DreamHaus merges with Peter Rieger Konzertagentur
CTS Eventim’s Peter Rieger Konzertagentur (PRK) and DreamHaus are merging to form a combined company, PRK DreamHaus.
CTS has announced its German subsidiaries are pooling their strengths to “create additional synergies, optimise management structures and drive growth even more effectively”.
The new firm will be led jointly by Klaus-Peter (Matze) Matziol and Matt Schwarz, the current managing directors of Cologne-based PRK and Berlin-based DreamHaus, respectively, with Tobi Habla to be appointed as an additional MD. The sites and existing teams will remain unchanged.
“The merger between PRK Peter Rieger Konzertagentur and DreamHaus will optimally position the company so that it can continue growing and sustainably strengthen its live entertainment presence within a challenging market environment,” says CTS CEO Klaus-Peter Schulenberg. “With the combined expertise and dedication of both teams, we are ideally equipped to seize new opportunities and invest maximum energy in developing the newly merged company. I wish Matze, Matt and their teams the very best for this new phase.”
Schwarz and Matziol will work together closely to share their knowledge and continue driving future growth.
“This strategic transition should ensure that, even when Matziol steps down at a later date, the subsequent changes will occur seamlessly”
“This strategic transition should ensure that, even when Matziol steps down at a later date, the subsequent changes will occur seamlessly and in a future-focused way for the company, the artists and the partners,” adds the company.
PRK was founded in 1983 by Peter Rieger and has been led by Matziol since 2015. Rieger passed away in 2017 aged 63. CTS has been the majority stakeholder in the company – which has promoted acts such as David Bowie, P!nk, Cher, U2, Prince, the Rolling Stones, Whitney Houston, Tina Turner and Paul McCartney – since 2000.
DreamHaus was founded by former Live Nation GSA MD/COO Schwarz in 2021 as a subsidiary of the CTS Eventim Group. It stages Germany’s Rock am Ring and Rock im Park festivals, and has worked with international artists including Green Day, Slipknot, Måneskin and Muse.
CTS share price rose slightly today (19 September) to €87.35, giving the firm a market cap of €8.39 billion.
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Hurricane/Southside secures blockbuster acts for 2025
Germany’s Hurricane and Southside festivals have unveiled the first wave of acts for 2025, following a record-breaking presale.
The first confirmed artists for the twin festivals are Green Day, AnnenMayKantereit, SDP, Alligatoah, Electric Callboy, Nina Chuba, Biffy Clyro, 01099, Yellowcard, Von Wegen Lisbeth, Wet Leg, Amyl & The Sniffers, Berq, Blond and Ikkimel.
In June, Hurricane and Southside shifted 60,000 tickets for the 2025 events in less than 24 hours and before a single act was announced. The first advanced sales run of 10,000 tickets was sold out in just 17 minutes.
Demand for the 2025 events exceeded that of last year’s presale when 50,000 tickets were sold on the first day.
The twin festivals, which are organised by FKP Scorpio and DreamHaus, will return to Scheeßel and Neuhausen ob Eck between 20–22 June 2025.
The first confirmed artists for the twin festivals are Green Day, AnnenMayKantereit, SDP, Alligatoah, Electric Callboy, Nina Chuba
The two promoters, along with eventimpresents, recently revealed the 2025 bill for their other twin festivals Rock am Ring and Rock im Park.
Slipknot, Bring Me The Horizon, Sleep Token, Biffy Clyro, KIZ, A Day To Remember, Beatsteaks, Lorna Shore, The Warning, Feine Sahne Fischfilet, Idles, Jinjer, Powerwolf and The Ghost Inside are among the first confirmations.
Both events will mark significant anniversaries from 6-8 June next year, with Nürburgring’s Rock am Ring celebrating its 40th birthday and Nürnberg’s Rock im Park turning 30.
Elsewhere, FKP and DreamHaus recently celebrated the successful premiere of 6PM festival, which took place as part of Germany’s IFA Sommergarten – the centrepiece of leading technology and industry trade fair IFA Berlin.
The one-day event, organised in partnership with streetwear brand 6PM and TwoSlides, saw 10,000 fans flock to see performances from German-language rappers or Deutschrap.
Luciano, Pashanim, A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie, Reezy, Ski Aggu, Juju, Yung Hurn and surprise guest Central Cee delivered performances at the inaugural event.
Elsewhere, FKP and DreamHaus recently celebrated the successful premiere of 6PM festival
Many of these artists are at the forefront of the Deutschrap boom, as reported in IQ‘s recent Germany market focus.
When half-Mozambican, Saxony-born Luciano tours late next year, it will be in the finest arenas in Cologne, Hanover, Hamburg, Munich, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, and Berlin.
Another DreamHaus-promoted act, Apache 207, born in Ludwigshafen on the Rhine, of Turkish extraction, recently concluded a 24-date tour of Germany, Austria, and Switzerland and likewise hit all the biggest German arenas, typically for two or even three nights each.
“Germany is a very big market in itself,” says López. “So a lot of German hip-hop artists already have very good fanbases and a good market playing in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland,” said Neus López, head of export at German music funding institution Initiative Musik.
DreamHaus, All Artists Agency, and Landstreicher Booking are among those who have put a heavy emphasis on German-language hip-hop, nurturing the genre as it has exploded over the past decade. While DEAG has recently has spun off its hip-hop booking division into a standalone brand called District Live.
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Rock am Ring/Rock im Park reveal top names for ’25
German twin festivals Rock am Ring and Rock im Park are among the first major European events to unveil their 2025 lineups.
Both events will mark significant anniversaries from 6-8 June next year, with Nürburgring’s Rock am Ring celebrating its 40th birthday and Nürnberg’s Rock im Park turning 30.
Slipknot were the first headliner to be confirmed in the aftermath of this year’s editions and a number of additional acts have now been revealed.
In a European exclusive, Bring Me The Horizon are the second headliner to be announced. The performances will be the band’s only concerts on the continent in 2025.
Organisers say more than 90,000 tickets have already been sold for the festivals’ 2025 anniversary editions
Sleep Token will also be playing their only European shows of the year at the events, while other artists will include Biffy Clyro, KIZ, A Day To Remember, Beatsteaks, Lorna Shore, The Warning, Feine Sahne Fischfilet, Idles, Jinjer, Powerwolf and The Ghost Inside.
The 2024 incarnation was headlined by Die Ärzte, Avenged Sevenfold, Queens of the Stone Age and Green Day.
Rock am Ring and Rock im Park sold a combined 50,000 tickets for their 2025 anniversary editions in the first 24 hours of going on sale in June.
Organisers say that number now exceeds 90,000, with around 55,000 tickets sold for the former and 35,000 for the latter. The festivals are staged by FKP Scorpio, eventimpresents and DreamHaus.
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Hurricane and Southside sell 60k presale tickets
Germany’s Hurricane and Southside festivals have sold 60,000 tickets for their 2025 events in less than 24 hours, surpassing last year’s record.
The twin festivals in Scheeßel and Neuhausen ob Eck, which are organised by FKP Scorpio and DreamHaus. have a combined capacity of 143,000. The first advanced sales run of 10,000 tickets was sold out in just 17 minutes.
Demand exceeded that of last year’s presale, when 50,000 tickets were sold on the first day. The 2024 editions starred acts including Ed Sheeran, Bring Me The Horizon, K.I.Z, Deichkind and Avril Lavigne from 21-23 June.
“The fact that the demand for tickets for our festival flagships would be high was to be expected based on the advance sales launches of recent years,” says Stephan Thanscheidt, CEO and head of festival booking at FKP Scorpio. “However, we were surprised that we would once again significantly exceed last year’s record.
“Our own costs across all areas of festival production have also risen by around 45% compared to before the pandemic”
“We have a fantastic festival weekend behind us with shows by Ed Sheeran, K.I.Z, Avril Lavigne, Bring Me The Horizon, Deichkind and many other acts that seem to have completely thrilled our guests. Music fans in the north and south of Germany have expressed their trust in us with this bombastic demand, which we greatly appreciate, especially in a phase of rising living costs.”
Tickets for next year are on sale now priced €219.
“Our own costs across all areas of festival production have also risen by around 45% compared to before the pandemic and are therefore at a level that we neither can nor want to pass on to our guests,” adds Thanscheidt. “This popularity makes it easier for us to plan and shows how important live culture is to people out there. Our contribution to this will therefore also consist of a top-class line-up and good organisation in the coming year.”
Also in Germany, the FKP Scorpio/eventimpresents/DreamHaus-promoted twin festivals Rock am Ring and Rock im Park sold a combined 50,000 ticket in the first 24 hours of the presale for their anniversary editions. Nürburgring’s Rock am Ring celebrates its 40th anniversary next year, while Nürnberg’s Rock im Park turns 30. Slipknot are the first 2025 headliner to be confirmed.
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Rock am Ring & Rock im Park score strong presales
Twin German festivals Rock am Ring and Rock im Park have already sold a combined 50,000 tickets for their anniversary editions in 2025, organisers have revealed.
Rock am Ring has shifted around 30,000 tickets for next year’s festival and Rock in Park 20,000 in the first 24 hours of the presale beginning on Monday.
Nürburgring’s Rock am Ring celebrates its 40th anniversary next year, while Nürnberg’s Rock im Park turns 30, with metal icons Slipknot the first headliner to be confirmed. Weekend passes for the former cost €179, with camping tickets for the latter event starting at €248.
The events are set to return from 6-8 June next year and will feature around 100 acts – more than ever before – made possible by a fourth stage introduced especially for the anniversary editions. As per Frontstage, there will also be new camping categories as well as other innovations announced in the next few months.
The 2024 incarnation of the FKP Scorpio/eventimpresents/DreamHaus-promoted festivals each attracted in the region of 80,000 fans last weekend to see artists such as Die Ärzte, Avenged Sevenfold, Queens of the Stone Age and Green Day.
“The positive response to this year’s festivals was overwhelming, so we are all the more pleased that fans are just as excited about the big anniversary year”
“The positive response to this year’s festivals was overwhelming, so we are all the more pleased that fans are just as excited about the big anniversary year as we are and are securing their tickets early,” says DreamHaus CEO and festival organiser Matt Schwarz.
FKP expanded its collaboration with CTS stablemate DreamHaus by forming a strategic partnership to co-promote Germany’s Rock am Ring/Rock im Park and Hurricane/Southside festivals together from this year. Previously, DreamHaus and FKP Scorpio had already jointly organised the Tempelhof Sounds Festival in Berlin in 2022.
Last year, FKP’s Hurricane and Southside, which will be held from 21-23 June, also set advance booking records after putting tickets on sale for 2024. The festivals will star the likes of Ed Sheeran, Avril Lavigne, The National, The Kooks, The Offspring, The Hives, Jungle and Fontaines DC.
Fans bought over 50,000 tickets on the first day of the presale, setting a new bar in the 20-plus-year history of the twin festivals in Scheeßel (Hurricane) and Neuhausen ob Eck (Southside), which have a combined capacity of 143,000. Each batch of 10,000 tickets for the first price level of €199 sold out within just 20 minutes for both festivals.
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Rock am Ring/Rock im Park confirm 2025 headliner
Germany’s Rock am Ring and Rock im Park have confirmed Slipknot as the first headliner for their landmark 2025 festivals.
Rock am Ring, held at Nürburgring, celebrates its 40th anniversary next year, while Nürnberg’s Rock im Park turns 30.
The 80,000-cap events are set for 6-8 June and will feature around 100 acts – more than ever before. There will also be a fourth stage introduced especially for the anniversary editions.
The announcement comes in the immediate aftermath of the FKP Scorpio/eventimpresents/DreamHaus-promoted twin festivals’ successful 2024 editions, which welcomed artists such as Die Ärzte, Avenged Sevenfold, Queens of the Stone Age and Green Day.
“The last few days have gone incredibly well,” says Rock am Ring festival director Jana Posth, as per Sport-Rhein. “We were very lucky with the weather, the setup and the event went smoothly.”
“We are looking forward to celebrating the 40th anniversary of Rock am Ring at the Nürburgring next year”
Weekend passes for Rock am Ring cost €179, with Rock im Park camping tickets starting at €248.
“The site offers us optimal conditions to put on a great festival,” adds DreamHaus CEO Matt Schwarz. “We are looking forward to celebrating the 40th anniversary of Rock am Ring at the Nürburgring next year and would like to thank the entire team and the best audience in the world.”
Day tickets for this year’s Rock am Ring were €121.50, up from €99 in 2023, and €271.50 for three-day tickets, compared with €229 last year, but Schwarz says the price increases were unavoidable.
“We all notice every day in the supermarket, at the gas station or in all other areas of everyday life how the geopolitical situation, inflation and the pandemic have a lasting impact on life and simply make it more expensive,” he tells Watson. “Festivals are no exception.”
Adding that this year saw the launch of “a new, better and louder sound system”, he notes: “This year we have further improved the stage technology to make the experience for visitors even more gigantic.”
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DreamHaus hires three to festival team
Berlin-based promoter DreamHaus is strengthening its festival team with three new hires: Jana Posth, Marlene Ryba and Johanna Neuber.
All three executives will work on the Rock am Ring and Rock im Park festivals, which DreamHaus has been responsible for since 2022 after it was acquired by CTS Eventim.
Jana Posth takes over the position as head of festival operations/festival director Rock am Ring. She has held roles in the events sector for 10 years, including managing the Lollapalooza Festival in Berlin.
“With fresh ideas and their great know-how in the field of festivals, Jana, Marlene and Johanna enrich our team enormously”
Marlene Ryba assumes the role of senior communications & PR manager of festivals, having previously worked in the PR department at Lollapalooza.
And Johanna Neuber, who has been active in the music industry for five years, joins the team as a junior project and event manager.
“With fresh ideas and their great know-how in the field of festivals, Jana, Marlene and Johanna enrich our team enormously and contribute to the future-oriented development of Rock am Ring/Rock im Park,” says Marc Seemann, director of strategy & business development.
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CTS Eventim ‘significantly’ exceeds 2023 forecast
CTS Eventim “significantly exceeded” its forecast for 2023 thanks to a “very strong” Q4, according to the company’s latest financial results.
The pan-European giant enjoyed a record year, attaining consolidated revenue of €2.359 billion for the 12-month period – a 22.5% increase on the previous year’s €1.926bn. CTS had previously projected group revenue in excess of €2bn for 2023 as a whole last October.
In the preliminary figures, the group also reported normalised EBITDA of €501.4 million, up 31.9% from €380.1m in the previous year. CTS’ full annual report for 2023 will be published on 26 March.
The growth was powered by the German-headquartered firm’s ticketing and live entertainment segments. Ticketing revenue rose 32.5% to €717m (2022: €541m), with normalised EBITDA leaping 46.6% to €382.4m.
For the live entertainment strand, revenue jumped 18.9% year-on-year to €1.677bn (2022: €1.410bn), with normalised EBITDA almost flat at €119.1m, compared to €119.2m in 2022.
The group figures include income of €37.4m to which CTS group companies are directly entitled, resulting from compensation paid by the German government to the joint venture autoTicket GmbH, Berlin.
“The year-on-year growth rates shown here reflect the success of the operating business”
“As the prior-year figures contained a similar volume of income that had been received under pandemic-related economic aid programmes, the year-on-year growth rates shown here reflect the success of the operating business,” adds a company statement.
According to Pollstar’s 2023 global rankings, the Eventim Group is the world’s second-biggest promoter. The firm’s portfolio includes festivals such as Rock am Ring, Rock im Park, Hurricane, Southside,and Lucca Summer.
It also operates venues, such as the Lanxess Arena in Cologne, the K.B. Hallen in Copenhagen, the Waldbühne in Berlin and the Eventim Apollo in London.
Visions reports that more than 90,000 tickets have already been sold for Germany’s Rock am Ring and Rock im Park, which take place from 7-9 June at Nürburgring race track and Zeppelin Field, respectively.
Operated by CTS’ Dreamhaus subsidiary, the twin festivals will be headlined by Die Ärzte, Måneskin and Green Day. The events’ new premium camping offers are said to be almost sold out, while tickets for the Backstage Camp, Seaside Backstage Camp and Caravan Camping are already sold out.
“The demand for tickets is strong and the fans’ anticipation is huge,” says Dreamhaus CEO Matt Schwarz.
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Global Promoters Report 2023: Germany
In the memorable assessment he provided to IQ last year, Rammstein and Robbie Williams promoter Scumeck Sabottka of MCT Agentur gave the German market short shrift.
“It’s shit,” he said. “The really big and hot things still sell, but the middle bit is really struggling. And that is the important bit, because we don’t just live on cake, we live on bread. And all the bread is gone.”
This year, Sabottka hasn’t drastically revised his view. “It seems that major stadium and arena tours are selling well, while club and mid-size-venue acts are not performing as well as before the pandemic – but that’s just my personal observation,” he says. “Overall, I would say business is stalling and not healthy. Let’s hope for 2024 to do better.”
Other promoters have reported similar challenges in a market characterised by rising costs, extreme saturation, and unpredictable demand for all but the most star-powered events. While more Germans are attending shows than ever before, the sheer quantity of those shows has led to weak sales in many instances. So, while plenty of blockbuster events have managed to buck that trend, the general sense is of a packed market that can’t quite be trusted.
“Compared to pre-pandemic, I think it’s busier,” says Sina Hall, head of the international booking department at Semmel Concerts. “And it’s gotten a little bit rougher because everybody is back out now.
“It’s a little bit more mystifying and harder to tell what are going to be the hard ticket sales for an act”
“Because their markets reopened much earlier, the US acts are now willing and ready to put focus on Europe again, so there’s a lot of content going through, and the markets are tricky now. We are all coming to terms with the fact that everything has got so much more expensive, and it’s a little bit more mystifying and harder to tell what are going to be the hard ticket sales for an act. You can’t necessarily compare it to pre-pandemic conditions.”
But though all is not entirely well, Germany remains the largest live music market in Europe and the third biggest in the world. In addition to heavy gig-going cities such as Berlin, Cologne, Munich, Hamburg, and Frankfurt, it has a further 35 cities with populations of around 200,000-plus and plenty of shows and local events in most of them.
Local giant CTS Eventim has significant strength in the German market, with stakes in promoters FKP Scorpio, Semmel, DreamHaus, Peter Rieger Konzertagentur and a number of regional promoters, as well as venues such as Cologne’s Lanxess Arena and the Waldbühne Berlin. The group reported a milestone €1.02bn in revenues for the first half of this year, and noted that Germany, along with Italy and Austria, was among the major drivers.
FKP Scorpio makes its home in Hamburg and presides over more than 25 festivals across Europe. The company has tours this year with acts including The National and Queens of the Stone Age and will also promote Taylor Swift’s Eras stadium dates in Germany next year.
FKP’s German festival portfolio is a strong one. This year’s twin Southside and Hurricane events – respectively in the southern town of Neuhausen ob Eck and at the Eichenring motorcycle speedway in Scheeßel in the north – came close to selling out this year, with 78,000 attendees at Hurricane and 60,000 at Southside, and Muse, Die Ärzte, Placebo, Queens of the Stone Age, The 1975, and Loyle Carner at the top of the bills.
“Rising costs for virtually everything continue to take their toll”
To hammer home their ongoing health, the festivals promptly sold 50,000 tickets for the 2024 editions on the first day of presale. “As we have not yet released any acts for the coming year, this result is also an enormous vote of confidence, which is perhaps even more valuable than any economic success,” said FKP founder and CEO Folkert Koopmans.
Other German festivals for FKP include Highfield, M’era Luna, Rolling Stone Beach, Metal Hammer Paradise, A Summer’s Tale, Plage Noire, and Deichbrand. Berlin’s open-air festival Tempelhof Sounds, produced with DreamHaus and Loft Concerts, took a break this year after its 2022 debut, as its Tempelhof Airport site is home to a growing number of refugee shelters.
“Rising costs for virtually everything continue to take their toll,” FKP MD Stephan Thanscheidt told IQ in July. “Because of this, less demand, and purchasing power, a lot of festivals are struggling, and we suspect their number to further decrease in the future.”
M’era Luna, took place before 25,000 fans in Hildesheim in August, featuring artists including Within Temptation and Ville Valo. The Highfield Festival, organised with Semmel Concerts, attracted 35,000 fans in August, while the 60,000-cap Deichbrand Festival, in Cuxhaven on Germany’s North Sea coast, sold out in July.
Semmel is another German titan, regularly ranking among the leading promoters worldwide. It handles a heavy schedule of major shows and exhibitions, adding up to more than 1,500 events a year for over 5m visitors, with Hans Zimmer, Schlager great Roland Kaiser and Elton John arena blockbuster Rocketman In Concert among the stars, to add to many big shows and a booming exhibitions business.
“We need to take care of the acts now that will make our life and our industry possible tomorrow”
But alongside the larger shows, Sina Hall is passionate about the notion of developing newer talent, and she notes that while many bigger artists and productions are keen to make up for lost time, younger ones are seeking to tour for different reasons.
“There’s a lot of different models for going out there,” she says. “Some artists understandably just want to play again, and then there are artists that really need it as a crucial part of their career development.”
In that spirit, for the first time, Semmel launched a Reeperbahn showcase this year, with eight acts on the bill, including German and US acts across a range of genres. “I think that’s showing how important we find this development of younger artists,” says Hall. “We need to take care of the acts now that will make our life and our industry possible tomorrow.”
Of the other Eventim-affiliated promoters, DreamHaus, founded by Matt Schwarz, former MD and COO of Live Nation GSA, handles the Eventim-owned twin Rock am Ring and Rock im Park festivals – which bring a combined attendance of 150,000 to Nuremberg in June, this year with Foo Fighters, Kings of Leon, and Die Toten Hosen as headliners – in addition to numerous artist shows.
Live Nation has been big news in Germany for eight years, since its acquisition of the powerful MLK operation. The ensuing years have been predictably muscular ones, and Live Nation GSA staged more than 50 open-air events for over 3m visitors in summer 2023.
A first edition of Rolling Loud Germany drew 60,000 to Munich’s Messe München fairgrounds in July for a hip-hop extravaganza spearheaded by Wizkid, Kendrick Lamar, and Travis Scott. Superbloom, staged in Munich in early September by Live Nation-owned Goodlive for the second time, sold 50,000 tickets on each of its two days, and Superbloom director Fruzsina Szép pronounced the event “almost perfect.”
“There’s a lot of different models for going out there”
“It was an absolutely beautiful and calm atmosphere throughout those two days,” she told IQ days after the festival. “I’ve never experienced a festival like this, that I’ve been involved with.”
Live Nation’s Lollapalooza Berlin in April became the first festival in Germany to be awarded the DIN ISO 20121 sustainability accreditation. However, its 111,000-cap Download Germany at the Hockenheimring was cancelled due to production issues resulting from this year’s busy summer season.
Among its many artist shows, Live Nation GSA also sold out eight stadium concerts for honorary Germans Depeche Mode this summer – two in Berlin, Frankfurt, and Düsseldorf; one each in Munich and Leipzig – and the band return for eight arena shows early in 2024.
Careful but prosperous and acquisitive throughout the post-Covid period, German-headquartered live entertainment group DEAG in August laid bare its expansion plans for 2023, with a revenue goal of more than €300m, ticket sales of 10m – up from 9m in 2022 – and an expectation of 6,000 events across its key European markets. The company also revealed in its H1 financial results that it has “several acquisitions in advanced stages of negotiation.”
The company had a strong festival summer, welcoming more than 800,000 visitors to its festivals between late June and early September. A new acquisition, German electronic dance festival Airbeat One, attracted 70,000 people to its 20th anniversary. Other major acquisitions in 2022 included the summer psytrance Indian Spirit event in Eldena, and Classic Open Air in Berlin’s Gendarmenmarkt – to add to a portfolio that includes the Ruhr-in-Love, Nature One and Kessel festivals.
“If you look at their audience, they have almost four generations there now”
DEAG-owned Wizard Promotions has plenty of success stories to throw into the pot, including Scorpions, the KISS farewell tour, and a notably storming Iron Maiden arena run. “They know what they are doing, and they can go to market very well,” says Wizard managing director Oliver Hoppe of the British heavy metal heroes. “Every show was a sell-out – one of the best Maiden tours I have ever seen. If you look at their audience, they have almost four generations there now. For a lot of the younger kids, 18 or even less, that whole metal and rock thing is starting to come back a little now.”
All the same, Hoppe echoes the sense of a market still trying to regain its feeling for what works. “Pre-Covid, there was a certain formula and understanding of things: if you do this, then that will happen,” he says. “Post-Covid, a lot has changed. Anything that has a brand name does well, to a certain degree, and often regardless of the ticket price. When people know what they are getting for their money, they don’t really care how much they spend on it. But if they are paying €100 for a big show, maybe they don’t go to the smaller shows, the bands they haven’t seen before – they save up for a couple of months for the bigger ticket.”
Among Germany’s other notable national promoters, Hamburg-based Karsten Jahnke Konzertdirektion organises about 1,300 concerts a year – 900 of them its own tours in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, and around 400 as a local partner in Hamburg for other promoters. Forthcoming shows include a stake in two Hamburg dates on Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour with AEG Presents and a wealth of other events from Björk to BABYMETAL.
On the festival side, its events include the Stadtpark Open Air concert series in Hamburg’s City Park, launched by Jahnke in 1975, as well as JazzNights, Elbjazz, and Überjazz festivals, plus Way Back When and Campus Spring Break in the Ruhr region.
Other independents in the German market include Berlin-based booker and national promoter Z|ART, whose shows currently include Boy & Bear, Jockstrap, and Johnny Jewel; Hamburg’s a.s.s. concerts & promotion, which promotes and books up to 1,200 concerts a year for German and international artists, with branch offices in Berlin, Hamburg, and Düsseldorf; Hamburg-based indie Neuland Concerts, whose shows for next year include Jason Derulo; and another Hamburg native, Music Minds Productions, which this year has been involved with shows by both Till Lindemann and – in person at Berlin’s Mercedes-Benz Arena but not singing – former president Barack Obama.
“When people know what they are getting for their money, they don’t really care how much they spend on it”
Of the market’s other key festival promoters, Cosmopop is responsible for the 29-year-old Time Warp electronic festival in Mannheim and further afield; Opus produces the renowned Jazzopen Stuttgart; while ICS (International Concert Service) controls the legendary Wacken Open Air in Schleswig- Holstein, one of the world’s biggest rock festivals.
From a geographical and promoting point of view, Germany is a huge market and a highly regionalised one, in which the 16 states have significant local differences. Traditionally, national promoters have partnered with local promoters for shows in specific cities, though these days the boundaries are often less defined.
National promoters often run their own shows in cities where they have a presence and some cultivate local specialists in-house. For instance, Wizard Promotions and sister company Handwerker Promotion formed a local joint venture in 2018 called Rhein-Main Concerts in Frankfurt to produce events in the south-west region of the country.
Nonetheless, the old system remains broadly in place, with powerful local promoters including Eventim’s Dirk Becker Entertainment, which operates in the Rhine-Ruhr region of western Germany encompassing Cologne; DEAG’s Munich- based Global Concerts; Hannover Concerts in the northern city of the same name; and Undercover, based in Braunschweig and operating in northern Germany and beyond.
German recording giant BMG acquired Undercover in 2020. It has booked Berlin’s 1,600-seat Theater des Westens until the end of 2024 for a series of residencies by domestic and international recording artists, as well as stage musical productions, and curated the live programme of the Hessentag, Germany’s largest state festival, in Pfungstadt, Hesse.
Global Promoters Report 2023 is out now.
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Global Promoters Report 2022: Germany
The Global Promoters Report, a first-of-its-kind resource that highlights the world’s leading promoters and the 40 top markets they operate in, is now available to subscribers of IQ.
In an excerpt from the guide, IQ delves into the biggest touring market in Europe and the third-biggest in the world: Germany.
Germany is the biggest market in Europe and the third-biggest in the world, after the US and Japan. It generated revenues of around €5bn a year in pre-Covid times, though things are significantly tougher since the return of unrestricted shows in spring 2022, as energy prices and economic concerns squeeze sections of the market.
The German promoting business remains muscular and is largely steered by powerful consolidated groups – from local giants CTS Eventim, FKP Scorpio, and DEAG, to Live Nation – though there remain a number of hardworking independents.
Between them, the big groups account for a significant chunk of the nation’s national promoters. CTS Eventim, for instance, holds stakes in FKP Scorpio, Semmel Concerts, DreamHaus, and Peter Rieger Konzertagentur, accounting collectively for recent tours by Rolling Stones, Ed Sheeran, Muse, Måneskin, and others, as well as major festivals including Rock am Ring and Rock im Park and Hurricane/Southside.
Live Nation GSA entered the market in 2015 through its acquisition of Marek Lieberberg Konzertagentur (MLK). It brings all the expected superstar tours you would expect – Bruce
Springsteen, for one, arrives next July for four German stadium shows and another in Austria, while Sting, Lil Nas X, Bryan Adams, and Rosalía did the rounds before Christmas.
Live Nation bulked up further in September, adding longstanding independent Goodlive to its holdings. The festival, booking, and services agency brings events including Munich debutante Superbloom, electronic fest Melt!, and hip-hop and reggae event Splash! in Ferropolis; metal and punk festival Full Force in Löbnitz; and hip-hop event Heroes in Geiselwind.
“The majority of acts – especially those not in the top range or having a buzz right now – are struggling to sell tickets”
The Eventim-affiliated, Hamburg-based FKP Scorpio is, of course, a group in its own right, operating across the Nordics, Austria, Benelux, the UK, and Poland. In Germany, it has lately promoted stadium shows for Sheeran and the Stones, as well as a heavy slate of festivals – from the twin Hurricane and Southside indie events to M’era Luna in Hildesheim, Highfield in Großpösna, and Berlin’s Tempelhof Sounds.
Broadly speaking, festivals and blockbuster headline shows have remained strong in Germany this year. Cities like Berlin, Cologne, and Munich remain busy, affluent markets for live shows, with Hamburg not far behind.
But in a time of economic uncertainty fuelled by the war in Ukraine – combined with a perfect storm of post-Covid factors that have put a premium on material and staffing of all kinds – the softness of the everyday touring market is a major challenge for the German business. While the biggest acts sail on undaunted, all promoters have tales of smaller shows either half-filled or cancelled due to weak demand.
“Looking at this demographically, the younger people are going to shows more in comparison to older people, but in general it’s challenging,” says FKP Scorpio CEO Stephan Thanscheidt.
“Of course, there are some acts that sell all the time, but the majority of acts – especially those not in the top range or having a buzz right now – are struggling to sell tickets. A lot of acts are cancelling at the moment, and not for logistical or other non-transparent reasons. They are just saying, very openly: we can’t make this tour financially work with the ticket sales and the costs we have. They are potentially playing to half the people, with double or triple the cost.”
“You put great acts on, you put great support acts on, you really think about pricing, and still ticket sales are running at 50%”
All promoters have been forced to reckon with a very different market in 2022, even as they have scrambled to honour the previous two years’ worth of Covid-era tickets.
“You put great acts on, you put great support acts on, you really think about pricing, and still ticket sales are running at 50%,” says Scumeck Sabottka, founder of independent Berlin-based Robbie Williams and Rammstein promoter MCT Agentur, who, again, notes that his flagship shows have done very well.
“Maybe next year it gets better, but I think the new normal could easily be 70%, so we need to gauge our costings and offers on that. At the moment, I think we, as promoters, are carrying a lot of pressure on our shoulders.”
German promoters in the DEAG stable include Frankfurt veteran Wizard Promotions – now under the stewardship of Oliver Hoppe, son of legendary founder Ossy – which leans in a rock direction, with Iron Maiden, Def Leppard/Mötley Crüe, and Scorpions all on the schedule for 2023. Hoppe junior, (who in September added the title of DEAG executive vice president, product and innovation to his Wizard responsibilities), shares the mixed outlook, “All in all we managed to entertain over a half a million visitors in the summer, and that was tough work but also an exciting exercise. But it’s a struggle. Nobody knows where inflation, labour shortages, energy costs, and the ongoing pandemic will take us.
“There seems to be a pattern that high-demand shows are still high in demand, but I am very concerned about club shows and emerging artists. I am expecting every day for some grand-scale tour to hit the wall, but so far, from what we are hearing and seeing from the market, that isn’t happening – so I think there is hope.”
“We see strong sales on A+ talent and established festivals but soft ticket sales on everything else”
Also in the DEAG family – along with UK promoter Kilimanjaro Live, whose Stuart Galbraith recently ascended to the group role of executive vice president international touring – are Christian Doll’s Stuttgart-based C2 Concerts and the German arm of I-Motion. The former’s 2022 tours include German dates for the Harlem Globetrotters; the latter, part-acquired in 2019 from US promoter Randy Phillips’s LiveStyle, operates several long-established electronic music festivals including Mayday, Nature One, and Ruhr in Love.
Sina Hall, Semmel Concerts senior project manager, entertainment, says dialogue with agents and other stakeholders is ongoing, as the market adapts to a new set of conditions. “If you look at the situation for promoters or clubs that are not necessarily part of a group of companies, most of them most likely used their money to make it through the pandemic, so they have to be more risk-conscious when making decisions now,” says Hall.
Relatively few promoters have launched during Covid times, for obvious reasons, but one exception is DreamHaus, the CTS-Eventim-backed venture helmed by former Live Nation GSA managing director and COO Matt Schwarz, which landed in early 2021 with one significant advantage over the wider market. “The beauty of being a start-up during Covid times is that we didn’t have to deal with any aftermath of cancelled or multiple-postponed events,” Schwarz noted in IQ’s recent German market report.
In other respects, DreamHaus – which operates the blockbuster Rock am Ring and Rock im Park festivals, as well as Tempelhof Sounds and arena shows this year for Lewis Capaldi, Yungblud, Muse, Måneskin, and others – sounds a familiar note of caution.
“We see strong sales on A+ talent and established festivals but soft ticket sales on everything else,” says Schwarz. “Pushing down the increased costs of touring and local production to the customers via higher ticket prices is not a sustainable solution. The worst is yet to come, so we are more selective in our bookings and the M.O. is ‘less is more’ for now.”
“The worst is yet to come, so we are more selective in our bookings and the M.O. is ‘less is more’ for now”
In its structure, Germany is a unique market. Under its distinctive regionalised system, local promoters with strong local knowledge typically co-promote with national promoters in any given city.
The local promoting business these days also betrays a strong corporate interest. Eventim owns a number of such promoters, including Bavaria’s ARGO Konzerte, Cologne’s Dirk Becker Entertainment, Promoters Group Munich, and Vaddi Concerts in south-west Germany.
Other prominent local operators include DEAG companies ACT (Berlin), River Concerts (Hamburg), Rhein Main Concerts (Frankfurt), Global Concerts and KBK (both Munich) and Handwerker, based in Unna; Hannover Concerts, in the northern German city of the same name; and Undercover, based in Braunschweig and operating in northern Germany and beyond, which was acquired by BMG in 2020 to lay the foundations for a new live music and events unit.
Some local promoters have expanded well beyond their original regions: Semmel Concerts, now a major national player, focused on Bavaria and Eastern Germany when it first launched more than 30 years ago.
These days, its shows span Germany and Austria and its calendar includes three postponed Berlin dates on Elton John’s farewell tour next May, as well as concerts by Hans Zimmer, Céline Dion, John Cale, and others next year.
“It makes the business kind of boring if there are only three or four big corporates fighting each other”
In a globalised era where scale and network clout count more than ever, Germany is hardly the only market in which independent promoters have inexorably been absorbed into international groups. Ben Mitha, managing director of Hamburg-based Karsten Jahnke Konzertdirektion, the persistently independent promoter founded by his grandfather, doesn’t condemn any other company for doing so, though he maintains that the market needs indies for its all-round health.
“I totally understand those people, especially in these last two challenging years, who are seeking shelter under a corporate umbrella,” says Mitha. “At the same time, it makes the business kind of boring if there are only three or four big corporates fighting each other. I think you also need those independents out there doing it for the passion or investing in some niche that might not be interesting for the big companies.”
Karsten Jahnke’s forthcoming shows include a Hamburg appearance for Robbie Williams as well as dates for Avril Lavigne, Arctic Monkeys, Wolf Alice, Elton John, and numerous smaller acts. This year’s successes have included The Cure and 49 nights at Hamburg’s Stadtpark for the Open Air series, with Deep Purple, Sting, Joe Jackson, Michael Kiwanuka, and Olivia Rodrigo among those collectively selling 170,000 tickets.
Among the market’s other nationally focused indies, is Berlin-based booker and national promoter Z|ART, founded in 2014 by Max Wentzler and Hauke Steinhof. Wentzler says there are enthusiastic audiences out there for fresh talent but suggests spiraling costs can easily have a brutal effect on promoters, even when a show is an apparent success.
“We are used to suffering in the live business, but it is haemorrhaging a little bit,” says Wentzler. “Margins have been decimated, basically, and it feels like all the income is being eaten up by security, ticketing, and stagehand companies, and also venues, who have increased their rates in response to energy prices because they are going to get hit with a huge bill.”
“Margins have been decimated, basically, and it feels like all the income is being eaten up”
Other independents include Hamburg’s a.s.s. concerts & promotion. Part of the Mehr-BB Entertainment Company, a.s.s. has operated as a booking agency and tour promoter for German and international rock, pop, folk, jazz, and world music artists since 1979, presenting up to 1,200 concerts a year.
A Covid-era consolidation saw two more Hamburg-based concert promoters, Funke Media and Neuland Concerts, merge to form what the company describes as “one of the largest owner-managed concert agencies in Germany.”
Operating as Neuland Concerts and working as both promoter and agency, Neuland’s current schedule includes dates for German stars Ina Müller and Max Mutzke. In Munich, Astrid Messerschmitt’s United Promoters has a superstar pedigree, having worked shows for Eric Clapton, AC/DC, and others, as well as maintaining a longstanding relationship with legendary veteran Marcel Avram.
Hamburg’s Music Minds Productions has also seen it all and has recently staged shows for 50 Cent at Cologne’s Lanxess Arena and The Police’s Andy Summers in Hamburg and Berlin. Of the market’s standalone festival promoters, Cosmopop is responsible for the 28-year-old Time Warp electronic festival in Mannheim and its international editions in Brazil, Chile, and the US; Opus produces the renowned Jazzopen Stuttgart; while ICS (International Concert Service) controls Wacken Open Air in Schleswig-Holstein, which remains one of the world’s biggest and most-esteemed rock festivals.
“I would wish that in many cases solution-oriented thinking could come forward instead of ego-driven thinking”
The market is competitive and tough, with even the winners licking their wounds after a bruising year. Superbloom managing director Fruzsina Szép – recently profiled in the German editions of Rolling Stone and Vogue as the one and only woman in charge of a German festival – believes more collaboration would benefit all.
“I don’t see any other festivals as competitors,” she says. “I’m really happy to have many great festivals in Germany, in Europe, in the UK. And if we have to tackle the same problems, then why not learn from each other to make it better?
“I’m very much in balance with my own ego, and I would wish that in many cases solution-oriented thinking could come forward instead of ego-driven thinking. People shouldn’t be afraid to say, ‘Well, we had problems, we had challenges.’”
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