AXS expands into Germany with new partnerships
AEG-owned ticketing firm AXS is expanding into Germany via partnerships with two major arenas.
The firm will service premium ticketing at Berlin’s Uber Arena and Hamburg’s Barclays Arena – both of which are owned by AEG.
In partnership with AEG Germany’s premium sales team, AXS’ suite management and access control platforms will replace legacy suite ticketing platforms in each arena.
Collectively, the venues host 400 events per year, for which AXS will handle premium and suite tickets.
In addition to Germany, AXS is operational in the UK, Sweden, Japan and Australia via venues, sports teams, festivals, and live events.
The venues collectively host 400 events per year, for which AXS will handle premium and suite tickets
The firm’s clients include B.League, Swedish Elite Football, Venues New South Wales, BST Hyde Park, All Points East, The O2, OVO Arena Wembley and Stockholm Live!.
“AXS has the privilege of working with the most iconic venues in the world,” says Blaine Legere, president, international, AXS.
“There is no better way to kick-start our business in Germany than by bringing our industry-leading suite management and access control platform to these two world-class venues.”
Jan Kienappel, COO & CFO of AEG Germany, adds: “We are excited to introduce AXS ticketing to our premium customers. The platform will improve our service and enhance our marketing capabilities in that segment, which sets us up to further grow our business.”
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Semmel Concerts’ road stories with Hans Zimmer
Semmel Concerts’ Oliver Rosenwald has given IQ a glimpse into the world of Hans Zimmer ahead of the Oscar-winning film score composer’s latest European tour.
Zimmer will grace arenas across the continent in 2025 and 2026 with Hans Zimmer Live – The Next Level, which promises a completely new show featuring “groundbreaking electronic soundscapes and a spectacular light production”.
Although project manager Rosenwald remains tight-lipped on the finer details, he is convinced fans will not be disappointed.
“It’s a new tour, a new show, a new concept,” he tells IQ. “It will not be even similar to that what you have seen or experienced before, and I’m 100% sure that everybody will love it. I really hope we will surprise and delight our customers with this one.”
The Next Level will commence in Zimmer’s native Germany at Oberhausen’s Rudolf-Weber Arena on 12 October next year, going on to visit Austria, the Czech Republic, Switzerland, Belgium, the Netherlands, France, the UK and Ireland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Poland, Spain and the UK and Ireland.
“Hans is a super pro and a wonderful human, and he loves to be on tour and to make music”
In 2026, it will also head to Scandinavia, Poland and Spain before wrapping up at Portugal at Lisbon’s MEO Arena on March 31. Rosenwald reports that ticket sales have got off to a strong start.
“Our on-sale went very well: after 48 hours, we added second shows at The O2 in London and in Dublin at the 3Arena. We sold 25,000 tickets in three or four days for La Defense Arena in Paris that indoor stadium, which I was not expecting. I’m pretty sure that we will add more shows to these two tour legs within the coming weeks.”
CTS Eventim-backed Semmel is co-producing the tour with Los Angeles-based RCI Global, which was founded by Zimmer and Steven Kofsky, while the UK dates are presented alongside Harvey Goldsmith and Kilimanjaro Live. This month marks a decade since the launch of Zimmer’s maiden live show at Hammersmith’s Eventim Apollo in London.
“For Semmel Concerts, it’s just wonderful,” says Rosenwald. “We started as local promoter for the tour in Germany, Austria and Switzerland in 2017, then we produced The World of Hans Zimmer together with him and RCI, and it kept moving forward.
“Hans is a super pro and a wonderful human, and he loves to be on tour and to make music. For me, it’s just a great honour. Sometimes I wake up and can’t believe I get to do this kind of work with such a cool artist.”
“The first 17 shows in the US went on sale with a very interesting model – a TikTok presale – and we sold over 80% of the tickets in 48 hours”
Indeed, the relationship has developed to the extent that the German firm is partnering on Zimmer’s current tour of North America.
“We are super-happy that we can do a tour with him in the US and have the next one in Europe already on sale,” says Rosenwald, speaking to IQ from America. “It’s interesting and also a little bit challenging in parts for a European company to tour a US-based artist through the US with Concerts West, even if Semmel Concerts is part of Eventimlive. It’s a quite interesting combination, but it’s a wonderful opportunity and all the shows are almost sold out.
“We went on sale only four or five months before the tour, so I was a little bit nervous because in Europe we normally have six or eight months, or even a year, to sell it, which was our experience in the past with Hans Zimmer Live. But the first 17 shows in the US went on sale with a very interesting model – a TikTok presale – which was pretty cool, and we sold over 80% of the tickets in 48 hours and added another three shows.”
The North American leg, which concludes at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas on 12 October, has been an eye-opening experience for the Semmel team.
“Everything is a little bit different in Europe,” smiles Rosenwald, who reveals hopes of expanding the tour to Asia and Latin America. “But here in the US, we have new situations: with unions, with trucking; there is a different kind of mentality when meeting each other. We have part of our European production crew with us working together with the US-based crew.”
“We decided to bring our Ukrainian orchestra to the US because Hans loves them so much”
He continues: “We decided to bring our Ukrainian orchestra to the US because Hans loves them so much, and it was a tricky process to get these visa and work permits done, time-wise. We started that process as soon as we confirmed the tour in January 2024, but some visas were only approved a few days before people had to leave for the US. That was a little bit challenging, but we got there. We had a very good visa agency and they did a marvellous job.”
More than 300,000 tickets were sold for Zimmer’s 2024 European run, The World of Hans Zimmer Tour – A New Dimension, which marked a new chapter in the concert series as the composer participated as the show’s curator and musical director, rather than performing live on stage himself. Previously, his acclaimed 2023 European tour played to almost 400,000 fans in the spring and was completely sold out.
“It’s not a situation where there’s a big orchestra and the composer is doing his thing; it’s more like a rock show sometimes,” reflects Rosenwald. “It’s the genius behind the music of Dune, or James Bond, or The Lion King, and you would think his normal environment is the studio. But then you see him on the stage and you realise that is also his natural environment. That somehow makes it unique.”
Revisit IQ‘s 2022 feature on Hans Zimmer Live here.
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Wacken Open Air 2025 is sold out
The 2025 edition of German heavy metal festival Wacken Open Air (WOA) has sold out, organisers have announced.
The majority of the 85,000 tickets were snapped up days after the 4 August pre-sale, with the remainder shifted by 30 September.
The 2024 event holds the title for the fastest sell-out, with tickets flying off the shelf in four and a half hours and smashing the previous record of six hours set for 2023’s event.
“It’s actually not a big surprise [it didn’t sell out in one day] because that’s only happened twice; we had years where we needed 10 months to sell it out. We are almost sold out, so it’s all good,” WOA booker Jan Quiel said at last week’s International Festival Forum.
Last month, WOA organisers confirmed 34 bands for the 34th edition including Machine Head, Saltatio Mortis, Papa Roach, Gojira, Apocalyptica, Saxon, Within Temptation, Dimmu Borgir, Ministry, Michael Schenker, Peyton Parrish, Beyond The Black and Clawfinger.
“We are once again more than grateful for your endless support and trust”
Discussing the festival’s booking strategy, Quiel told IFF delegates: “We always do a classic act because it’s always part of the DNA of the festival. So a band like Scorpions is always a huge, cool headliner for us as well. But we definitely keep in mind that we have to grow a younger audience as well.
“I always keep some spots [open]. Let’s say the last four to five slots, I book in March or April in case there are new, up-and-coming artists, such as Sleep Token when they were growing in Germany. And so that was one of the few slots I had left and I could put them on.”
The 2024 edition of WOA was headlined by Scorpions, Korn, Amon Amarth and Blind Guardian, and was a return to form after the weather-related struggles in 2023.
“It’s time to say thank you again!” says founder and organiser Thomas Jensen. “This year we celebrated the 33rd edition of the Wacken Open Air with you during best weather conditions and the new arrival concept also worked and took you all to the Holy Ground without any problems and traffic jams. Now we can also announce that Wacken Open Air 2025 is SOLD OUT and we are once again more than grateful for your endless support and trust!”
WOA returns to Wacken, Schleswig-Holstein, between 30 July to 2 August 2025.
WOA, Tuska Festival, K2 Agency and Catch 22 surveyed the state of the metal scene at the recent IFF. Read the takeaways from the panel here.
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German festivals to benefit from €4 million fund
German music festivals are set to share in a €4 million funding pot as part of the latest phase of a nationwide programme.
Events can apply for grants of up to €50,000 between 11 October and 4 November, with applications to be evaluated by a “qualified panel of industry experts”.
Key factors in the judging process will include evidence of measures to strengthen ecological sustainability, promote young artists, support special programme formats, and initiatives for participation and accessibility, including greater diversity on stages.
“Festivals are much more than just live music; they are cultural beacons that enable encounters and promote civic engagement,” says Katja Lucker, MD of Berlin-based central funding body Initiative Musik MD. “They make an invaluable contribution, especially in rural regions, by celebrating cultural diversity, uniting the local community and facilitating exchange between people. On behalf of the Initiative Musik and personally, I am delighted that the Festival Fund is now entering a new round and doing justice to the valuable cultural work of music festivals.”
The initial phase of the scheme saw €5m awarded across 141 projects from 16 federal states six months ago after 800 applications were received from around the country.
“The importance of live music culture for civil society, especially in rural areas, can hardly be overestimated”
The second stage has been opened to “cross-genre and cross-disciplinary” festivals, with a special focus placed on non-urban areas, which are expected to make up at least 70% of the funded projects.
“In this round, the funding programme focuses even more strongly on music festivals beyond the metropolises in order to support their contributions to artistic diversity and the strengthening of regional structures,” adds a statement.
Funding is subject to final approval by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media.
Meanwhile, the second round of Initiative Musik’s Live 500 funding programme, which offers almost €900,000 to support small to medium-sized music venues and regional event organisers, draws to a close on 23 October. In the first round, 194 projects were supported, with small venues accounting for 86% of recipients.
“We are pleased with the results achieved and have adjusted the funding criteria in the second round in order to specifically address challenges such as the underrepresentation of rural areas and increased costs for music venues,” adds Lucker. “The importance of live music culture for civil society, especially in rural areas, can hardly be overestimated. Preserving its diversity and strengthening these regions culturally is a central task of Initiative Musik.”
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FKP’s Stephan Thanscheidt on the firm’s ’24 so far
FKP Scorpio CEO Stephan Thanscheidt tells IQ that the company “couldn’t be any happier” with how its year has panned out amid a challenging year for the industry.
Standout moments for the German-headquartered promoter have included a string of sellout shows by Taylor Swift and Ed Sheeran over the summer.
Its festival portfolio also remains robust, with Thanscheidt pointing to the “unprecedented demand” seen for next summer’s events.
“We couldn’t be any happier with how 2024 has turned out so far, especially given the challenges our industry continues to face,” says Thanscheidt. “Two of our highlights were five sold out stadium shows by Taylor Swift as well as record-breaking concerts with Ed Sheeran in Poland and the Baltics.
“Our festival business was also going strong: four of our five major festivals in Germany were sold out or very close to being sold out, and the ticket sales launch for Hurricane, Southside, Deichbrand and M’era Luna each started with unprecedented demand, the first two alone selling 60,000 tickets in just 24 hours.”
“We consider ourselves fortunate to have had this success, because the challenges remain unchanged for the most part”
He continues: “We consider ourselves fortunate to have had this success, because the challenges remain unchanged for the most part: The costs for virtually everything are still on the rise, and margins are melting fast.
“We cannot and will not pass these costs on to our visitors, so being economically viable in different areas helps enormously in achieving stability and planning security for all our business segments.”
The first artists confirmed for Hurricane & Southside’s 2025 lineup include 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.
FKP also announced extra tour dates for Sheeran’s 2025 European +–=÷× (Mathematics) Tour after over 600,000 tickets were sold in an hour.
“We’re busy curating our festival line-ups for 2025 and have just announced the first acts for Hurricane and Southside,” adds Thanscheidt. “We’ll also be promoting another Europe tour with Ed Sheeran that is already really close to selling out all 22 dates.”
“While big shows continue to draw large crowds, not all events are performing equally well”
He adds: “We have a lot of great shows still coming up, for example Planet Earth III – Live in Concert. This unique cooperation with BBC Studios offers breathtakingly beautiful videos and great music composed by Hans Zimmer. I’m sure this concept will resonate with our audiences in Germany, Switzerland, the UK and the Netherlands.
“In addition to a packed tour calendar, November will keep us extra busy due to our three indoor festivals at the Baltic Sea.”
As for the wider market, Thanscheidt sees positives and negatives with the current state of play.
“While big shows continue to draw large crowds, not all events are performing equally well,” he says. “The same applies to the festival sector: It’s no longer just smaller brands that are forced into closure but well-established names as well. That saddens us because all competition aside we’re all in the same boat as colleagues and music-lovers.
“This development has many reasons outside of our influence that, paired with the already mentioned skyrocketing production costs, is making many people in our industry uneasy, and rightfully so. At FKP Scorpio, we consider ourselves very fortunate to still be enjoying the kind of success we currently have.”
Revisit IQ‘s career-spanning 2023 feature on Thanscheidt here.
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Germany’s Full Force Festival called off for 2025
German festival Full Force will take a break in 2025 due to “several challenges [the organisers] cannot easily overcome”.
Launched in 1994, the Goodlive-promoted event brings some of the biggest metalcore, hardcore and punk acts to Ferropolis, Saxony-Anhalt, each year.
“Over the past weeks and months, we have made every effort to ensure that the festival can take place as usual, but the “most metal place on earth” will unfortunately have to remain silent next year,” reads a statement from organisers.
“The reasons for the cancellation are complex and confront our team with several challenges that we cannot easily overcome regarding the upcoming year,” it continues.
“We would like to offer you a festival that meets your needs, but the current circumstances unfortunately make it impossible for us to hold the festival as usual next year.”
Last year’s edition took place across three days in June and was headlined by Electric Callboy, Gojira and Papa Roach.
“The ‘most metal place on earth’ will unfortunately have to remain silent next year”
Organisers say they are currently working on preparing and implementing the 2026 edition of Full Force.
The news comes months after Goodlive announced that MELT – which also takes place annually at Ferropolis – would not return after 2024.
The decision to discontinue the 20,000-capacity festival, which has taken place since 1997, was partly due to “insurmountable changes in the festival landscape”.
The swansong edition took place in July with over 120 artists, including Sampha, James Blake, Sugababes, DJ Koze, Romy, Marlon Hoffstadt, Overmono and Skepta.
Goodlive, which was acquired by Live Nation GSA in 2022, also promotes festivals including Splash! Heroes Festival and Superbloom Festival.
Read IQ‘s recent interview with Goodlive’s Fruzsina Szép on the 2024 editions of Superbloom and Lollapalooza Berlin.
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Amazon’s City Sessions to expand across Europe
Amazon Music’s performance and livestream series City Sessions is to be rolled out across Europe.
The series features big name acts performing on intimate stages in unique venues. Concerts have previously been held under the banner in the US and Latin America, starring acts such as Kings of Leon, Nelly Furtado, Omah Lay, Sofi Tukker, Mau y Ricky, Andra Day, The Black Crowes, Glass Animals and Wallows.
City Sessions will now expand to the UK, Germany, Spain and Italy, kicking off in Manchester and Madrid on 15 October.
Bastille will perform at new Manchester arts, music and culture venue Aviva Studios, the home of Factory International. The one-off gig will be livestreamed on Prime Video and the Amazon Music UK channel on Twitch.
Phoebe Barter, group brand & sponsorship director of UK insurance wealth and retirement business Aviva, says the series will feature “exclusive performances from some of the biggest names in music”.
“We are excited to team up with Amazon Music to bring City Sessions to Manchester and to Aviva Studios”
“We are excited to team up with Amazon Music to bring City Sessions to Manchester and to Aviva Studios,” adds Barter.
The Bastille performance will be the first of four City Sessions shows across Europe in 2024 and 2025.
Also taking place in Spain on 15 October at Madrid’s Matadero Space will be concerts by RVFV and Soge Culebra, the latter of whom was inducted into the Amazon Music Breakthrough programme for emerging talent in 2023. Their performances will be broadcast live on the Amazon Music En Vivo channel on Twitch.
Later in the autumn, the series will launch in Berlin with German singer-songwriter LEA on a date and location to be confirmed. A further spin-off: City Sessions, Italy, is also in the pipeline.
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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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A.S.S. appoints management for Düsseldorf office
Germany’s A.S.S. Concerts & Promotion has appointed a dual leadership team to run its Düsseldorf office.
One half of the team is Sabrina Sapone, who joined the company in August 2023 as a local promoter.
Prior to that, she spent eight years at Essen-based cultural centre Zeche Carl, first in press and public relations, then as production manager and event planner. As an artist manager, she also worked for Rock am Ring and Wacken Open Air.
Sapone will be joined by Nils Max, who worked as an intern at A.S.S. in 2009 as part of his studies.
Max’s training as an event manager at ZAKK Düsseldorf was followed by studies at the Popakademie Baden-Württemberg. He worked at the Popakademie from 2011 to 2024 as head of the music exploitation department, where he was responsible for the top funding programme Bandpool and the artist agency Klinkt.
“It is a great pleasure for me to continue to expand the Düsseldorf location together with Nils,” says Sapone. “With the expertise and passion of our outstanding team, we will realise extraordinary projects together.”
“We are wonderfully positioned with the dual leadership of these two industry-experienced and competent employees”
Max adds: “I am really looking forward to working with Sabrina, I think we complement each other very well in our core competencies and together we can expand ass’s position as a local organiser in North Rhine-Westphalia [NRW].”
Florian “Böde” Böhlendorf, managing director of A.S.S, comments: “With the more than 300 events that we organise in NRW every year, the formats that continue to become more diverse, the demands that booking, artist development, team management and marketing pose, we are wonderfully positioned with the dual leadership of these two industry-experienced and competent employees.”
“Both also bring an extensive network, new ideas and a breath of fresh air to the agency. I am very much looking forward to the future development together with Sabrina and Nils.”
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. It also operates in Austria, Switzerland and the Benelux, and represents various artists throughout Europe as an agent.
The company works with acts such as 10cc, Bob Geldof, Crash Test Dummies, Donovan, Jack Savoretti, The Stranglers and Wishbone Ash.
A.S.S. Concerts opened its Dusseldorf branch in 2018, located at the headquarters of Mehr-BB, which specialises in promoting and producing theatrical shows. The move expanded A.S.S.’s network beyond its headquarters in Hamburg and an existing branch office in Berlin.
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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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