New Rules made her a superstar. That’s why she’s doing the level of business she’s doing now – because she built a platform in these places and is incrementally growing them.”

The Radical Optimism Tour follows 2022’s 71-date Future Nostalgia run – the singer’s first arena tour – which generated $89,302,575 at the box office.

“It’s part of the wider strategy to leave a little bit on the table for the next time”

“The next logical step following a tour like that is to go and do multiples in arenas and higher grosses,” explains Bradley. “Once you’ve knocked those down, you’ll feel confident going into stadiums everywhere.”

The lightning-quick sell-outs for Lipa’s two dates at Wembley Stadium in June bodes well for future stadium runs. The first show at the 90,000-cap London stadium went on sale the week after the 29-year-old’s headline set at Glastonbury and sold out in just five minutes.

“Glastonbury was the best tour advert we could have possibly had,” says Bradley. “There was so much demand, I think we could have gone on to do three or possibly four Wembley Stadiums. But it’s also just thinking of the future as well. This is not going to be Dua’s last tour, so it’s part of the wider strategy to leave a little bit on the table for the next time.

“She is still a relatively new artist so we’re on that upward swing. We’re not quite at the point now of just wanting to take every possible ticket out of the market.”

“The real court of public opinion for touring artists is ticket sales”

Even so, the Radical Optimism Tour has sold well over half a million tickets so far, according to the WME agent, with the Latin America leg yet to go on sale.

“The real court of public opinion for touring artists is ticket sales,” he continues. “People can say what they want about streaming figures or album sales and all the rest of it but if you want a true representation of how popular an artist is, put a tour on sale and see how it goes. In this scenario, she has defied all expectations and continues to grows exponentially every year.”

With ticket prices currently under the microscope and the secondary market very much active, Bradley says the tour’s sell-out success is partially down to “very intentional” pricing.

“The Radical Optimism Tour is premium pop, not premium price,” he says. “The very best seats in the house at Wembley will be priced at £150, which, as far as stadium scaling goes, is very conservative, but we’ll also have seats in the building at £35-45.

“There’s a balance of not wanting to gouge the fans, wanting to sell out and also making sure that the people who have delivered the show are being compensated fairly.

“If a ticket is trading for £1,000 on Viagogo, that’s what it’s worth”

“Anything short of a sellout is often considered not to be a success and becomes a negative talking point so you want to avoid that as best you can. By the same token, you don’t want to be leaving a lot of money on the table because the secondary market will just hoover that up.

“If a ticket is trading for £1,000 on Viagogo, that’s what it’s worth. And if the primary seller – ie the artist and the promoter – is selling it for £100, that money is not going to anyone that’s delivered and produced the show – it’s going to a tout, which is outrageous. So the only way we can do that is often by increasing ticket prices. And sometimes people get that calculation wrong.”

With the Asia, Australia and New Zealand legs of the Radical Optimism Tour wrapped up, Lipa is due to kick off her European outing on 11 May at Movistar Arena in Spain.

“The show just gets better and better as it goes along,” says Bradley. “We’ve got a well road-tested team of dancers and musicians, and Dua is on phenomenal form – and that just comes with practice and time on the road. Dua will do a debrief after every show with the key people in the team on the creative side and implement changes along the way so by the time we get to Wembley Stadium, for instance, I think this will be a very well-oiled machine.”

Dua Lipa is represented by WME’s David Bradley, David Levy and Brett Murrihy in Australia, Asia, Europe and New Zealand. CAA’s Rob Light, Marlene Tsuchii and Carole Kinzel represent her in North America and South America.

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Lady Gaga has announced The Mayhem Ball tour of North America and Europe – her first arena run in seven years.

The CAA-represented singer-songwriter, who headlines next month’s Coachella in the US, prior to playing stadium residencies in Mexico City and Singapore – followed by a landmark free concert on Rio’s Copacabana Beach in Brazil – will launch the tour at Las Vegas’ T-Mobile Arena on 16 July.

Other stops will include multiple dates at venues in Seattle, New York, Miami, Toronto, Chicago, London, Stockholm, Milan, Barcelona, Berlin, Lyon and Paris, as well as one-off shows at Manchester’s Co-op Live, Ziggo Dome in Amsterdam and Antwerp’s Sportpaleis.

“With The Mayhem Ball, I wanted to create a different kind of experience – something more intimate”

“This is my first arena tour since 2018,” says Gaga. “There’s something electric about a stadium, and I love every moment of those shows. But with The Mayhem Ball, I wanted to create a different kind of experience – something more intimate – closer, more connected – that lends itself to the live theatrical art I love to create.”

The tour, which is presented by Live Nation, is in support of Gaga’s new album MAYHEM and marks the 38-year-old star’s first North American and Europe/UK run since her 2022 Chromatica Ball Tour, which grossed $112.4 million from 834,000 tickets sold, according to Billboard Boxscore.

The full list of shows confirmed for 2025 (including previously announced dates) is as follows:

Sat Apr 26 – Mexico City, Mexico – Estadio GNP Seguros

Sun Apr 27 – Mexico City, Mexico – Estadio GNP Seguros

Sat May 3 – Rio de Janeiro, Brazil – Copacabana Beach

Sun May 18 – Singapore – National Stadium

Mon May 19 – Singapore – National Stadium

Wed May 21 – Singapore – National Stadium

Sat May 24 – Singapore – National Stadium

North America

Wed Jul 16 – Las Vegas, NV – T-Mobile Arena

Fri Jul 18 – Las Vegas, NV – T-Mobile Arena

Wed Aug 06 – Seattle, WA – Climate Pledge Arena

Thu Aug 07 – Seattle, WA – Climate Pledge Arena

Fri Aug 22 – New York, NY – Madison Square Garden

Sat Aug 23 – New York, NY – Madison Square Garden

Tue Aug 26 – New York, NY – Madison Square Garden

Sun Aug 31 – Miami, FL – Kaseya Center

Mon Sep 01 – Miami, FL – Kaseya Center

Wed Sep 10 – Toronto, ON – Scotiabank Arena

Thu Sep 11 – Toronto, ON – Scotiabank Arena

Mon Sep 15 – Chicago, IL – United Center

Wed Sep 17 – Chicago, IL – United Center

Europe:

Mon Sep 29 – London, UK – The O2

Tue Sep 30 – London, UK – The O2

Thu Oct 02 – London, UK – The O2

Tue Oct 07 – Manchester, UK – Co-op Live

Sun Oct 12 – Stockholm, Sweden – Avicii Arena

Mon Oct 13 – Stockholm, Sweden – Avicii Arena

Sun Oct 19 – Milan, Italy – Unipol Forum

Mon Oct 20 – Milan, Italy – Unipol Forum

Tue Oct 28 – Barcelona, Spain – Palau Sant Jordi

Wed Oct 29 – Barcelona, Spain – Palau Sant Jordi

Tue Nov 04 – Berlin, Germany – Uber Arena

Wed Nov 05 – Berlin, Germany – Uber Arena

Sun Nov 09 – Amsterdam, Netherlands – Ziggo Dome

Tue Nov 11 – Antwerp, Belgium – Sportpaleis Arena

Thu Nov 13 – Lyon, France – LDLC Arena

Fri Nov 14 – Lyon, France – LDLC Arena

Mon Nov 17 – Paris, France – Accor Arena

Tue Nov 18 – Paris, France – Accor Arena

Thu Nov 20 – Paris, France – Accor Arena

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As the cost of touring increases and recording revenue slumps, artists are increasingly supplementing their income with ‘non-traditional’ revenue streams.

At the recent ILMC Futures Forum, moderator Caroline Reason (MATA Agency), along with Linda Maitland (Atlas Artists), Rhys France (CAA) and Shelley Frost (Fridge Entertainment), came together to discuss “game-changing” sources of income.

The panel, Show Me The Money: Alternative Revenue Streams, dived into brand deals, corporate events and VIP upgrades for developing and mid-tier artists.

Private and corporate events
Maitland, an artist manager for the likes of Rachel Chinouriri, Celeste and Gabriels, said she has become “heavily reliant” on corporate and private events to subsidise the cost of touring for her clients.

“These kinds of events are essential for the business – some artists would really struggle without them,” she said. “You don’t make that much money from live unless you’re at a certain level but even when you do, you want to put it back into production and build the quality of the show in order to get more shows. So it’s very, very difficult to make a profit.”

CAA corporate and private events booker Rhys France added that opportunities for non-public-facing events come in all shapes and sizes. “Private and corporate shows are very scalable. We signed a performance-based deal with Troye Sivan and H&M that included a 30-minute performance for invited guests only. That was a huge production – an arena-scale kind of performance with backing dancers and his whole crew.

“Private and corporate events are essential for the business – some artists would really struggle without them”

“We also did a deal that involved Jorja Smith performing an acoustic set at a gala dinner for Chanel with 100 guests, and another for Gok Wan to DJ at an event for Screw Fix.”

Shelley Frost, founder of Dubai-based independent artist and entertainment agency Fridge Entertainment, said artists are increasingly relying on the MENA region for corporate and private shows.

“We see a number of artists from the UK specifically, but also from Europe, who manage to supplement their income by popping over on a regular basis – not just for one-offs but perhaps spending three months there during season,” she said. “A fabulous singer called Emma Smith finds this [region] a really useful stop in her year. Some artists find it so lucrative that they will end up being based there permanently. It’s a very forward-thinking, dynamic, edgy market and its growth is not going to stop.”

Reason also pointed out that while corporate and private events can help with artist development, they can also prolong an artist’s career.

“There a lot of artists out there who actually can’t sell tickets anymore but can have a lot of success with private and corporate shows,” she added.

“Opportunities with brands that can allow us to maybe make a bit of profit [on tour]”

While non-public-facing events may be a lucrative revenue stream for artists, they’re not always the best experience for artists.

Maitland said: “I prepare my artists for the worst-case scenario where everyone is talking and no one is going to pay any attention to you.”

Frost agreed, adding that how these kinds of events are brokered is vital to ensure that artists can maintain a level of integrity: “We often try to avoid long sets or will steer a client away from having an artist present during dinner time and perhaps have something as an opener or focus on 15 memorable minutes rather than 45 or minutes or an hour-long set.”

Brand deals
Moving on to other left-of-live revenue streams for artists, the panel discussed how brand deals can be “vital” for independent artists looking to cover some costs.

“Rachel [Chinouriri] was going to support Remi Wolf last year but we had to cancel the tour because we were losing too much money,” Maitland explained. “A high street brand has now offered us the amount of money we’d need to do a US tour if Rachel wears some of the outfits on stage. It’s those opportunities with brands that can allow us to maybe make a bit of profit and if the brand alignment works, then it’s a win for everyone.”

“We can all go out there and hunt for that show or store opening or product launch but they are difficult to find”

Maitland is also working with a fashion house to offset styling fees for her client Celeste.

“They might create an outfit and then we have three of those outfits and she can just wear that over the summer,” she explained. “That really helps because styling fees are so massive. Artists are expected to wear a different outfit for every show, which makes it very expensive when you’re touring so these deals make a massive difference.”

The Catch-22 with brand deals, Reason pointed out, is that they’re hardest to secure when artists are developing and therefore need them the most.

“We often get calls from managers or agents looking to get that extra date in for the tour to tip it into a profit-making tour,” said Reason. “We can all go out there and hunt for that show or store opening or product launch but they are difficult to find. It’s a hustle.”

Maitland continued: “And then you might have a brand come along that you’re not aligned with. But you’re working with a developing artist and they’re going to pay you £20,000 – I can do a whole EP campaign with that. So the conflict is: do you take that money from a brand you don’t align with, but then you can put out your whole project?”

“A little VIP package for an extra £30-40 changed our tour from a loss-making tour into a profit-making tour”

Frost added: “Brands are far more keen today to link in with an artist whose values they align with and we’re finding in the Middle East that doesn’t necessarily need to be an A-list artist.”

Another challenge is weighing up exclusivity clauses and whether the deal is worth missing out on other opportunities with brands.

“We’ve just done a deal with a tech company where the artist can’t do anything with any other tech companies for a year,” said Maitland. “So you have to ask yourself whether you’re jeopardising a lot of future deals when you’re going to be in a much better position.”

VIP upgrades
Another vital non-traditional revenue stream that can help developing artists make a profit on tour is VIP upgrade, Maitland told delegates.

“We were losing money for Rachel’s [Chinouriri] UK tour last November and we didn’t want to just go to the label and ask for tour support – I think it’s really integral that we build our artists’ live business in a way that’s not depending on that – so we added VIP that would give people access to watch her during sound check, early access to merch and lanyard,” said Maitland.

“It was just a little package for an extra £30-40 and that changed our tour from a loss-making tour into a profit-making tour. Now we’ve just put on sale the US tour, which has sold out very quickly. We’ve upgraded the venues and added on the VIP and that’s allowed Rachel to tour in the US, otherwise, would be struggling to get out there.”

Show Me The Money: Alternative Revenue Streams took place at ILMC Futures Forum on Friday 28 February 2025 at Royal Lancaster London.

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The debate over the impact of VIP culture on the next generation of clubbers has been reignited as top executives warn it is in danger of becoming “an elite form of entertainment”.

Moderated by International Music Summit (IMS) co-founder Ben Turner, ILMC 37’s Electronic Music: Where to Now? panel delved into the dance space ahead of the imminent launch of Ibiza’s latest superclub [UNVRS].

Billed as the world’s first “hyper club” thanks to its cutting-edge technology, the 15,000-cap venue is due to open this summer on the site of the former Privilege Ibiza.

“I think it’s going to be amazing,” said CAA agent Maria May, who has worked in the electronic space for almost 30 years. “The team behind it [Yann Pissenem’s The Night League] are incredible. The production in there is going to be epic. I think every artist that is going to be in there is going to make the most of it. Anyone who’s going to Ibiza next summer is going to go to [UNVRS] to see what he’s done to it.”

Today (13 March), meanwhile, it was announced that Calvin Harris will become the first artist in history to hold a double residency at the same White Isle venue in a single season. He will take over Tuesdays (1 July-26 August) and Fridays (30 May-12 September) at Ushuaïa Ibiza this summer with 25 curated shows. General sale tickets cost €100-120.

Speaking at London’s Royal Lancaster, Turner noted electronic music, which was valued globally at $7.3 billion pre-pandemic, suffered an “inevitable dip” during the Covid years, but had since experienced a “phenomenal bounce back” to a “nearly $12bn industry”.

“The whole success of the night is going to be based on if you’re selling out all your tables”

On a less positive note, May admitted to concerns over the general state of affairs, suggesting that young clubbers were shortening their stays in Ibiza due to the escalating costs, and questioned whether the spirit of the island had been “buried”.

“Ibiza was a bit quieter last August, which was unusual,” she observed. “They might have made it up in September, but the reality is it was quieter… because of cost of living.

“I brought someone very important to Ibiza last year, who will remain nameless, but is in the rock & roll world and known to everybody, and they felt that it’s like Vegas now.”

May said the Ibiza profit model was increasingly leaning towards VIP table sales.

“The whole success of the night is going to be based on if you’re selling out all your tables,” she said. “All the investment that’s going into Ibiza has got to be paid for by the VIP tables. [But] there aren’t enough VIPs on the island to fill every single VIP table, so at some point this is going to start to creak.”

May was also critical of some of the circuit’s programming choices for stifling opportunities for newer talent.

“We’re also gatekeeping younger talent from emerging because we continually book the DJs that sell the VIP tables,” she argued. “The whole model now is pretty much based on a VIP offering and what we’re seeing is pretty much the same DJs from the same genres playing every single year. You look around across Europe and you see emerging talent that are selling serious numbers, but they’re not getting a look in.”

“We’re saying that it’s harder and harder to break talent, but we’re actually sticking to that top level… We’re maintaining the hierarchy”

She continued: “An artist that could… be playing in Ibiza this summer is not allowed to, because the promoters don’t know who they are. And yet, in other places in Europe, they’re selling out thousands and thousands of tickets. It takes a lot more than just a hit record and being hot in Europe to have a residency in Ibiza… but there is an element of actually starting to call out the gatekeeping.

“We’re complaining about there’s not enough headliners. We’re saying that it’s harder and harder to break talent, but we’re actually sticking to that top level. Especially in dance music, across the board, we’re maintaining the hierarchy.”

Turner brought up that VIP culture had permeated the London dance scene, pointing to one DJ event where VIP access tickets were priced at £400.

“I can’t stand it, I honestly can’t stand it,” said Pete Jordan of promoter LWE/AMAAD. “It’s a joke, and if we want to onboard young people, we should be really going back to the roots of what it was about… VIP culture is effectively cutting out most people. It’s going to become an elite form of entertainment, and youngsters will just do their own thing – and they’ll do something different.”

He added: “The biggest thing we should be doing is really opening the doors for young promoters to be able to do events and be given a little bit of freedom, and not be pushed too hard financially because, ultimately, it’s a risky business. If you’re 18-19 and haven’t got thousands of pounds to back you, then as soon as you do your one bad show, you’re out of it for good.

“Promoters, DJs, musicians, will keep coming through forever because it’s kind of hardwired into you. But at the same time, we are definitely cutting out some talent at the low end just because there’s too many barriers to getting into the scene.”

“A lot of promoters are going for similar acts across the board”

UTA agent Hannah Shogbola, who represents acts like Jaguar, Helena Star and Girls Don’t Sync and previously worked within the booking team at London’s Fabric, had mixed feelings on the subject.

“I’m kind of split on the VIP thing,” she said. “I think it’s also genre-dependent. For example, within genres such as amapiano and Afro house, VIP does really work. I’m not going to deny that sometimes I prefer to be in a club and be in the VIP section. But in other places, I don’t. I want to be down in the nitty gritty.

“I’m definitely against the insanely overpriced tickets to stand on the side of the stage next to the DJ… But I do think there are events that it is suitable for.”

Shogbola moved on to discuss the heated competition for festival slots within the sector.

“A lot of promoters are going for similar acts across the board,” she said. “Certain parts of my roster that might sit in between fees of £1,000 to £5,000, you’re probably up against 30 to 60 other people competing for that slot. It’s been quite tricky this summer actually, if I’m honest, just allowing myself to give artists that transparency, because obviously, for them, that’s hugely disheartening sometimes. I think in their heads, it’s always like, ‘There’s so many festivals and there’s all these available slots,’ and the reality is there just isn’t anymore.”

“The shows really need to sell out to be successful – 80-90% sold just doesn’t cut it”

Columbo Music’s Marcus Drew, who is also in-house booker for Phonox nightclub in South London and the 15,000-cap Maiden Voyage Festival, described the London festival market as “incredibly saturated”.

“We’re all going for the same kind of space musically, especially within electronic music,” he said. “Two Brixton acts don’t equate to 10,000 tickets. Ultimately, there needs to be an intentional theme in the curation, and there needs to be more community-driven sales beyond just headliners on the bill.

“It’s an interesting point about what slots are available to artists… because of the risks involved with festivals at the moment, the shows really need to sell out to be successful – 80-90% sold just doesn’t cut it. And with that in mind, we’re booking every single slot with artists that have proven ticket value in the market. So even our 12 o’clock slot, our 1pm slot, our 2pm slot, will be someone who’s sold 500 tickets and has proven that in advance. I think that makes it very difficult for everyone else.”

May did see reasons for positivity for the business as a whole, however.

“Yes, we have problems. Yes, there’s a credit crunch. Yes, the cost of living is more,” she added. “But there are still a lot of entities that we work with on a regular basis that are doing really great.”

A report on the state of the electronic music sector will appear in the next edition of IQ.

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Accidentally falling into the agency world, Maria May has helped to define the parameters of dance music over the past 30 years.

In part two of our in-depth look at May’s 30 years as an agent, IQ looks at the highlights, lowlights, and future of the CAA agent. Find part one here.

Team Disco
While there were early suggestions that May’s department at CAA be named “EDM,” she insisted on the “Team Disco” moniker that she and assistant Gina Gorman had adopted at ITB. “In London, there are 11 of us, while in America, we’re up to around the same number including agents and assistants – it’s no longer a niche business; it’s huge! But there’s still lots of room for this business to grow. The scenes are constantly evolving with new talent and new genres coming through.”

Looking back to the original Team Disco at ITB, May was one of the pioneers in cementing Ibiza’s place at the centre of the electronic music business. “I was part of the first residencies in Ibiza, thanks to Danny Whittle who wanted to do a residency at Pacha with Paul [Oakenfold]. He told me that if it worked, he also wanted to do it with Death Mix – David Morales, Frankie, Satoshi Tomiie, and all of those guys, and obviously I repped all of those people. The Paul Oakenfold residency was massively successful, and the rest is history.

“Being part of that and setting the building blocks is something I’m pretty proud of, even though we were just doing stuff instinctively. We didn’t really know whether it was gonna work half the time, but it did, so well done us,” she laughs.

Again, she names Judy Weinstein as one of the architects behind the strategy that propelled dance music to a global phenomenon. “It’s a partnership, and the managers who understand that are the best people to work with,” states May. “But I also represent a lot of artists that don’t have managers, so I work with them directly.”

Drawing comparisons to the worlds of rock and pop, she notes, “A DJ schedule is 365 days a year if you want it to be. It’s not built on a model where an album comes out and you’re touring and then you have a year off. I do a lot of live acts as well – Black Eyed Peas has been a fantastic relationship for me, because their management, Polo Molina and Seth Friedman, always trusted me with access to their diaries. I never imagined that I could be their agent, but Rob Light signed them to CAA, and then phoned me to ask if I wanted to be the Black Eyed Peas agent. I just love things that end up being beautiful happy accidents.”

“Suddenly I was working with this guy that I knew from my local area who turned into a massive act”

Losing Talent
Of course, for every happy accident there’s a flip side, and May admits that losing clients can be tough. “I was sad to lose Soulwax and 2manydjs – that was probably the biggest loss of my career, and of course they went to David Levy. That was a wake-up call because I realised that while David is my friend, he’s also my rival. We got through it, but I didn’t handle it very well in the beginning. It happened as soon as I started at CAA, and I’ll always remember going to see Emma Banks, and she was really clear, telling me that CAA didn’t employ me for my acts; they employed me because they believed in me.”

Indeed, May highlights the support her bosses and colleagues provided during some of her darkest moments. “About six years ago, my dad got very ill, and the company allowed me to do whatever I needed to do, so I made the job work around being a single parent with two kids and a dying dad,” she recalls. “And then six months after Dad died, my mom was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumour and needed round-the-clock nursing. It was a horrible time, but Emma and Mike and everyone at CAA were amazing.”

Career Highlights
Thankfully, the good times vastly outnumber the bad, and May has had some spectacular highlights in her career to date.

“David Guetta at Masada in Israel – I was the first person to do it with a major artist,” she says of her most memorable shows. “I also did Paul Oakenfold on the Great Wall of China before anyone had ever done it. Róisín Murphy at sunset on West Holts at Glastonbury is always fucking amazing – Róisín is one of my favourite partnerships. I’ve loved every second of being her agent, and I genuinely can’t wait for her next record.”

May also cites X-Press 2 as a standout client. “My relationship with their manager, Chris Butler (currently the manager of Jalen Ngonda also repped by CAA), is fantastic. He gave me my first band, Red Snapper, and when I’d been their agent for about a year, we sold out the Astoria, and I just remember being so proud. So, when X-Press 2 blew up, it was just brilliant, as I’d known [DJ] Rocky from growing up, and suddenly I was working with this guy that I knew from my local area who turned into a massive act.”

“Being able to make stuff like that happen that has a legacy is just the cherry on the cake”

She also talks fondly of American talent David Morales and the late Frankie Knuckles. “They taught me all about the New York club scene, and I’d go there every other month. It’s the privilege of a lifetime to know those guys – the originators of house music – and bring them to Europe. Frankie was an enduring friendship that I really am very grateful for. He was an amazing man, and I loved him, so it was really hard when he died.”

May’s association with the godfather of house music continues to this day, through her work as a board member of the Frankie Knuckles Foundation, and she recalls ways in which their relationship helped elevate one act to iconic status.

“I repped Hercules and Love Affair for a long time, and he brought this collection of music to me that included a track called Blind, and his biggest wish was for Frankie to work on remixes. So, I asked Frankie if he would do it, and he was a bit non-committal, so I kept nagging him, and in the end, he said he’d do it for me. And Frankie’s Blind remix is one of the club-defining tracks, even now. So being able to make stuff like that happen that has a legacy, is just the cherry on the cake.”

The Darling Buds of May
While May’s life ultimately revolves around her children, her devotion to her clients’ careers, and the growth of electronic music, means her workaholic approach is more of a vocation than a job. “I’m hugely proud of my two kids,” she states. “They are my greatest achievement.”

Within Team Disco, May works closely with colleague Jen Hammel in CAA’s London office. “We’re a bit of a dynamic duo,” she comments. “[Jen’s] proved to be a formidable agent. She’s just killing it, and I love working with her.”

The Future
With 30 years under her belt, May’s love for her craft shows no sign of waning, and she remains committed to helping guide the careers of a new generation of talent amidst an ever-accelerating pace of evolution in the dance sector.

“Due to TikTok and streaming, we’re starting to see genres changing really quickly,” she observes. “Being able to create longevity is definitely becoming more challenging, and it’s up to us agents to help our clients achieve prolonged careers, if that’s their goal.

“I prefer taking my time, underplaying, believing in the artist long-term, and building a fanbase that will stick by them”

“But at the moment, there seems to be a desire for people to just rinse the shit out of things. It’s almost like pop, and a lot of people are spending an awful lot of money on social media in order to maintain their careers, because there’s a lot of stuff that comes along that’s super hot, super firing, and doing massive numbers. But by the second summer, the kids have moved on.

“I also find that the leverage-on-leverage-on-leverage model, which was really strong in the dance music scene for many years, may be on the way out. For example, people who hit 25m streams would leverage that number, then they’d leverage on the leverage. I’ve never really bought into that. I prefer taking my time, underplaying, believing in the artist long-term, and building a fanbase that will stick by them. There’s definitely a style here within Team Disco (and at CAA in general), where we try our best to sign career artists, because we want to be part of that journey.”

Predicting both short-term and long-term growth for dance music, she tells IQ, “It’s interesting, China is definitely coming back strong again for electronic, and Southeast Asia seems to be really pumping again, post-Covid. Holland is doing extremely well in terms of certain sounds, certain scenes – and there are really strong ticket sales.”

“Our job (as agents) now is to slow time down and take more care”

Breaking new markets is also on May’s radar – an ambition that she believes is easier given the genre her clients occupy. “If you are a DJ, and it’s just you and a tour manager when you start out, you can go anywhere. And you have no costs, really, because the promoter pays for your flights. You can go anywhere you want, and we send people into new territories all the time. And the artists that come to you saying, ‘I just want to tour these markets and build my career,’ they’re the keepers. They’re the ones that put the graft in.”

Naming new clients such as Marlon Hoffstadt, Malugi, Jammer with Más Tiempo (a label/events brand owned by Jammer and Skepta), and Arcadia (Glastonbury structure and field), May concludes that the electronic sector is facing a bright future as dance music has established itself as a mainstay across most major festivals with more and more headliners coming from Team Disco’s roster.

“Our job (as agents) now is to slow time down and take more care, be totally confident in our artists, and help build long-term artist careers based on real ticket sales and exceptional experiences for the artist and the audiences,” she concludes.

“We need to achieve that in the most authentic and fan-led way possible – guardian angel-like – while having the experience, the knowledge, and the confidence in how to do that. I am lucky to be at CAA and to be surrounded by other people doing exactly that every single day.”

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Accidentally falling into the agency world, Maria May has helped to define the parameters of dance music over the past 30 years, allowing such talent as David Guetta, Paul Oakenfold, Black Eyed Peas, The Chainsmokers, Róisín Murphy, Paul Kalkbrenner, Robin Schulz, Meduza, Hugel, Sara Landry, and Lee Burridge to achieve global fame and long-term careers.

While her academic abilities perhaps had her parents and teachers predicting a job in the city, Maria May’s evening routine introduced her to a world in which she would ultimately become one of the global powerbrokers.

Born in Bedfordshire, Maria Hutt, as she then was, grew up in west London where her parents ran a pet shop – sparking a lifelong love of animals. “My dad, John Hutt, was also a security guy and did loads of different jobs before ending up as head of security at Wembley Arena and Wembley Stadium,” says May. “So I went to concerts from a very young age – my first gig was ABBA, when I was six or something, at Wembley Arena. It changed my life. That’s probably why I’m into disco.”

That serendipitous behind-the-scenes lifestyle became part and parcel of May’s daily ritual. “When I was 11, I got into a really good school – City of London School for Girls. At the end of each day, I’d catch the train to Wembley, watch a show, and then get a lift home with Dad. I’d often be doing my homework during sound check. And so I saw everything – Prince, Michael Jackson, Madonna, Pink Floyd, Luther Vandross, Tina Turner, Spandau Ballet, Tears for Fears, Dr Hook, you name it. And often I saw them on multiple nights.”

While she was still unsure about what to pursue as a career, a seed had been planted. “I was at the venue often till 10 or 11 o’clock, so I got used to being a night owl at an age where most people had never even been to a gig. Ultimately, after each show, I’d go backstage, and I really got into the atmosphere of all the hustle and bustle. Otherwise, I worked for my parents at the shop and did a load of part-time jobs to earn money. And then the rave scene hit and everything changed.”

“We pretty much were the architects of where the electronic scene sits right now”

While May seemed destined for higher education, acid house presented a different route entirely. “I just announced I didnt want to go to uni,” she recalls. “Mum and Dad’s reaction was that if I wasn’t going to university, I had to get myself a job. As a result, I found myself working at a recruitment firm, and within about three months, I was running the payroll across two agencies, because I just found the work really easy. And then I saw a job advert for an assistant at a private recording studio in West Hampstead, which was owned by Robert Howes, and at the time was rented to Alan Parsons and Eric Woolfson.

“It was a great job – once a week, they’d give me the tapes, I’d drive down to Abbey Road to get them mastered, and I’d hang out with the studio manager there. My parents were quite impressed, because I was on a decent salary, so they sort of relaxed. And meanwhile, I was in this crazy world of latenight studio sessions, with different people like Squeeze, Aled Jones, and Gary Barlow popping in all the time. It was fun, but I didn’t really understand that I was in the music industry… I was just turning up every day to make sandwiches and coffee, do invoices, and run errands.”

Mixing with musicians and DJs soon led May to rave culture. “I started going out with this guy, Chris Binns, who was running the World Party illegal raves. We did quite a few massive events, and I got caught up in that whole scene. I basically wasn’t going to bed four days a week because I was dancing in fields. I was very tired, but I was having the time of my life while trying to hold down my day job.”

However, that was all set to change, thanks to Phil Nelson, manager of the Levellers. “He rented an office opposite the studio, and he’d come over to collect his post, and we’d always have a chat. Then, one day, he asked if I’d like to be his assistant. Being 18 years old and not even knowing who the Levellers were, I just went, ‘Yeah, that sounds great.’”

Not everyone in the Hutt family was as enthusiastic. “I remember an item on the TV news about the Levellers as the whole counterculture thing was blowing up. They were sort of portrayed as the devil, and my parents were not impressed.”

But it was May’s work with the band that sparked her passion for activism and first got her noticed on a national scale.

“I was young and opinionated, but they put me in my place a lot and taught me loads about myself”

“The government had announced the Criminal Justice Bill and the Levellers decided they were going to fight it, so they got me to run their campaign. The challenge was to get the message out about all the rights the government was trying to take away from people. We didn’t have a budget, so we did all sorts of mad things: we blagged free adverts in the music press, we did billboards on Vauxhall Bridge, we organised marches, and it was so successful that I got profiled in The Times and The Big Issue which, for a teenager, was a bit mad.”

The campaign would also introduce her to David Guetta manager Caroline Prothero, who at the time was working at Ministry of Sound, and who, after meeting May, insisted that everyone entering the club needed to sign the petition against the Criminal Justice Bill.

In a stint that at one point saw May singing backing vocals for the band, she describes her time with the Levellers as an experience that shaped the rest of her adult life. “They were brilliant to work with,” she says. “I was young and opinionated, but they put me in my place a lot and taught me loads about myself. I learned about politics, and that’s something that has remained a big thing for me – being actively involved in trying to make people aware what the ramifications of new legislation might be on their lives. The Levellers were true human beings, who did the right thing, always, no matter what the consequences, and that really inspired me.”

The subsequent beneficiaries of May’s creative campaigning and strategic skills have included a number of music-related trade bodies and organisations. She is a founding board member of the Association For Electronic Music (AFEM) and also a former board member of the Night Time Industries Association (NTIA). Meanwhile, she sits on the boards of the Frankie Knuckles Foundation and Lady of the House and is also on the executive board of Beatport.

The Accidental Agent
While other friends had gone to university and even enjoyed the luxury of gap years, May had been working since she was 17 and, at 21, decided she needed some time out.

“I had a new DJ boyfriend who ran clubs like Indulge in Brixton. We’d go to Ministry of Sound to see [David] Morales and Knuckles and [Tony] Humphries, and otherwise, I decided I was just going to sit around for six months and have a nice time. But then the Levellers’ agent, Charlie Myatt, introduced me to David Levy who he worked with at ITB. David was in the dance music side of things, and when he asked me about my musical influences and I named Chaka Khan and Jazzy Jeff, he said he wanted to give me a job on the spot.”

“There were many situations where I had to deal with people who were not very nice because I was a woman”

As a result, in early 1995, May embarked on a new journey, alongside Levy. “I barely knew what an agent did, and on day one, David handed me a list of promoter contacts and got me to call them to ask if they wanted to book Paul Oakenfold. And shortly afterward, I met Paul himself. It was just before he started to really blow up. But basically, me, David, and Paul made it up as we went along, and we pretty much wrote the book, and I only now realise the importance of all the stuff we did in the 90s – Paul taking things dance music mainstream through supporting the likes of U2 and Madonna on tour, for instance.”

May also cites dance music matriarch Judy Weinstein as a big supporter. “If I’m in New York, I make sure I visit Judy. She has been a huge influence on me, and in those early days, she helped David and I build the business internationally.”

Lauding Levy as her mentor, May states, “We were an absolute dream team. He was fierce, and I learned so much from him. In fact, I introduced him to one of my best friends, Irina, and they got married. We remain close, and the lovely thing is that our kids are friends. I spend every summer with David and his family in Ibiza. I love him. He’s one of my dearest friends, and the 17 years that I worked with him were just the best, because in that time, we worked with everyone – we pretty much were the architects of where the electronic scene sits right now in terms of superstar DJs, headline billing, and residencies.”

She continues, “Before us, there were no dance agents. It was David, me, and a handful of others. And there were certainly no other women. As agents, we were treated like second-class citizens, because the larger live music business didn’t understand our world. But we were quietly making shit loads of money for our clients, so it was a fantastic time during which I learned how to be an agent.

“David never let me make a mistake; he’d always catch them before they went out, so he absolutely protected me. In saying that, there were many situations where I had to deal with people who were not very nice because I was a woman. But David defended me to the hilt. He was absolutely invested in my success.”

“I’ve grown with the client, and we’ve just been able to do the most amazing things all over the world”

That working relationship ended when Levy departed for William Morris in 2010. “I totally understood his decision,” says May. “He’d gone as far as he could go. And it allowed me, perception-wise, to come out of his shadow. He never treated me that way, but I know other people in the business saw it that way.”

Levy’s departure also helped solidify May’s own roster. “Of course, David took most of his artists with him, but a lot of acts who I had worked with day-to-day decided to stay with me – 2manydjs, Soulwax, Paul Oakenfold, David Guetta, and Róisín Murphy, for instance.”

While May remained at ITB for a couple more years, in 2012, she decided it was time for a change. “The likes of David Guetta, 2manydjs, and Soulwax were really big, and I ended up getting a few more assistants. At the same time, the industry was waking up to the power of electronic music and the money that can be made. As a result, a lot of the American agencies were trying to lure talent away, so maybe it was insecurity on my part, but I really felt I needed to be at a major agency so that I could better represent a client like David Guetta, for instance.

“I’ve been at CAA for nearly 13 years, and I made the decision to come here because Emma and Mike treated me so well. Back in 2012, CAA didn’t have an existing dance or electronic department, so one of the big attractions was coming in to set it up and do it globally.”

Recognising idiosyncrasies, she adds, “I don’t think I’m that easy to work with. I’m all over the place with my train of thought. But at CAA, there’s a genuine sense of looking after each other.”

Among the beneficiaries of May’s stewardship is Guetta, who has been at the top of the tree for decades. “It was just obvious he was gonna be a huge pop star even though he’s still a DJ,” says May. “Maintaining the DJ side of it has always been critical to his career path, and it’s something that we’ve pretty much pulled off in the sense that he makes commercial pop hits but does lots of underground stuff as well, so he’s now doing major festivals and stadiums as a headliner, like a pop artist with huge production. That’s been a brilliant relationship in the sense that I’ve grown with the client, and we’ve just been able to do the most amazing things all over the world.”

“Setting the building blocks is something I’m pretty proud of, even though we were just doing stuff instinctively”

Team Disco
While there were early suggestions that May’s department at CAA be named “EDM,” she insisted on the “Team Disco” moniker that she and assistant Gina Gorman had adopted at ITB. “In London, there are 11 of us, while in America, we’re up to around the same number including agents and assistants – it’s no longer a niche business; it’s huge! But there’s still lots of room for this business to grow. The scenes are constantly evolving with new talent and new genres coming through.”

Looking back to the original Team Disco at ITB, May was one of the pioneers in cementing Ibiza’s place at the centre of the electronic music business. “I was part of the first residencies in Ibiza, thanks to Danny Whittle who wanted to do a residency at Pacha with Paul [Oakenfold]. He told me that if it worked, he also wanted to do it with Death Mix – David Morales, Frankie, Satoshi Tomiie, and all of those guys, and obviously I repped all of those people. The Paul Oakenfold residency was massively successful, and the rest is history.

“Being part of that and setting the building blocks is something I’m pretty proud of, even though we were just doing stuff instinctively. We didn’t really know whether it was gonna work half the time, but it did, so well done us,” she laughs.

Again, she names Judy Weinstein as one of the architects behind the strategy that propelled dance music to a global phenomenon. “It’s a partnership, and the managers who understand that are the best people to work with,” states May. “But I also represent a lot of artists that don’t have managers, so I work with them directly.”

Drawing comparisons to the worlds of rock and pop, she notes, “A DJ schedule is 365 days a year if you want it to be. It’s not built on a model where an album comes out and you’re touring and then you have a year off. I do a lot of live acts as well – Black Eyed Peas has been a fantastic relationship for me, because their management, Polo Molina and Seth Friedman, always trusted me with access to their diaries. I never imagined that I could be their agent, but Rob Light signed them to CAA, and then phoned me to ask if I wanted to be the Black Eyed Peas agent. I just love things that end up being beautiful happy accidents.”

“Suddenly I was working with this guy that I knew from my local area who turned into a massive act”

Losing Talent
Of course, for every happy accident there’s a flip side, and May admits that losing clients can be tough. “I was sad to lose Soulwax and 2manydjs – that was probably the biggest loss of my career, and of course they went to David Levy. That was a wake-up call because I realised that while David is my friend, he’s also my rival. We got through it, but I didn’t handle it very well in the beginning. It happened as soon as I started at CAA, and I’ll always remember going to see Emma Banks, and she was really clear, telling me that CAA didn’t employ me for my acts; they employed me because they believed in me.”

Indeed, May highlights the support her bosses and colleagues provided during some of her darkest moments. “About six years ago, my dad got very ill, and the company allowed me to do whatever I needed to do, so I made the job work around being a single parent with two kids and a dying dad,” she recalls. “And then six months after Dad died, my mom was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumour and needed round-the-clock nursing. It was a horrible time, but Emma and Mike and everyone at CAA were amazing.”

Career Highlights
Thankfully, the good times vastly outnumber the bad, and May has had some spectacular highlights in her career to date.

“David Guetta at Masada in Israel – I was the first person to do it with a major artist,” she says of her most memorable shows. “I also did Paul Oakenfold on the Great Wall of China before anyone had ever done it. Róisín Murphy at sunset on West Holts at Glastonbury is always fucking amazing – Róisín is one of my favourite partnerships. I’ve loved every second of being her agent, and I genuinely can’t wait for her next record.”

May also cites X-Press 2 as a standout client. “My relationship with their manager, Chris Butler (currently the manager of Jalen Ngonda also repped by CAA), is fantastic. He gave me my first band, Red Snapper, and when I’d been their agent for about a year, we sold out the Astoria, and I just remember being so proud. So, when X-Press 2 blew up, it was just brilliant, as I’d known [DJ] Rocky from growing up, and suddenly I was working with this guy that I knew from my local area who turned into a massive act.”

“Being able to make stuff like that happen that has a legacy is just the cherry on the cake”

She also talks fondly of American talent David Morales and the late Frankie Knuckles. “They taught me all about the New York club scene, and I’d go there every other month. It’s the privilege of a lifetime to know those guys – the originators of house music – and bring them to Europe. Frankie was an enduring friendship that I really am very grateful for. He was an amazing man, and I loved him, so it was really hard when he died.”

May’s association with the godfather of house music continues to this day, through her work as a board member of the Frankie Knuckles Foundation, and she recalls ways in which their relationship helped elevate one act to iconic status.

“I repped Hercules and Love Affair for a long time, and he brought this collection of music to me that included a track called Blind, and his biggest wish was for Frankie to work on remixes. So, I asked Frankie if he would do it, and he was a bit non-committal, so I kept nagging him, and in the end, he said he’d do it for me. And Frankie’s Blind remix is one of the club-defining tracks, even now. So being able to make stuff like that happen that has a legacy, is just the cherry on the cake.”

The Darling Buds of May
While May’s life ultimately revolves around her children, her devotion to her clients’ careers, and the growth of electronic music, means her workaholic approach is more of a vocation than a job. “I’m hugely proud of my two kids,” she states. “They are my greatest achievement.”

Within Team Disco, May works closely with colleague Jen Hammel in CAA’s London office. “We’re a bit of a dynamic duo,” she comments. “[Jen’s] proved to be a formidable agent. She’s just killing it, and I love working with her.”

The Future
With 30 years under her belt, May’s love for her craft shows no sign of waning, and she remains committed to helping guide the careers of a new generation of talent amidst an ever-accelerating pace of evolution in the dance sector.

“Due to TikTok and streaming, we’re starting to see genres changing really quickly,” she observes. “Being able to create longevity is definitely becoming more challenging, and it’s up to us agents to help our clients achieve prolonged careers, if that’s their goal.

“Our job (as agents) now is to slow time down and take more care, be totally confident in our artists”

“But at the moment, there seems to be a desire for people to just rinse the shit out of things. It’s almost like pop, and a lot of people are spending an awful lot of money on social media in order to maintain their careers, because there’s a lot of stuff that comes along that’s super hot, super firing, and doing massive numbers. But by the second summer, the kids have moved on.

“I also find that the leverage-on-leverage-on-leverage model, which was really strong in the dance music scene for many years, may be on the way out. For example, people who hit 25m streams would leverage that number, then they’d leverage on the leverage. I’ve never really bought into that. I prefer taking my time, underplaying, believing in the artist long-term, and building a fanbase that will stick by them. There’s definitely a style here within Team Disco (and at CAA in general), where we try our best to sign career artists, because we want to be part of that journey.”

Predicting both short-term and long-term growth for dance music, she tells IQ, “It’s interesting, China is definitely coming back strong again for electronic, and Southeast Asia seems to be really pumping again, post-Covid. Holland is doing extremely well in terms of certain sounds, certain scenes – and there are really strong ticket sales.”

Breaking new markets is also on May’s radar – an ambition that she believes is easier given the genre her clients occupy. “If you are a DJ, and it’s just you and a tour manager when you start out, you can go anywhere. And you have no costs, really, because the promoter pays for your flights. You can go anywhere you want, and we send people into new territories all the time. And the artists that come to you saying, ‘I just want to tour these markets and build my career,’ they’re the keepers. They’re the ones that put the graft in.”

Naming new clients such as Marlon Hoffstadt, Malugi, Jammer with Más Tiempo (a label/events brand owned by Jammer and Skepta), and Arcadia (Glastonbury structure and field), May concludes that the electronic sector is facing a bright future as dance music has established itself as a mainstay across most major festivals with more and more headliners coming from Team Disco’s roster.

“Our job (as agents) now is to slow time down and take more care, be totally confident in our artists, and help build long-term artist careers based on real ticket sales and exceptional experiences for the artist and the audiences,” she concludes.

“We need to achieve that in the most authentic and fan-led way possible – guardian angel-like – while having the experience, the knowledge, and the confidence in how to do that. I am lucky to be at CAA and to be surrounded by other people doing exactly that every single day.”

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.

With the end of 2024 in sight, IQ presents a look back the biggest live music industry stories from the past year. Revisit the most notable moments from the last 12 months below – and there is only one place to start…

A $2bn juggernaut: Taylor Swift wraps up Eras Tour

After 149 shows, five continents and an unprecedented box office gross, Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour came to an end in Vancouver, Canada, in December.

The epoch-defining 21-month trek garnered an all-time record US$2,077,618,725 (€1.96 billion) at the box office after selling more than 10.1 million tickets, with the economic benefits of staging an Eras residency for host cities even earning its own term – “Swiftonomics”.

The run’s 80 shows this year raked in $1,043,421,552 (€993.4m) from 5.2m ticket sales at an average ticket price of $200.27 (€190.68). IQ explored how Swift captured the zeitgeist like no other artist in decades upon the conclusion of the tour’s European leg at London’s Wembley Stadium in August.

Coldplay’s Music of the Spheres World Tour was a distant second in the tour rankings – grossing $421.7m, having moved 3.3m tickets for 54 concerts (average ticket price: $128.05). The ongoing run has also made history after claiming the overall record for tickets sold on a single tour, shifting 10.3m tickets since commencing in March 2022, and is already the second highest-grossing ever.

The top 10 list was completed by P!nk (367.3m), Luis Miguel ($261.5m), Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band ($251.3m), the Rolling Stones ($235m), Bad Bunny ($210.9m), Zach Bryan ($199.2m), Metallica ($179.4m), and Madonna ($178.8m).

Global investment firm buys Superstruct for €1.3bn

American global investment firm KKR acquired festival giant Superstruct Entertainment from Providence in a €1.3 billion deal.

Fellow private equity firm CVC also went on to secure a stake in the firm, which owns and operates over 80 music festivals across 10 countries in Europe and Australia, including Wacken Open Air, Parookaville, Tinderbox, Sónar, Øya, Benicàssim, Kendal Calling and Boardmasters.

Superstruct was launched in 2017 by Creamfields founder and former Live Nation president of electronic music James Barton and Roderik Schlosser while at Providence.

IQ charted the increasingly close links between the international touring industry and PE here.

Meanwhile, Superstruct’s Barton will give his first interview in the company’s history at next year’s International Live Music Conference (ILMC).

Oasis confirm 2025 reunion tour

Legendary British rock band Oasis confirmed they are reuniting for a 2025 world tour.

The Gallagher brothers last performed together in August 2009, when they split following a backstage bust-up at France’s Rock en Seine.

The Oasis Live ‘25 Tour was the biggest concert launch ever seen in UK and Ireland, with more than 10 million fans from 158 countries attempting to buy tickets for the group’s first shows since 2009.

However, the unprecedented demand soon gave way to a dynamic ticketing controversy that has prompted multiple inquiries. There was widespread media coverage of fan anger after customers were offered “in demand” tickets for more than twice the advertised face value under surge pricing after queuing online for several hours.

Dynamic pricing was subsequently not employed for the group’s other tour dates in North America, South America, Asia and Australia, which have all sold out.

Adele’s Munich run ‘a milestone in music history’

The team behind Adele’s historic German run hailed acclaimed show as “a milestone in music history”.

More than 730,000 tickets were sold for the singer’s 10-night stint at a giant pop-up stadium in Munich, held between 2-31 August. The “bespoke” outdoor venue boasted a 220m x 30m LED screen, supplied by Solotech, which has been certified by Guinness World Records as the Largest Continuous Outdoor LED Screen (temporary) ever built.

Alongside the venue, the 75,000-square-metre Adele World – which included an authentic English pub, a fairground wheel, karaoke, Farmers Markets, merchandise and a typical Bavarian beer garden with live entertainment – attracted 500,000 visitors.

“We could not simply use a blueprint of another project – we had to start from scratch,” said Live Nation GSA CEO Marek Lieberberg, who co-promoted the residency with Klaus Leutgeb, CEO of Austria’s Leutgeb Entertainment Group.

“Before this started, I said: ‘Never before and never again.’ Now, I would say, ‘Never before but maybe again.

“It’s a milestone in music history, for sure. And it seems too good to waste. But if we ever did something like this again, it has to cater to the specific vision of the artist, like this one has.”

Co-op Live Manchester bounces back

A whirlwind first six months for Manchester’s Co-op Live (cap. 23,500) saw the UK’s largest live entertainment rebound from its delayed opening.

The £365 million facility hosted prestigious events including the UFC and the MTV EMAs, as well as indoor shows by Paul McCartney, the Eagles and Pearl Jam.

NEC Group veteran Guy Dunstan joined in October as its new general manager and SVP, with Rebecca Kane Burton, formerly of The O2, LW Theatres and Sodexo Live, becoming EVP of venue management for OVG International.

Originally slated to join the OVG fold over the summer, Kane Burton was parachuted in as interim boss of Manchester’s Co-op Live in April, as the venue’s launch was pushed back two weeks following a series of hitches. It ultimately launched on 14 May with a triumphant hometown concert by Elbow.

“I think any of us now, if we hear any Elbow music, will cry tears of joy, because that’s the moment we finally got the doors open and ready and away,” Kane Burton told IQ. “And then June just was amazing, because it was just literally back-to-back gigs and you start becoming a very well-oiled machine.”

CTS Eventim wins race to acquire See Tickets

CTS Eventim acquired Vivendi’s festival and international ticketing businesses in a €300 million deal.

The agreement included See Tickets and a portfolio of 11 festivals including the UK’s Love Supreme and Kite, as well as Garorock in France. Vivendi concert halls including L’Olympia concert hall in Paris, plus See Tickets France and Brive Festival, are not part of the deal.

The French firm’s ticketing and festival activities acquired by CTS collectively produced €137 million in revenues in 2023.

“With See Tickets and its festival operations, Vivendi has established two notable players in the ticketing and live entertainment sector,” said CTS CEO Klaus-Peter Schulenberg.

“The acquisition supports our internationalisation strategy and will also benefit artists and their managers, as we will be able to offer even more seamless services on a global scale. We look forward to collaborating with our new colleagues on shaping the future of live entertainment.”

DOJ sues Live Nation over alleged ‘monopoly’

The US Department of Justice (DOJ) launched an explosive lawsuit which could seek to break up Live Nation-Ticketmaster after alleging the company has violated antitrust laws.

LN and Ticketmaster, who merged in 2010, are accused of using their “power and influence” to “insert themselves at the centre and the edges of virtually every aspect of the live music ecosystem”.

The suit, which was filed in May in the United States District Court Southern District of New York, claims: “Through a self-reinforcing ‘flywheel’ that Live Nation-Ticketmaster created to connect their multiple interconnected businesses and interests, Live Nation and Ticketmaster have engaged in numerous forms of anticompetitive conduct.”

The defendants vigorously contest the claims, with the case set to go to trial in 2026.

Live Nation’s share price rocketed to an all-time high in the wake of Donald Trump’s election victory in November, and the company has said it is “hopeful” the imminent administration change will have a positive impact on its antitrust battle.

Second Sphere venue location revealed

The world’s second Sphere venue is to be built in Abu Dhabi, it was revealed.

Sphere Entertainment and the Department of Culture and Tourism – Abu Dhabi confirmed the longstanding rumours, announcing they will work together to bring the next-generation project to life in the UAE capital.

Since opening the $2.3 billion Sphere in Las Vegas, US, in September 2023, Sphere Entertainment has pursued plans to develop a global network of Sphere venues, with the expansion expected to provide “significant growth potential and drive new revenue streams”.

“The vision for Sphere has always included a global network of venues, and today’s announcement is a significant milestone toward that goal,” said Sphere Entertainment executive chair and CEO James Dolan. “Sphere is redefining live entertainment and extending the reach of its transformative impact. We are proud to collaborate with DCT Abu Dhabi to develop Sphere in their city.”

The partners say the venue will be located in a “prime spot” in Abu Dhabi and echo the scale of the 20,000-cap Las Vegas original, which has so far hosted residencies by U2, Phish, Dead & Company and the Eagles’ ongoing run, as well as the Darren Aronofsky-directed immersive production Postcard from Earth.

CAA trio appointed co-heads of global touring

Creative Artists Agency (CAA) announced senior agents Emma Banks, Darryl Eaton and Rick Roskin as co-heads of global touring.

The trio, all long-time senior members of the firm’s leadership team, will oversee the department’s continued international growth and build upon the work of predecessor Rob Light, who was named CAA MD earlier in the year after a quarter of a century as head of global touring.

“With the most talented team of agents ever at one agency, and serving the most influential artists in the world, we see unlimited opportunities ahead,” said Roskin, Eaton and Banks. “The live business has never been stronger nor had more momentum, and artists have never had more ways to express themselves and grow their careers, making this an absolutely incredible time to help chart CAA’s path for the future.

“We’re fortunate to have shared in the success, stability and uniquely strong culture that the department has enjoyed under Rob’s outstanding leadership. Our vision, and commitment moving forward, is to foster cutting-edge ideas that drive the market and ensure that CAA remains the most exciting and empowering agency for the industry’s best agents and artists to thrive.”

Live legends remembered

SJM Concerts director Chris York, one of the UK’s leading and most respected promoters, died in July aged 55 following a long illness.

Over the course of 30 years, York worked with artists including Oasis, Foo Fighters, Green Day, The Chemical Brothers, Lily Allen, Massive Attack, Robert Plant, Underworld, Lorde, Morrissey, Placebo, Suede and Stereophonics.

In a statement, SJM said it was “deeply saddened” at news of his passing. York joined the Manchester-based company in 1993, forming a “solid and unshakeable partnership and friendship” with founder Simon Moran.

“We have lost a leader, a mentor a force of nature and a friend,” said the firm. “His loss will be felt keenly by all the staff at the company and by many industry professionals and artists around the world. His influence and personality will live forever within SJM Concerts.”

The music world also lost Mean Fiddler founder and festival pioneer Vince Power in March, aged 76. The Irish promoter helped change the face of the music industry, working across festivals such as Glastonbury, Reading & Leeds, Phoenix, The Fleadh, Madstock and Spain’s Benicassim,

Power opened the Mean Fiddler venue in Harlesden, London, in 1982, which formed the springboard for his Mean Fiddler Group empire.

“Vince’s passing is a massive loss to the music industry and to me personally,” said Festival Republic MD Melvin Benn. “A visionary with a willingness to take risks to enable his vision but always with a humbleness that belied his importance. We had an amazing 20 years together that helped shape the music industry as we know it now.”

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Sam Fender has cancelled his remaining tour dates for 2024 after “haemorrhaging his right vocal cord”.

The singer-songwriter was due to play a second Glasgow show tonight (18 December) and his home city of Newcastle on Friday, in the final stint of his first UK arena tour since 2022.

In a social media post, the North Shields-born musician said he recently had the flu and investigations revealed he had haemorrhaged his right vocal cord.

Fender said he was “absolutely heartbroken” but two separate doctors had said if he performed he would be “risking lasting damage”.

The singer said he had been advised to go on vocal rest and not use his voice for a “prolonged length of time until it heals”.

Fender is due to kick off the US leg of his tour in February, before performing across Europe in the spring.

Fender said he was “absolutely heartbroken” but two separate doctors had said if he performed he would be “risking lasting damage”

Next June, the CAA-repped act will perform at the 75,000-capacity London Stadium on Friday 6 June, marking his first stadium show outside Newcastle and his biggest-ever headline show.

He’ll then return to the north for two hometown shows at Newcastle’s St. James’ Park on Thursday 12 and Saturday 14 June.

It’ll be the third and fourth time the North Shields-hailing musician has performed in his home city stadium, having sold out two nights back in 2023. He will overtake The Rolling Stones who have performed at St James’ Park on three previous occasions.

The 30-year-old has had trouble with his vocal cords previously, cancelling his 2019 tour when he had laryngitis and was concerned he could haemorrhage one of them.

“I’ve done everything by the book this tour living like a monk, it’s so unlucky,” he wrote on Instagram. “This has been the best tour so far and all I want to do is get up and sing again for you all tonight. I’m so, so sorry to all of you who are on your way tonight.”

Fender added he and his team were trying to find a way to reschedule the dates.

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