All Things Live acquires comedy agency ROA
Leading Nordic live entertainment company All Things Live has acquired ROA, a Swedish booking agency and management company for comedians, speakers, actors, screenwriters and authors.
Stockholm-based ROA becomes part of All Things Live’s comedy business, which also includes Norway’s Stand Up Norge and Sweden’s Blixten & Co. All ROA employees will remain in their jobs following the acquisition, terms of which were not disclosed.
“I am very pleased that we finally become part of All Things Live,” says Sabina Donoukará, the agency’s CEO. “It is a step in the right direction for ROA as a company, for our clients and our staff. Having the opportunity to realise our full potential feels good.
“This is the ultimate proof of the fantastic job our staff and us have done over the years. I am excited and looking forward to what is to come.”
“We are pleased and proud to welcome ROA and their many gifted comedians to the All Things Live family”
“We have owned this company for 13 years, and it is now time for us to step down as coowners and just be comedians,” says Johan Glans, a comedian who co-founded ROA in 2007 alongside David Batra, Thomas Järvheden, Özz Nûjen, Hasse Brontén and Måns Möller. “We are handing over the reins to people who can really make ROA reach its full potential. And the close collaboration with our Nordic neighbours will, of course, be extra exciting.”
Adds Henrik Berndtson of All Things Live Sweden: “We are pleased and proud to welcome ROA and their many gifted comedians to the All Things Live family. We are looking forward to strengthening our common platform in Sweden and exchanging talent, productions and experience across the other Nordic countries.”
Founded in 2018, All Things Live – backed by private-equity firm Waterland – also includes ICO Concerts and ICO Management and Touring (Denmark), Friction and Atomic Soul Booking (Norway), Maloney Concerts, Monkfish and Big Slap festival (Sweden) and Weekend Festival (Finland).
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Kevin Hart, world’s most bankable comedian, ‘finished with touring’
Kevin Hart, the phenomenally successful stand-up who last year became the first comedian to sell out an American football stadium when he played the 69,176-capacity Lincoln Financial Field, has revealed he may never tour again.
Hart (pictured) told cinema-owners at CinemaCon in Las Vegas yesterday: “I don’t know if I’m ever going to go out and do it [tour] again,” reports Variety.
He added that his most recent What Now? tour – which was the 12th-highest-grossing tour of 2015, and the highest entry in Pollstar‘s chart for a non-musical act, earning US$82.2 million from 137 shows, making it one of the most successful comedy tours in history – was his “last fucking tour”.
The What Now? tour wrapped up in Johannesburg on 1 April after visiting 112 cities, 13 countries and five continents over the course of 156 shows.
Watch the trailer for Kevin Hart: What Now?, the concert film of his Lincoln Financial Field show, below: