The rockin’ road to Dublin
Lockdown had many strange consequences, but Ireland experienced one that nobody predicted: the kids got into trad.
“It’s weird, you know,” says Mark Downing at Bray, County Wicklow-based booking agency AMA Music, who identifies lockdown scrolling as the reason for traditional Irish music’s re-emergence as a heavy influence on all sorts of new homegrown sounds. “It happened during Covid, without question. It wasn’t there beforehand.”
Irish rock and pop music has, of course, been a major export for decades, from U2 and Thin Lizzy to Boyzone and The Corrs to Hozier and Niall Horan. Sometimes, it has adapted traditional styles. But no one expected Irish folk to offer the next musical path forward in these modern times.
“When I was growing up, if we walked into a pub and a trad band was playing, we’d walk straight out again,” says promoter Peter Aiken. “Maybe the Irish language was beaten out of us, but people didn’t have a great interest. But in June, we put on a new festival with POD, In The Meadows. Lankum headlined it, and nearly 11,000 people there were mesmerised by this Irish music.”
Trad or otherwise, there’s a pride in Irish identity among Ireland’s breakout successes of recent years. Between mutant folk Mercury-winners Lankum, compelling County Cavan singer-songwriter Lisa O’Neill, unstoppable Dublin-specific post-punkers Fontaines D.C., chaotic Belfast hip-hoppers Kneecap, and Dundalk knees-up merchants The Mary Wallopers, music from both sides of Ireland is making no attempt to cover up its roots.
Throw in queer Dublin indie-rockers Pillow Queens, Cork’s Eurovision entrant Bambie Thug, singer-songwriters such as CMAT and Orla Gartland, and these are perhaps the most exciting and diverse times in Irish music for ages.
“2024 is even busier than last year”
On the live side, the market has scarcely cooled since Covid eased. Ireland’s live music revenue reached €243m in 2023 – a 23.5% year-on-year rise, according to PwC’s latest report on the country’s entertainment and media industry.
Aiken Promotions’ seven Springsteen shows in Dublin, Belfast, Cork, and Kilkenny, across two separate visits in 2023 and 2024, mean that the artist sold around 300,000 tickets in the calendar year – on an island of just over 7m inhabitants.
Rammstein, AC/DC, Taylor Swift, P!nk, and Coldplay have also sold out Dublin stadium shows this summer.
Meanwhile, conquering sons Fontaines D.C. will headline Dublin’s 3Arena for two nights in December, to add to a stream of big-name international and domestic shows going through Dublin and Belfast.
“2024 is even busier than last year,” says Ticketmaster Ireland managing director Keith English. “We’ve seen a huge increase in stadium shows. It’s pretty impressive how a small island with around 7m people can host so many large tours – the enthusiasm for live music from Irish fans is really something special.”
Large festivals including Live Nation’s Electric Picnic and Longitude, Aiken/POD’s All Together Now, and Shine’s Belsonic in South Belfast have done good business, even in the face of a summer dominated by stadium headline shows.
“There’s a lot of tickets on sale,” says Will Rolfe of festival promoter POD. “Per capita, it’s probably the highest in Europe, maybe the world.”
“The enthusiasm for live music from Irish fans is really something special”
Dublin, is, of course, the centre of activity, and while Belfast is a great city in its own right, in recent years, it has struggled to grab quite the same share of the biggest tours – as European jaunts have shrunk in size, costs have risen, and other British cities have staked their own claim.
There was no Taylor Swift show in Northern Ireland, and Belfast’s bid for the 2023 Eurovision Song Contest – which went to Liverpool – was said to have been sunk by an insufficiently large arena, political instability in Northern Ireland, and concerns about the city’s broader infrastructure. And throw in the fact that the Republic offers a favourable tax regime to visiting acts – zero withholding tax, compared to 20% in Northern Ireland – and the reasons for the disparity become even clearer.
However, clubs such as the Limelight make Belfast a strong incubator of younger careers, and the SSE Arena, Belsonic (with Shania Twain, Take That, Becky Hill, and Sting among this year’s headliners) and the Custom House Square series (PJ Harvey, the Saw Doctors, Pixies, and James Arthur) give opportunities for bigger touring artists. But it is also clear that the global challenges facing tours and festivals haven’t passed Ireland by.
“It’s so much more expensive to get a ferry over; it’s so much more expensive to run the fees for all the staff,” Shine’s Joe Dougan told the BBC last year. “If you had the opportunity to either play Dublin and Belfast or stay in the mainland and add a show in Edinburgh, Liverpool, Bristol, or Birmingham – these huge markets that are way bigger than Belfast – you’d just do that instead.”
Nonetheless, plenty have made the trip, and Ireland as a whole bears consideration as one of the more vibrant small markets in Europe.
“That definitely is a new thing: people flying to gigs from all over. I think the world is a lot more accessible now, whether that’s down to Ryanair or easyJet”
Promoters
At the top level, the Irish promoting business is easily viewed as a tussle between Live Nation’s MCD Productions and Aiken Promotions – both of them with substantial legacies and a strong claim to have shaped the game in both the Republic and Northern Ireland – though increasingly there is more to the market.
In any case, this year has found both organisations at full tilt. Peter Aiken sold Bruce Springsteen’s millionth Irish ticket – his father Jim having sold the Boss’s first when he brought him to Slane Castle in 1985 – and other shows this year include Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, John Bishop, and Childish Gambino at the 3Arena, the Live at the Marquee Series in Cork, and any number of smaller concerts, including many at Aiken’s own Vicar Street venue.
“This year has been very strong,” says Aiken. “We had a very good summer, with four outdoors with Bruce and a great success with Rammstein – a big outdoor with them, 40,000 people at RDS Arena. A spectacular show, and people came from all over Europe, big crowd over from the UK. That definitely is a new thing: people flying to gigs from all over. I think the world is a lot more accessible now, whether that’s down to Ryanair or easyJet.”
MCD/Live Nation has Electric Picnic and the pop and hip-hop-leaning Longitude at Marlay Park, but its interests are broad, from Taylor Swift, Coldplay, and AC/DC’s Croke Park shows and plenty of arena, theatre, and club concerts to the Galway Airport Summer Sessions in August, whose acts included James Arthur, Pixies, and local heroes The Coronas at a 4,999-site at the long-closed airport.
The promoter, which is responsible for Oasis’s reunion shows at Croke Park next August, sold 120,000 tickets for nine concerts at the 15,000-cap Virgin Media Park in Cork in June, featuring Becky Hill, Sting, Take That, Shania Twain, and The Wolfe Tones. It also hosted Snow Patrol, Paolo Nutini, and Liam Gallagher in three 30,000-cap live events over one weekend at Thomond Park in Limerick, selling more than 75,000 tickets.
“It will be a big moment for us, for the band”
Denis Desmond, co-founder of MCD and Live Nation chairman, UK and Ireland, predicted this year that MCD would sell three million tickets in Ireland in 2024 – 50% more than last year. Speaking to IQ, he addresses the Irish market as a part of a thriving region, and focuses on the summer’s festivals.
“We’ll host a total of almost 5m attendees at Live Nation’s UK and Irish festivals this summer, and MCD is having a great year, too,” he tells IQ. “Ticket demand remains high. Electric Picnic sold out. All this demonstrates that festivals remain vital to our cultural life.”
As well as the big beasts, Ireland has always had smaller promoters, too, but the new challengers are more muscular than before.
Singular Artists emerged out of the pandemic, launched by former Aiken promoters Fin O’Leary, Brian Hand, and Simon Merriman. A 2020 concert series, Wider Than Pictures at the National Museum of Ireland’s Collins Barracks, got the company on its way with shows by Alt-J, Simply Red, and Fleet Foxes, and the new company, backed by DEAG’s UK operation KMJ Entertainment, has taken flight since.
“We were lucky that a lot of the artists we have built relationships with over the years have continued to work with us,” says Merriman. “That’s how Singular really took off.”
A first 3Arena show in 2022, for Yungblud, took them up a notch, and among Singular’s shows in the second half of this year were the next Wider Than Pictures shows (Deacon Blue, The The, James, Gossip, and James Blunt), and the Fontaines D.C. homecoming shows at the 3Arena, which will represent a high point, says Merriman.
“We have sold over 26,000 tickets with them, which is absolutely fantastic,” he says. “It will be a big moment for us, for the band.”
“If you come in after the show with a tray of Guinness… you are rewarded as a promoter”
Singular works from the smallest gigs up to far larger ones, and Merriman is passionate about helping artists along the journey from the former to the latter. He recalls promoting the first Khruangbin show at the 300-capacity Workmans Club in 2016 and notes with satisfaction that the Texan band will play the 3Arena in November. As far as he is concerned, the clubs are where it all begins.
“It’s crucial for our business, because that’s the roots and the basis of what we do,” says Merriman. “That’s where your relationships start. You want to take a personal approach, and you want them to know who you are. The first shows for bands, they are usually the ones they remember. And if you come in after the show with a tray of Guinness or you bring them out for a meal when they don’t have a lot of money – if you put in the time and the effort, you are rewarded as a promoter.”
POD’s own festival history goes back to 2004, when its founder, the late John Reynolds, launched Electric Picnic. A frequent partner of Aiken Promotions, POD presides over three festivals: the three-day All Together Now on the Curraghmore Estate, County Waterford; Forbidden Fruit, the Dublin city-centre festival at Royal Hospital Kilmainham; and new arrival In The Meadows, on the same site.
“I don’t think it’s necessarily a golden year. I think festivals globally have had challenges, and those haven’t not impacted Ireland,” says Rolfe. “You just need to be at the top of your game and produce really good shows. The summer is definitely more geared towards outdoor concerts now than it is outdoor festivals, but there’s still a handful that are really strong, and thankfully, we have three of them.”
The original company had well-publicised ups and downs but now stands as a rare smaller operator in a small pond with a couple of notably big fish. “It is definitely a competitive market – just less people being competitive,” says Rolfe.
Selective Memory is another busy smaller promoter, bringing acts including Michael Head & the Red Elastic Band, Joan As Policewoman, Kelly Lee Owens, Stereo MC’s, and Hugh Cornwell to Dublin this autumn and winter.
“When women continue to be overlooked on the airwaves, it leads to a significant lack of representation on festival lineups”
Irish talent
While Irish artists new and old continue to see plenty of success, there is also evidence that such success sometimes isn’t terribly evenly distributed.
Advocacy group Why Not Her? has waged a campaign for five years to address the gender imbalance on Irish radio playlists and challenge what founder Linda Coogan Byrne identifies as Irish music’s “conventional straight white male narrative.” Figures released in June this year, for example, revealed that just one living female Irish artist – Dublin DJ and artist Jazzy – made the Top 100 on Irish radio in the preceding 12 months. Coogan Byrne says the trend is inevitably reflected in the live arena.
“When women continue to be overlooked on the airwaves, it leads to a significant lack of representation on festival lineups,” she says. “However, the recent success of artists like CMAT and Jazzy is an interesting anomaly. Their rise shows that when radio genuinely supports female artists, they do break through to festival lineups and even headline their own arena and open-air concerts.
Ireland Music Week, founded in 2003 and run by First Music Contact with funding from Culture Ireland and The Arts Council, does aim for a 50/50 gender balance. Its showcases sift through 750 applications for 50 slots, and in the past have included Fontaines D.C., Hozier, The Coronas, CMAT, Villagers, Pillow Queens and numerous others. It returns to venues across Dublin in October with gigs, workshops and talks.
Despite a healthy upswing in the profile of folk sounds, folk musicians in general often struggle to get on the radar, too. Your Roots Are Showing, Ireland’s folk music industry conference, which had its third year this year, was established specifically to build ties between Irish musicians and the industry.
“Local folk musicians in Ireland do have a hard time getting their music heard if they’re not already kind of popular,” says co-founder and executive director Charlene Sloan. “You go into most any pub and you just think, ‘Oh my gosh, why aren’t these people on the radio? Why aren’t they booking tours?’ And a lot of it is lack of understanding of the music business.
“People talk about the resurgence of Irish folk music, but I think it’s always been there”
Nonetheless, the undercurrent of native music is very evidently part of what fuels Ireland’s success in the broader pop and rock business, and creative director Brendan McCreanor, himself an uilleann piper and whistle-player, is heartened by its renewed popularity among a new generation.
“People talk about the resurgence of Irish folk music, but I think it’s always been there,” he says. “It might have taken different forms, but it’s become really popular now, from kids to teenagers to people in their 20s and 30s. It’s really cool now, and so is the Irish language.”
AMA Music books Irish artists internationally and at home, with The Coronas, Paddy Casey, Brian Kennedy, Gilbert O’Sullivan, and The 4 of Us on the books, as well as new Irish artists including The New Leaves, Fake Friends, and Kiera Dignam, daughter of late Aslan frontman Christy Dignam. “Some of the best music I have ever heard in my life is coming out now,” says Downing.
He ruefully notes the toll Covid took on the industry at the lower level. “It’s really only the last few months we are seeing those bookings come back,” he says. “Normal working musicians had no work for three years. It was criminal.”
And while the post-Covid business is clearly booming at the top end, Downing suggests the cost of living is also reshaping gig-going habits in the regional areas that supply travelling audiences for Dublin shows.
“A lot of people now don’t want to take a taxi into the city if it’s going to cost them €100 there and back,” he says. “So, if an artist is playing locally now, they might go to see that for €50 rather than 200 or 250 quid for a night out in the city.”
Demand for festival tickets may not be equal to that of outdoor headline shows, but they remain a decent market
Festivals
Electric Picnic, in Stradbally, County Laois, remains very much the biggest festival in Ireland, and this year’s incarnation was larger than ever, rapidly selling out 75,000 tickets – an increase of 5,000 on 2023.
At this year’s event, headlined by Noah Kahan, Calvin Harris, and Kylie, there was talk of possible further growth next year, albeit of a modest kind.
Demand for festival tickets may not be equal to that of outdoor headline shows, but they remain a decent market, and Ireland has them at all levels, from the huge and mainstream to the small and specialist.
Among the notable local and independent names are Donegal’s Sea Sessions, Dublin’s TradFest, Meath’s Otherside, Dingle’s TV-driven Other Voices (which releases its tickets through local and national competitions), and art and food festival Beyond The Pale in County Wicklow.
Times are challenging for festivals, of course, and not every significant one has come out to play this year. The independent Body & Soul in Ballinlough took a year off but returns in 2025, as does the Indiependence Music & Arts Festival in Mitchelstown, County Cork.
Of the three POD festivals, In The Meadows hit the ground running in 2024, with more than 10,000 tickets sold. Forbidden Fruit, which featured Nelly Furtado, Nia Archives, Bicep, and Freddie Gibbs, got 15,000 a day across two days, while All Together Now, launched by Reynolds the year before his untimely death in 2018, hit 25,000 with The National, The Prodigy, and Jorja Smith coming to Portlaw across four days.
“This is not just a reflection of the festival but of a broader industry problem where systemic biases continue to marginalise these voices”
“All Together Now still feels like a relatively new festival, given the two years off,” says Rolfe. “We feel like we have been in a restart since Covid and maybe next year feels like an opportunity to kick on a bit in terms of capacity and working on taking it up another level. It is a very exciting prospect, a very unique site.
“In The Meadows is going to come back for a second year, and we know we will really need to excite people with it. Lankum had a very special year, and that was the right thing at the right time. We have expectations to work with somebody different next year and deliver a really strong show.”
Across the border, Belfast comes not far behind Dublin in appetite for festivals. Research published in April by economist Chris Carey and live entertainment consultant Tim Chambers found that the 2023 editions of Belsonic and electronic music festival Emerge generated additional economic activity amounting to £30.8m and created almost 6,000 paid employment opportunities in the city and beyond.
Belsonic, in the city’s Ormeau Park, and Emerge, in Boucher Fields, attract more than 200,000 paid attendees between them, with ticket holders travelling from as far away as Australia and the US.
But while festivals maintain a healthy audience in both Northern Ireland and the Republic, Coogan Byrne believes there is still work to do if the average Irish festival is to catch up with the progressive, gender-balanced mood elsewhere in the sector.
“There has been some effort, but it’s often too little and too late,” she says. “A few festivals have made strides towards balancing their lineups, but it’s still not the standard practice it should be. Events like Body & Soul and All Together Now are making some progress, but when compared to international standards, we’re still lagging.”
Electric Picnic secured Kylie for this year, and she was joined by Raye at the top of the bill, but Coogan Byrne isn’t impressed. “Electric Picnic, as Ireland’s premier music festival, has long been criticised for its gender disparity, with male-dominated lineups that often push female and non-binary artists to the fringes,” she says. “This is not just a reflection of the festival but of a broader industry problem where systemic biases continue to marginalise these voices.”
In genre terms, numerous small festivals undeniably work hard to amplify the voices of specialist and traditional musicians.
“It’s supporting the grassroots of Ireland, but it’s also supporting the grassroots of the artists”
One of those is Westport Folk & Bluegrass Festival on the west coast in County Mayo, which celebrated its 15th event this June with a headline show from Rhiannon Giddens and a mostly free programme of carefully curated bluegrass sessions and events in hotels, theatres, churches, and pubs around the town.
“We have four paying concerts, but the bands that play those more often than not play some free gigs as well,” says founder Uri Kohen, who started the festival in 2007 and has built an event with an international reputation and strong ties with the bluegrass community around the world.
“We’re widely regarded as the leading bluegrass festival in Ireland, and even on a European level, we’re among the names that are mentioned outside the US,” he says. “We work very, very hard to maintain a certain level and do new things.”
The festival is a non-profit, with a variety of funding streams, from grants to sponsorship to ticket sales, and it draws between 1,000 and 1,500 visitors to the town, with a cumulative audience of 3,000 across all shows.
“At least 40% come from overseas,” says Kohen. “We have major appeal in the US and the UK. This year, we had a couple who came for the fourth time from Australia.”
Bluegrass owes key elements of its DNA to the fiddle music brought to the Appalachian region by Irish and Scottish migrants, and the ongoing health of traditional music means that global cross-pollination continues into the present day.
Your Roots Are Showing aims to make connections between Irish artists and local and international festivals but also to hook international Irish acts into the same network, and it has found Irish music in the most unexpected places.
“We had an Irish traditional trio from Japan that came over, O’Jizo, and they were booked for the Milwaukee Irish Fest, but they were also booked into festivals around Ireland,” says Sloan. “And I think that’s also important because it’s supporting the grassroots of Ireland, but it’s also supporting the grassroots of the artists.”
“These last two years have been the two biggest years we have ever had”
Venues
Approaching 16 years on from its construction on the site of The Point, the 13,000-capacity 3Arena in Dublin’s Docklands is at a peak.
“These last two years have been the two biggest years we have ever had,” says general manager Cormac Rennick. “With a fair wind, we are going to do 128, 129 shows this year – there’s a couple we’re waiting on. That’s not really driven by many big runs. We are doing Mamma Mia! the musical, but the rest is just a lot of different shows.”
The venue’s calendar is a picture of health, gathering up most of the key tours now doing the rounds, with little pause for breath. A single week in November offers up The Corrs, Interpol, Kasabian, Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, and The Script. “It’s hard to put your finger on an explanation for it, really, because we are supposed to be in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis, but entertainment seems to be about the last thing that people give up,” says Rennick. “You can’t afford your foreign holiday, but you are still going to go to a few gigs.”
The 3Arena grabs a share of much of the arena-scale activity on the island of Ireland, though Belfast’s SSE Arena has plenty to say for itself.
“It certainly feels like a good year, with our diary filling up with several exciting world-class touring productions, alongside our local sport, ice hockey, and comedy offerings,” says Claire Cosgrave, associate director of experience, arena and estate at The Odyssey Trust, whose properties include the arena as well as other attractions in the city’s waterfront Titanic Quarter.
“The last quarter of the year is going to be incredible for us”
“We are incredibly proud that Les Misérables will not only be bringing its global phenomenon to Belfast but that The SSE Arena, Belfast will be the production’s first stop, kicking off with nine days of performances throughout September,” she adds.
Outside the big cities, the Gleneagle INEC Arena in Country Kerry plays a unique role, serving the surrounding area and drawing visitors
from far and wide, aided by on-site hotels that can accommodate 1,000 and Kerry Airport 20km up the road.
The largest music venue in the Republic of Ireland outside of Dublin, the arena can absorb an audience of 4,100 and regularly welcomes leading Irish acts, musicals, family shows, and international artists – who are able to road-test their touring productions and warm up with club shows in the 600-cap INEC Club or the 1,000-cap Gleneagle Ballroom.
Like most indoor venues, the Gleneagle INEC Arena had a relatively quiet summer, but it makes up for it with a packed Q4 that will see an A-Z of Irish touring talent, including The Mary Wallopers, Kneecap, The Coronas, Gavin James, Gemma Hayes, Villagers, and James Vincent McMorrow.
“The last quarter of the year is going to be incredible for us,” says arena director Mark Egan. “In December, we would usually do about 30,000 people. This year, it looks like we’re going to do 64,000 people.”
“From a fan experience perspective, because they’re in a smaller venue, they get a better bang for their buck”
The venue programmes around 80% of its own shows, though it works with outside promoters as well and covers off a large part of the country that might balk at a trip all the way to the capital. “I think, from a fan experience perspective, because they’re in a smaller venue, they get a better bang for their buck,” says Egan. “Our tickets would be more cost effective than Dublin, and if you live somewhere like Kerry or Cork, we’re a lot more accessible.”
For the Irish acts that make up 70% of the arena’s shows, the Gleneagle INEC is a staple of an Irish tour. “What we do find is that a band will do Killarney, Dublin, and Belfast,” he says, and he takes pride in the venue’s international fans as well.
“We recently had a large international act I can’t name yet, who approached a promoter in Ireland and said, I want to play the INEC in Killarney. And we didn’t have the date. So the artist went back to the agent – big artist – and said, ‘Well, you’re going to have to reroute the tour in some way because I am definitely playing the INEC.’”
Cork, meanwhile, remains arena-less, despite a long-delayed plan for a 6,000-cap, Live Nation-operated Cork Event Centre. Government funding has apparently been the sticking point, and the project has languished for over a decade, though recent months have, not for the first time, promised an imminent decision.
In the meantime, Limerick, Galway, and Derry have been mooted as likely candidates for similar venues, though the wait goes on.
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Bruce Springsteen to reach Irish ticket milestone
Bruce Springsteen will have played to one million fans in Ireland over the course of his career by the end of his latest tour, according to promoter Peter Aiken.
The Boss brings his world tour to Belfast’s Boucher Road in Northern Ireland on 9 May, followed by shows in Ireland at Kilkenny’s Nowlan Park (12 May), Páirc Uí Chaoimh in Cork (16 May) and Dublin’s Croke Park (19 May).
“One million people in Ireland will have been to see him. It’s phenomenal,” the Aiken Promotions chief tells PA, as per Yahoo! News.
Aiken says that very few artists have sold one million tickets in Ireland, north and south of the border, and suggests that younger generations discovering Springsteen’s music are helping fuel demand for the 74-year-old’s live shows in the region.
“There’s people my age at the concerts but there’s a lot of young people who go too, it’s great”
“His youngest fanbase in the world is in Ireland. If you went to other countries it would all be people like me,” he says. “I think young people listen to him with their parents. They are in the car and then eventually they do like it. I said that to my kids when they were listening to Bob Dylan, that one day you will like it, and they do now. There’s people my age at the concerts but there’s a lot of young people who go too, it’s great. It’s just the way we are here. It will be amazing.”
The Irish Times reports that Springsteen has played 28 concerts in Ireland to date, adding that it was Aiken’s father, Jim, who invited him to perform his first Irish concert at Slane Castle in 1985.
Springsteen’s 20-plus date European stadium run with The E Street Band kicks off in the UK at Principality Stadium in Cardiff, Wales on 5 May, finishing back at London’s Wembley Stadium on 25 & 27 July. It will also take in France, Czechia, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Denmark, Finland, Sweden and Norway.
The global outing ranked in third place on Pollstar’s list of 2023’s highest-grossing worldwide tours, generating $379.5 million from 3.5 million ticket sales for 66 concerts. More than 1.6m tickets were sold for last year’s European leg, which included three nights in Ireland at Dublin’s RDS Arena.
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Aiken Presents, Pod launch new Dublin festival
Dublin will be the recipient of a new one-day festival called In The Meadows, organised by Aiken Promotions and Pod Concerts.
Mercury Award-nominated Irish folk music group Lankum are due to headline the inaugural event, set for 8 June 2024 at The Royal Hospital in Kilmainham.
Mogwai, John Francis Flynn, Black Country, New Road and This is the Kit will also perform across two stages at the 17th-century hospital.
The venue, which now houses the Irish Museum of Modern Art, has played host to artists including Leonard Cohen, Bon Iver, Blur, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Patti Smith, and The War On Drugs.
John Francis Flynn and This is the Kit will also perform across two stages at the 17th-century hospital
This year, Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds and the Grammy-Award nominated indie supergroup boygenius delivered concerts on the grounds. It has also been home to Forbidden Fruit, a festival organised by Aiken and Pod, for the last 12 years.
The promoters also collaborate on All Together Now, a 27,000-capacity festival that has taken place for five years at Curraghmore House, Waterford.
In The Meadows’ name appears to be a nod to Pod’s socially distanced festival, The Meadows, which took place at The Royal Hospital during the pandemic.
Tickets for In The Meadows start at €59.35 including the booking fee.
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Arctic Monkeys reveal world tour finale
Arctic Monkeys are returning to Dublin and Belfast for a series of arena dates to mark the end of their The Car Tour.
The rock band, who will be supported by special guest Miles Kane, will play three nights at Dublin’s 3Arena on 15, 17 & 19 October, as well as a one-off concert at The SSE Arena in Belfast on 16 October.
Booked by 13 Artists, the dates follow the cancellation of the band’s summer show at Dublin’s 40,000-cap Marlay Park after frontman Alex Turner was diagnosed with acute laryngitis.
The rock band start their 30-date North American tour leg in Minneapolis this Thursday
Previous ticket holders will be sent a unique access code and will be given 72-hour priority pre-sale access. Only the same number of tickets, or less, purchased previously for Marlay Park will be available to purchase for these new dates.
All remaining tickets will be made available for sale on Tuesday 29 August.
Arctic Monkeys’ 119-date world tour, staged in support of their seventh studio album The Car, began at Zorlu PSM in Istanbul, Turkey, in August 2022. The quartet start their 30-date North American tour leg in Minneapolis this Thursday 25 August, which concludes with two nights at Foro Sol Stadium in Mexico City on 6-7 October.
The British group headlined multiple festivals this summer around the globe, including Glastonbury, Rock Werchter, Open’er, Bilbao BBK Live and NOS Alive. They also embarked on their biggest UK and Ireland tour of their career to date with a string of stadium dates in May and June 2023, including three sold-out shows at London’s 60,000-cap Emirates Stadium.
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High demand for Lana Del Rey surprise concerts
Tickets for Lana Del Rey’s surprise shows in Dublin, Paris and Amsterdam have flown off the shelf.
The singer announced the shows last Tuesday (27 June), just three days before tickets went on sale: “I love Europe and after playing at Glastonbury I’ve decided to play a few more shows around my Hyde Park London concert.”
General sale for Del Rey’s concert at the Ziggo Dome (cap. 17,000) in Amsterdam – the largest of the three shows – took place last Friday (30 June) and sold out within 10 minutes. A pre-sale exclusive to subscribers of MOJO’s newsletter launched a day prior.
At present, 1,440 tickets are wanted on the resale platform Ticketswap and 849 have been sold since the general sale.
“I love Europe and after playing at Glastonbury I’ve decided to play a few more shows”
The 4 July concert will mark the first time in a decade that Del Rey has performed in the Netherlands, after a sold-out show at the 6,000-capacity AFAS Live (then known as Heineken Music Hall) in 2013.
The 38-year-old will also visit the 3Arena (13,000) in Dublin on 7 July and the Olympia Music Hall (1,996) in Paris on 10 July. Both shows are sold out.
The New York-born singer, represented by WME worldwide excluding North America, also played Italy’s La Prima Estate festival on 2 July and is due to close BST Hyde Park (AEG Presents) this Sunday (9 July).
It comes after Del Rey’s headline slot at Glastonbury was cut short as a result of appearing on stage 30 minutes late.
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International booking agency Pitch & Smith divides
European booking agency Pitch & Smith (P&S) has effectively split in two, with three former agents breaking away to launch new venture Playbook Artists.
Launched by Eleanor McGuinness, Nikita Lavrinenko and Paul McGivern, the new agency brings together more than 45 years of experience as well as a roster that includes Angel Olsen, Weyes Blood, Son Lux, Andy Shauf, This Is the Kit and Cut Copy.
Meanwhile, P&S founders Stefan Juhlin and Kalle Lundgren Smith will remain at the company along with team members based in London.
Juhlin tells IQ it was a mutual decision for the two parties to go their separate ways: “For Kalle and myself, we felt this was a good time to go back to where we once started, putting all our time and energy on fewer artists, with a very simple and straightforward organisation behind it. We’re confident this will benefit everyone, both ourselves and our artists.”
“For Kalle and myself, we felt this was a good time to go back to where [P&S] once started”
P&S will now be headquartered in Stockholm, where it was founded in 2007, with a roster that includes Caribou, José González and Toro Y Moi.
The agency will work will continue to work with the three former agents at Playbook, which will launch offices in London, Berlin and Dublin ‘to bring their international perspective to the European/UK live circuit’.
“The last year has been tough for the industry as a whole, but this feels like the perfect opportunity to collaboratively bring together the best of our experiences and shared values, and build something new with friends and partners,” says Playbook’s Paul McGivern.
“I don’t know two harder-working or more engaged agents than Eleanor and Nikita and I’m proud to be partners with them in the launch of PlayBook Artists.”
“We are all determined to bring new approaches and concepts to life and rethink what a modern, artist-focused agency can be”
Eleanor adds: “It’s important to all of us to support the independent network, especially after the challenges of the last year, and the years yet to come. Paul, Nikita and I come from a similar background of working independently, and we are very proud of that and the long term approach we have to our artists.”
Nikita comments: “It’s easy to get caught up in a “doom and gloom” mentality when the times are difficult. That’s why I love seeing excitement, energy and new ideas sprawling out conversations I have with Eleanor and Paul. We are all determined to come out of this stronger, bring new approaches and concepts to life and rethink together what a modern, artist-focused agency can be these days.”
The three partners will be joined by former Pitch & Smith agent assistant Duncan Smith, who will assume the role of agent with a roster that includes Happyness, Shopping, Lime Garden, LICE, Home Counties, and new signing Clara Mann.
Playbook follows the launch of Field Booking, Arrival Artists, Mint Talent Group and TBA Agency in the US, as well as Marshall Live Agency, Mother Artists, One Fiinix Live, Route One Booking and Runway Artists in the UK and Rebel Beat Agency in Spain, in 2020, amid a wider fragmentation of the global agency sector in response to the coronavirus shutdown.
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Aiken unveils new Vision for Dublin’s Vicar St
Ireland’s Aiken Promotions has unveiled Vision, a six-part online video series filmed at its 1,500-capacity Vicar Street venue in Dublin.
Partially funded with a grant from the government of the Republic of Ireland, Vision – hosted by comedian and TV presenter Tommy Tiernan – aims to celebrate Vicar St, says Aiken Promotions founder Peter Aiken. The venue, like nearly all others in Europe, has been largely closed since the dawn of the Covid-19 pandemic in March 2020.
“Opening the doors at Vicar St for those two weeks of filming and working together was great, even with only the performers, crew and venue staff present,” explains Aiken. “Ultimately, though, it was a bittersweet experience as it reminded us how much we all miss working at live shows – it’s impossible to recreate the buzz of an audience actually being the venue to witness another memorable performance.
“Aiken Promotions looks forward to a time when we can welcome everyone back to Vicar St”
“It was palpable how difficult things remain for everyone in the sector, so to have to turn the lights off again and walk away was heart-breaking.
“Obviously, there is no way to replicate the true essence of being at a live gig but with this special series, we hope we have created something that reminds us all of the magic we are missing.”
So far, two episodes of Vision have been released, the first featuring Christy Moore, Lankum and Lisa O’Neill and the second (embedded above) with Villagers, Cmat and comedian David O’Doherty.
“While the vision of future live entertainment might be still hazy, Aiken Promotions look forward to a time when we can welcome everyone back to Vicar St, along with all the other venues across Ireland,” adds Aiken.
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Irish biz calls for clarity as govt floats dry shows
Figures from across the live music industry have asked for consistency in how live events are treated in the Republic of Ireland, where just six people are currently allowed to gather even in the country’s biggest venues.
At press time, cultural businesses such as museums, cinemas, theatres and art galleries are allowed to welcome 50 people indoors because they are deemed to be “controlled environments”. All other indoor events – including concerts – are subject to the so-called ‘rule of six’, or a maximum capacity of six people.
Speaking to RTÉ Radio 1 on Wednesday, Indiependence festival promoter Shane Dunne said: “It’s quite ironic at the moment that I can have the same number of people in my kitchen as I can in the 3Arena [in Dublin], which has 9,500 seats.”
Brian Byrne, director of Wexford-based Lantern Presents, says recent reductions in capacity limits have scuppered his ability to put on socially distanced events.
“We had planned for 500-capacity socially distanced shows and then it changed; then we planned 200 and the guidelines changed again. So we planned for 50 indoors, but guidelines changed again – so it is frustrating,” he tells the Irish Mirror.
“At the moment I can have the same number of people in my kitchen as I can in the 3Arena”
Adding that there are now “contradictions” in government guidelines for different activities, he continues: “If I do a gig in a theatre, I can have 50 people. But if I do a gig in my own venues, I can have six.
“One of the venues we use is a church – a lovely venue. If I do a music event there this weekend I can only have six people at it. But if I go to mass there the next day, there can be 100 people at mass in the same building.”
Meanwhile, the Republic’s ministers for the arts and health met on Monday (7 September) to discuss provisional plans to restart live entertainment – if alcohol is not served on the premises.
According to the Irish Times, health secretary Martin is “keen to increase the levels of audience and artists at events beyond the current restrictions, and will examine if banning alcohol from such events could facilitate them being held.”
There were 196 daily cases of Covid-19 in Ireland yesterday (10 September).
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Festival Fever: latest wave of line-up announcements
In the most recent edition in a series of 2020 line-up announcements, IQ rounds up the festival billings from Rolling Loud Portugal, Jazzopen Stuttgart, Nos Primavera Sound Porto, Balaton Sound, Mallorca Live and Fest Festival.
(See the previous edition of Festival Fever here.)
Rolling Loud Portugal
When: 8 to 10 July
Where: Praia da Rocha, Portimão, Portugal
The Rolling Loud festival brand is making its European debut this summer in the Algarve region of Portugal.
The beachside festival is headlined by ASAP Rocky, Future and Wiz Khalifa, with performances from artists including AJ Tracey, Roddy Ricch, Dababy, Young Thug, Tyga, Playboi Carti, D-Block Europe and Giggs.
In an Instagram post, Rolling Loud co-founder Tariq Cherif warned that capacity is “limited” for the festival due to the beach setting, and advised fans to act quickly to purchase tickets.
Founded in 2015 by Cherif and Matt Zingler, Rolling Loud has expanded from its flagship Miami festival to take place in the Bay Area, Los Angeles, New York and Sydney, Australia. An inaugural Rolling Loud Hong Kong was called off earlier this year.
The pre-sale for Rolling Loud Portugal starts on Thursday 6 February at 8 a.m. Remaining tickets go on sale at 8 a.m. the following day here.
The Rolling Loud festival brand is making its European debut this summer
Jazzopen Stuttgart
When: 9 to 19 July
Where: Stuttgart, Germany
How many: 50,000 (whole festival)
Founded in 1994, the Jazzopen Stuttgart has hosted the likes of Quincy Jones, Bob Dylan, Lauryn Hill, Jamiroquai, BB King, Herbie Hancock, James Brown and Joss Stone over the years.
The 2020 edition will see artists including Sting, Lenny Kravitz, Van Morrison, Yusuf/Cat Stevens, John Legend, Jessie J, Jamie Cullum and Corinne Bailey Rae grace the main stage.
Staged in multiple venues ranging from 250- to 7,000-capacity, fans will be able to see acts such as Nils Frahm, Herbie Hancock, Arturo Sandoval, James Carter Organ Trio, Emmet Cohen and Rymden over the course of ten days.
“In the last 10 years we expanded the jazzopen from a regional event to one of the leading international jazz festivals with 50.000 ticket sales annually,” comments festival director Juergen Schlensog.
“This was only possible by means of a strong sponsoring. Daimler, Mastercard and Allianz accompany the festival alongside other valuable partners and brands. The UK market is of vital importance for us, as we book all major acts in direct exchange with local agents in the UK and USA.”
Tickets for Jazzopen Stuttgart 2020 are available here, with full festival passes priced from €700. Tickets for individual shows are also available for a range of prices, with some free-to-access concerts.
The 2020 edition will see artists including Sting, Lenny Kravitz and Van Morrison
Nos Primavera Sound Porto
When: 11 to 13 June
Where: Parque da Cidade, Porto, Portugal
How many: 30,000
The Portuguese sister event of Barcelona festival Primavera Sound has released the line-up for its ninth edition.
Tyler the Creator, Lana Del Rey, Pavement, FKA Twigs, Beck, Bad Bunny and King Krule are among those headlining the festival, which also features Chromatics, Earl Sweatshirt, Cigarettes After Sex and Kim Gordon.
Primavera Sound’s flagship Spanish event, which sold over 10,000 tickets in a day after announcing its line-up last month, will feature performances from the Stokes, Iggy Pop, Massive Attack, Lana Del Rey and Brittany Howard.
Tickets for Nos Primavera Sound Porto are available here, with a full festival pass priced at €120 (£102) and a day ticket at €60 (£51). Tickets for Primavera Sound Barcelona are still available here for €195 (£165).
The Portuguese sister event of Barcelona festival Primavera Sound has released the line-up for its ninth edition
Balaton Sound
When: 8 to 12 July
Where: Lake Balaton, Hungary
How many: 40,000
Balaton Sound, one of Europe’s largest open-air electronic music festivals, is back in 2020 following a record-breaking outing last year.
Over 170,000 fans attended the five-day event in 2019 to see artists including Tiesto, Marshmello, the Chainsmokers and Armin van Buuren.
The 2020 edition brings performances from the likes of Martin Garrix, DJ Snake, Dimitri Vegas and Like Mike, Kygo, Steve Aoki, Don Diablo, Sigala and Jonas Blue.
A special, Hollywood-themed VIP area will provide guests with a massage parlour, makeup lounge, exclusive pool parties and surprise shows.
Tickets for Balaton Sound 2020 are on sale now, with multi-day passes starting from €169 and going up to €325 for a five-day VIP ticket. Prices will increase on 14 February.
Over 170,000 fans attended the five-day event in 2019
Mallorca Live
When: 14 to 16 May
Where: Old Aquapark of Calvià, Mallorca, Spain
How many: 11,000
Mallorca Live festival is back in 2020 for its fifth year, with a headline performance from British electronic pop band Pet Shop Boys.
Crystal Fighters, Michael Kiwanuka, Miles Kane, Kate Tempest and Temples are among other acts performing at the festival.
Last year’s festival saw a record attendance of 33,500 people over three days, thanks to a festival site extension. A new fourth stage – Tròpic Stage – has been added for 2020, dedicated to electronic acts, featuring DJs including Marcel Dettman, dOP, Or:La and Red Axes.
Tickets for Mallorca Live festival can be purchased for €75 (£64) plus fees for the two-day pass (Friday and Saturday) and for €90 (£76) plus fees for the three-day pass here.
Crystal Fighters, Michael Kiwanuka and Kate Tempest are among other acts performing at the festival
Fest Festival
When: 13 to 15 August
Where: Silesia Park, Chorzów, Poland
Poland’s Fest Festival, one of the fastest-growing music festivals in eastern Europe, has announced the second wave of acts for its 2020 edition.
The festival’s second outing will be headlined by Mark Ronson, with performances from James Bay, Nothing But Thieves, Denzel Curry, Sigrid, Alice Glass, Sohn and Daughter.
Polish rappers Taco Hemingway and Mata have also been added to the line-up, along with local indie-rock band Sonbird.
Fest Festival was nominated for best new festival at the European Festival Awards 2019 and is up for the New Gig on the Block prize at the 2020 Arthur Awards, taking place at the International Live Music Conference in March.
Tickets for Fest Festival are available here for PLN 349 (£70), with prices set to increase on 14 February.
The festival’s second outing will be headlined by Mark Ronson
Forbidden Fruit Festival
When: 30 to 31 May
Where: Royal Hospital Kilmainham, Dublin, Ireland
How many: 10,000
Pod’s Forbidden Fruit Festival is celebrating its tenth anniversary edition in 2020 at its home in the grounds of the Irish Museum of Modern Art in the Royal Hospital Kilmainham, Dublin.
The line-up for this year’s festival includes headliners Jorja Smith and Underworld, along with Peggy Gou, Loyle Carner, Hot Chip and the Avalanches.
The festival is returning to its roots this year, taking place over two days, rather than the three-day format preferred in previous editions. Organisers promise plenty of “birthday surprises” for their tenth year.
Weekend tickets are available here, priced at €124.50, with day tickets available for €69.50.
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MCD brings back Sunstroke festival for 2020
Faith No More and Deftones will headline Sunstroke when the ’90s alternative-rock festival returns to Ireland next summer.
Sunstroke, promoted by Denis Desmond’s MCD Productions, debuted in 1993 in Dublin’s Dalymount Park, when it was also headlined by Faith No More, according to RTE. The final Sunstroke took place at the Royal Dublin Society’s RDS Simmonscourt venue in 1995.
For its return in 2020, it will take place at Punchestown Racecourse near Naas – formerly also home to MCD’s Oxegen festival – on Saturday 13 and Sunday 14 June.
Other performers over three stages include the Jesus and Mary Chain, Gojira, Black Veil Brides and Killing Joke, as well as Bowling for Soup, While She Sleeps, Frank Carter and the Rattlesnakes and Mongol-metal band the Hu.
Earlybird weekend tickets, priced at €129.50 (inc. booking fee) or €159.50 with camping, go on sale at 10am on 3 December.
MCD’s other festivals include the annual Longitude event, also in Dublin, as well as Love Sensation, Summer in the City and the Irish leg of Country to Country (C2C).
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