What makes a major festival headliner?
After a barren few years for new headliners, the festival business suddenly finds itself with an embarrassment of riches to choose from.
The industry struggled to produce fresh superstar talent over a decade of discontent – a drought that was exacerbated by the global touring boom, as A-list acts increasingly skipped the festival circuit in favour of their own headline shows.
Yet accusations of an over-reliance on heritage acts – ironically enough – are becoming a thing of the past. According to ROSTR, which analysed the 2024 lineups of 50 top European festivals, the artist with the most headline slots this year was Fred Again.. with seven, followed by Måneskin (6) and Dua Lipa, The Chainsmokers, Lana Del Rey, SZA, Sam Smith, Bring Me The Horizon and Pulp (5).
With the exception of Pulp, all of the above broke through in the 2010s or later, while the likes of Billie Eilish, Sam Fender, Lewis Capaldi, Dave, Halsey and Hozier have also ascended to the top table in recent years.
Next year’s lineups have seen a continuation of the trend, with the likes of Charli XCX, Olivia Rodrigo and Sabrina Carpenter ascending to headline status. Most startlingly of all, however, is the world’s fastest-rising artist Chappell Roan, who will top the bill at multiple major European festivals despite having just one album under her belt.
So what makes a festival headliner in this day and age? Primavera Sound’s head of bookings Fra Soler argues the criteria has not radically altered.
“There are two types of headliners: those with long careers… and those who have just exploded and are very hot at the moment”
“Festivals seek headliners who are successful, relevant and sell tickets,” he tells IQ. “It’s the same for 2024/25. At Primavera, since we are a tastemaking festival, we always like to present acts at the early stages of their careers and bet on potential headliners of the future. It has occurred several times that an act we booked in September has become a headliner by the time Primavera happens in June.”
Primavera Sound Barcelona has booked an all-female headline slate for 2025, featuring Roan, Charli XCX and Sabrina Carpenter.
“We have a very deep lineup, with more than 100 acts, and our idea has always been to tell different stories through our line-up,” says Soler. “In a way, our curation is also one of our headliners. That said, we also look for quality, relevance, success and freshness in a headliner.”
Moreover, Soler does not consider 26-year-old Roan’s meteoric rise to be indicative of a new phenomenon.
“There are two types of headliners: those with long careers who have achieved a status and maintained it, and those who have just exploded and are very hot at the moment,” he asserts. “For the latter, we hope they maintain their profile over the years and remain headliners for many years to come.
“It is true that we’ve been through some sort of headliner drought in recent years, so it’s great to have fresh and new headliners emerging.”
“When we see how fast acts like these can grow and deliver headliner-worthy shows, it gives us bright hope for the future”
Roan and Charli XCX will also star at Norway’s 22,000-cap Øya Festival alongside Queens of the Stone Age and Girl in Red.
“We have been lucky getting our first choices confirmed this year, all with very different criteria,” says the Oslo event’s founder, owner and booker Claes Olsen. “QOTSA had to cancel last year due to illness, so we’re very happy that Josh [Homme, frontman] is healthy again and ready to be back on the road next summer, while Girl in Red is our local headliner and we are proud of giving the Saturday headline slot to a domestic act.”
Olsen discloses: “On both Chappell Roan and Charli XCX, we made the offers early for slots lower down the bill, then they both grew and grew and the offer got bigger. When we got the confirmed and announced they were definitely solid main stage headliners for us.
“When we as an industry debates the lack of headliners, I must say that when we see how fast acts like these can grow and deliver headliner-worthy shows, it gives us bright hope for the future.”
Olsen concurs with Soler’s view that there have always been exceptions to the rule, with the size of the festival also playing a part.
“At Øya we kind of have to be creative and find a way to lift up new headliners,” he offers. “When we moved Kendrick Lamar up to headline level in 2013 that was also due to the artist growing quickly, and the same with Robyn in 2010; it all happened after we confirmed her and had to move her up.”
“While these names may seem like exceptions, they increasingly represent a trend that any festival must take into account”
Conversely, Virág Csiszár, head of international booking at Hungary’s Sziget, believes the quickfire ascents of Eilish, Roan and Fred Again.. are reflective of “significant changes” in the music industry.
Sziget 2025 will be headed by Roan, Charli XCX and Anyma, and Csiszár points to the emergence of TikTok and streaming platforms for enabling artists to quickly build large fanbases.
“While these names may seem like exceptions, they increasingly represent a trend that any festival must take into account,” she contends.
Moreover, Csiszár insists the public holds a significant say in determining Sziget’s lineup, with the distinct makeup of the festival’s audience also factored in.
“We heavily rely on visitor feedback, conducting various surveys and online questionnaires to monitor which artists generate the most interest each year and who our audience wants to see in the closing slot of the main stage,” says Csiszár. “We do not solely consider Hungarian market demands but also place significant emphasis on the favourites of international visitors when selecting performers.”
“It’s no longer about how long an artist has been in the game, it’s about how they connect with an audience”
Nicholas Greco, co-founder and managing partner of Australia’s Unitled Group, promoter of festivals such as Beyond The Valley, agrees the headliner model has shifted.
“With the speed at which social media propels artists into global stardom, audiences expect festivals to be forward-thinking and at the forefront of cultural trends,” he observes. “Festivals have become breeding grounds for the next wave of talent, which means we have to stay ahead of emerging global trends and new artists before they fully break.”
Greco continues: “It’s no longer about how long an artist has been in the game, it’s about how they connect with an audience. If an artist can create a genuine connection and the crowd can already see their superstar potential, they’ll follow. This is why acts like Chappell Roan, Billie Eilish, and Fred Again.. headlined festivals early in their careers – they’ve managed to capture a moment in time and build a significant, engaged fanbase rapidly.”
Elsewhere in Belgium, Sam Fender is among the headliners for the next edition of Belgium’s Rock Werchter, which prompts organiser Herman Schueremans to share a point of personal pride.
“A lot of our headliners for either Rock Werchter, TW Classic or Werchter Boutique first played when they were an upcoming act and come back later as a headliner,” beams the Live Nation Belgium CEO. “They say it is like coming home for them. We keep building acts and the criteria stays the same – quality!”
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Top promoters tackle the new headliner debate
Leading UK promoters have spoken out on the live industry’s success rate at developing fresh stadium and festival headliners.
The new headliner question has been a perennial debate in the touring business over the past decade, amid claims of an over-reliance on heritage artists. Yet despite legends including Elton John, KISS, Aerosmith, Ozzy Osbourne and the Eagles all retiring from the road, the pipeline appears to be as healthy as it has been in decades.
The summer of 2023 has witnessed open air spectaculars by an abundance of stars still in their 20s and early 30s such as Taylor Swift, Harry Styles, Ed Sheeran, Billie Eilish, Burna Boy, The 1975, Arctic Monkeys, Wizkid, The Weeknd, Blackpink, Sam Fender and Bad Bunny, and AEG’s European Festivals chief Jim King is buoyed by the state of play.
“It’s a very interesting question because it comes up a lot,” he tells IQ. “But as I remind everybody: some of the biggest shows this year have been with young, contemporary artists, or certainly will be in the next 12 months.”
Blockbuster tours by Taylor Swift ($300.8 million), Harry Styles ($124m) and Ed Sheeran ($105.3m) all hit the nine-figure mark in H1 2023, with Swift’s Eras Tour on target to become the first concert tour in history to net more than US$1 billion, and Styles recently wrapped Love On Tour generating close to $600m overall.
“Harry Styles could probably still be playing Wembley now if they had the availability”
Only this week, meanwhile, it was announced that The Weeknd pulled in over 1.6 million fans to the European leg of his After Hours Til Dawn Tour. The Canadian shattered Wembley Stadium’s record for sales with a traditional concert set up with the stage at one end with 87,000 tickets sold, having also set a new attendance record for London Stadium after drawing 160,000 fans over two nights in July.
In Milan, the 33-year-old sold over 159,000 tickets, making him the first artist to sell out two nights at Ippodromo La Maura, with his shows in Paris marking the biggest sales for Stade de France this year, totalling to 151,000 across the two dates. His shows in Nice, France sold 70,000 tickets across two shows – the highest in the city’s history.
“We talk our supply chain of new headliners down so often, with other artists sadly no longer with us or retiring,” says King. “But if you look at this great run of stadium shows, there has been no bigger act in London this summer than The Weeknd, with two London Stadiums and a Wembley Stadium.
“Harry Styles could probably still be playing Wembley now if they had the availability. His quality as an artist is unquestionable, not just in terms of his music, but his live performances. Taylor Swift will set records next year, no doubt, as she continues to in North America, and Ed Sheeran continues to do so as well – and those are just the easy ones off the top of your head.”
King oversees the 65,000-cap BST Hyde Park in London, which this year featured seasoned headliners Guns N’ Roses, Take That, Billy Joel, Pink and Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, plus contemporary superstars Blackpink and Lana Del Rey.
“Stadium business in the UK has never been stronger”
“The process of developing artists to that level has clearly changed since the 1970s, but most of the cultural industries have changed in some ways since then as well,” he adds. “I don’t feel any lack of optimism about the future – Lana Del Rey could have sold 100,000 tickets in London this summer if she’d have wanted to, such is the love and appreciation of where she is in her career. So I think the industry is in far better shape than people say.
“Stadium business in the UK has never been stronger. Trying to get avails for stadiums in the UK at the moment is beyond a challenge, and we know from The O2 and our other venues that live music is extremely strong – and that’s because of the quality of the artists. When quality sits in place, demand will follow.”
This weekend’s Reading & Leeds Festival (cap. 90,000 & 75,000, respectively) will be headlined by British artists Sam Fender, Foals and The 1975 (subbing for Lewis Capaldi), as well as Billie Eilish, The Killers and Imagine Dragons from the US, and Festival Republic boss Melvin Benn is confident the UK is still developing enough headline talent in relation to its American counterparts.
“Two out of the three Glastonbury headliners [Elton John/Arctic Monkeys] were UK acts, three out of six at Reading and Leeds are UK acts, three out of the three at Latitude [Pulp/Paolo Nutini/George Ezra] were UK acts, three out of the three at Wilderness [Chemical Brothers/Fatboy Slim] were UK acts, well one’s French albeit UK-based [Christine & The Queens],” Benn tells Music Week.
“If you look across festivals as a whole, there are more UK headliners than US headliners. Wireless [Playboy Carti/Travis Scott/D-Block Europe] has a greater propensity of US artists than UK artists because of the nature of the music. But if I was to look across all of the festival headline positions, the UK is very much the strongest generator of headliners.”
“There’s a fresh pipeline of talent coming through, which is needed”
Superstruct-backed UK festival promoter From the Fields booked Nile Rodgers & Chic, Kasabian, Blossoms and Royal Blood to headline its 40,000-cap Kendal Calling and Roisin Murphy, Pavement and Grace Jones for the 25,000-cap Bluedot.
“I’ve always struggled finding the headliners,” company MD and co-founder Andy Smith tells IQ. “I’ve always been the boy who cried wolf thinking that this is the year we won’t be able to find anyone. I remember back in 2011, the festival had completely sold out and we couldn’t find a Sunday night headliner. and that was two months of sheer panic, but eventually Alex Hardee came through and we got Calvin Harris so it worked out in the end. But it’s always difficult. If it wasn’t difficult, everyone would be doing it, but we always come through.
“I’d say it’s as difficult as it’s ever been. But this year, we had one of our strongest, most varied bills and it’s great to see newer acts taking our headline slot. Blossoms have played a number of times at the festival, but this was their first time on the main stage and they were headlining it and they did a great job. Royal Blood, again, had never played at Kendal before. So there’s a fresh pipeline of talent coming through, which is needed.”
Speaking earlier this year, Live Nation boss Michael Rapino praised the emergence of younger headliners such as Bad Bunny, Karol G, Rosalia, Blackpink, BTS and Billie Eilish.
“Six of the top 10 artists were younger artists,” he said. “There’s just a host of great new talent every year coming up, filling the pipe. We didn’t know Luke Combs was going to be selling stadiums out this year, two years ago. We had no idea Bad Bunny was going to be the largest selling artist last year.
“We’re also seeing this encouraging new supply strategy where for many years, it was all about US or UK-based artists that filled the charts and fill the stadium and most other talent was domestic… Now, you can see artists coming from Latin America and Korea and becoming global superstars.”
The debate will take centre stage at this year’s International Festival Forum (IFF) as part of the Headliners: The Winner Takes it All panel from 10am on Thursday 28 September, which will be chaired by WME agent Andy Duggan. Click here for more details.
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