‘The industry has well and truly bounced back’

“It’s a really interesting time,” says Steve Homer, CEO of AEG Presents UK, an understatement that’s echoed by several major promoters in one of Europe’s largest music markets. “There are some great sales and tours but still some acts out there, that would in previous times be performing much better, are struggling to gain any momentum. It results in a bit of a head scratch for promoters.”

A head scratch indeed. The UK has found itself facing a unique set of challenges and opportunities in 2022, some thrust upon it and others very much of its own making. On the plus side, as the initial post-pandemic downturn in ticket sales eases, there has been much for the major players to celebrate. Festival Republic, the country’s premier festival promoters, in charge of Latitude, Wireless, and others, comfortably sold out its flagship Reading & Leeds weekend in August. Glastonbury 2022, the first edition of the legendary event since 2019, was a storming, largely rain-free success. All genres have bounced firmly back from the pandemic, too – Homer, who has seen tickets fly off the web for tours by Michael Bublé, Diana Ross, Pet Shop Boys, and Blondie this year, points to Rammstein’s sell-out tour as “a triumph for rock music in a market where people are saying rock is a dying genre. It is so encouraging to see a rock act at the top of their game play sell-out stadium shows.”

Promoters, from the international level of Live Nation and SJM Concerts to the independent likes of Crosstown Concerts, have seen an incredibly busy year, as the post-pandemic backlog of artists wanting to tour has played out. “We are still playing catch up from the pandemic,” says Homer. “The displacement of artists touring over the past two years has skewed the market, and it’s going to take a while to get back to something that can be predicted in the same way, or as close to, as it was before.” He advises a cautious approach. “Taking a no-risk strategy for the next 12 months is a good starting point.”

“The live industry has well and truly bounced back this year and continues to work towards pre-pandemic business, making up for lost time”

Others have thrown themselves headlong into the challenge. In Scotland, DF Concerts had a record-breaking summer, with 33 major outdoor, stadium, or festival events bringing £72.4m into the Scottish economy between June and August, on top of the 1,000 smaller gigs they put on this year. “The live industry has well and truly bounced back this year and continues to work towards pre-pandemic business, making up for lost time,” says DF’s CEO Geoff Ellis. “We were involved in bringing some huge tours to Scotland this summer, including Harry Styles’ Love on Tour; Coldplay’s Music of the Spheres world tour; The Hella Mega Tour with Green Day, Fall Out Boy, and Weezer; Billie Eilish; Haim; Liam Gallagher; and Calvin Harris all in Glasgow. And we are very proud to have promoted the biggest ever shows by a Scottish artist with two sold-out Hampden Stadium shows for Gerry Cinnamon this year.”

Ellis and DF take much personal satisfaction in the success of his two shows at Falkirk Stadium with The Killers, the first time the venue had been used for such large-scale gigs, and in the Coldplay tour, having worked with the band since they were playing 300-capacity venues including Glasgow’s legendary King Tut’s back in 1999. He also lauds their commitment to environmentally friendly touring. “With Coldplay and Billie Eilish, in particular, it’s great to see everything come to life that they are so passionate about when it comes to making touring sustainable,” he says. “It was a real eye-opener and something that I hope more tours take into consideration going forward.”

At another major UK promotion company, Kilimanjaro, CEO Stuart Galbraith looks back on the company’s busiest year ever, with 750 shows on sale at one point. “To then deliver all of those one by one,” he says, “whether it was Craig David, whether it was Simply Red, whether it was Hans Zimmer in arenas, Bring Me The Horizon, just getting through the workload and a similar workload at theatre-level [was amazing]. This summer we had a tremendous return with Belladrum festival, Scotland’s biggest camping festival. We weren’t able to run in 2020 or 2021, so coming back in ‘22 was both challenging but hugely rewarding. Challenging because after not doing it for three years there were many things that were automatic that had been forgotten, but the reception by the audience and the satisfaction to the team at running a sold-out festival was just brilliant.”

“Brexit caused the problems we all knew it would”

Galbraith sees holding onto his team through the pandemic as just as great an achievement as the company’s musical revival. “Not having to lay anybody off during the pandemic,” he says, “we’re very pleased to have been able to keep the team together.” The effects of lockdown did ripple through into 2022, however. “We’ve seen the lasting effects of the pandemic through this summer,” he says. “We’ve got two or three tours left that are rescheduled or re-rescheduled twice, three times rescheduled, and other than that we’re now into new product. The summer had some huge successes but also had some huge challenges. But I’m hoping that we will see next summer be a much more normal marketplace.”

Kilimanjaro saw some form of normality begin to return with the arrival of a copper-topped hero. “One of the first tours that we had to play this summer that was not affected by Covid was Ed Sheeran,” Galbraith says. “We were able to go on sale with Ed in late September last year when there was a period of time where everybody thought that Covid was gone and then to be able to play that tour starting in May and running through to July, and in his case running through September in Europe, it placed itself perfectly, so people didn’t have any Covid effect to deal with.” He, too, repeats the UK promoter mantra for 2022: “It’s been an interesting year.”

Interesting due to its perfect storm of post-pandemic challenges. “Brexit caused the problems we all knew it would,” says Homer, referring to the much-publicised barriers to international touring for UK acts arising from Britain’s withdrawal from the EU. The additional visa, cabotage, and carnet issues have reportedly seen British artists’ international festival bookings fall by 45% since 2019 and increased costs to the point of making European tours unfeasible for smaller acts – Best for Britain CEO Naomi Smith has claimed that Brexit is “strangling the next generation of UK talent in the cradle.” Likewise, international acts have been discouraged from playing the UK by the increased red tape.

“Exchange rates have created the real financial issues for artists”

At the same time, the UK has suffered the same increased production costs due to the Ukraine war-fuelled inflation and post-pandemic labour shortages in the industry that much of the rest of the world has. But they’ve been exacerbated by the government’s lack of support for – often freelance – music industry workers and musicians, and the local cost-of-living crisis being deepened by Liz Truss’s short-lived but disastrous tenure as PM. The collapse of the pound and the ensuing recession following Truss’s mini budget was swiftly followed by the cancellation of UK tours by the likes of Animal Collective, Santigold, and Sampa the Great, citing the economic impossibility of making them work.

“It’s hard to tell whether it’s Brexit, whether it’s a recession, or whether it’s war, but all of them have had a combined effect to make it harder for artists to be on the road,” says Galbraith. “We’re certainly seeing a difficulty at mid-level for international touring acts, especially American acts that we’re potentially paying in local currency but are incurring most of their costs in US dollars. With the exchange rate as it is, and then you add to it supply chain issues, increased costs, etc. You can see that it’s difficult for acts, and certainly we’ve lost some tours at that theatre-level where acts have just turned around to us and said, ‘we can’t afford to come.’ Equally, we’ve got other tours that we’ve been working on for a long time that were waiting to be confirmed that have just now disappeared, again because the global conditions don’t lend themselves to make financially viable touring possible. That’s not the case at stadium-level or to some extent arena-level where there’s obviously profits to be made, but certainly at survival touring-level, it’s very tough.”

“Exchange rates have created the real financial issues for artists,” says Homer. “The dollar rate is so poor currently [that] a lot of US artists are considering [not] touring in the UK and Europe – this could have a real impact on the mid-range to smaller artists.”

“The audiences are here, ready and waiting, and there is a really strong artist pipeline over the next couple of years”

Galbraith also raises concerns over potential power cut measures that the UK government is suggesting to combat the current energy crisis – “as is the case in Germany, I’m sure that most countries will not be prioritising entertainment locations for priority power supplies. Those will go first to hospitals and to domestic residences” – and that insurance policies won’t cover shows cancelled due to Covid.

“I think most people now approach Covid like any other disease, and flu is a good comparator,” he says. “If you’re too ill to sing or you’re too ill to perform, then fine, we lose the show. But just because you’re now testing positive doesn’t mean that you’re necessarily not going to go on. What it does mean, though, is that with every insurance policy having Covid as an exclusion, if somebody can’t sing because they’ve got a cough or a cold or similar symptoms, you’ve got to get a doctor’s note to prove whether they have Covid or not because the irony is, if they’ve got flu, we can claim on insurance, if they’ve got Covid, we can’t.” He does, however, see a silver lining to the UK’s problems in terms of increased demand for local festivals next year. “The pound being so weak in the international markets now, package holidays will be more
expensive,” he says, “so it could be that summer ‘23 becomes a staycation year.”

Indeed, the major UK promoters are all largely optimistic about the coming year. “2023 is looking similar in terms of the scale of shows that we are going to have,” says Ellis. “Already we’ve announced stadium shows with Harry Styles, and Mötley Crüe & Def Leppard; greenfield shows with Arctic Monkeys and Muse; plus TRNSMT and Connect Festival, with more outdoor shows to come. The audiences are here, ready and waiting, and there is a really strong artist pipeline over the next couple of years – there are so many young artists coming up in Scotland at the moment, such as Katie Gregson-MacLeod, Bemz, Cara McBride, Dylan John Thomas, Ewan McVicar, Frazi.er, and so many more, and the genre of music is very varied – from acoustic singer-songwriters; rap and hip-hop; indie, pop, and everything in between. So, it’s looking like we’ll be back stronger than ever in terms of the offering of live music and the number of artists on tour.”

“We’re seeing strong attendances at club nights, showcase nights, and on the pub circuit”

“Demand has come back fine at most levels, with the exception of the older-audience level,” says Galbraith. “Certainly, theatre, musical theatre, and classical [are] slower to come back than contemporary rock and pop. If you speak to any orchestra manager or sinfonia or symphonic hall, they’ll tell you that their attendances are anything between 20 and 30% down still. […] I think the strong [acts] will get stronger, and the weak will get weaker. As people head into what widely seems to be accepted as a recession, instead of going out three or four times in a year or a month, people will go out two or three times or once or twice, and they’ll go out to see their favourites. So, I think you’ll see many stadium tours and arena tours that will do great business, but you will see potentially less of them.”

And the key to breaking through in such an unpredictable climate? Galbraith cites a dedicated approach to digital marketing and good old-fashioned talent. “The best method is to just have good-quality music,” he says. “Quality will out. There are more and more routes to market and methods to find a customer base. We’re seeing strong attendances at club nights, showcase nights, and on the pub circuit. But I think it’s just to continue to write great music and, if you’re able to and you can afford to, then gig and build it that way.” Interesting times, it seems, are best embraced.

Rob Hallett’s Robomagic company went independent again after three years under Live Nation. The longstanding promoter has decades of experience in the industry, as an agent and promoter with Barrie Marshall’s Marshall Arts, Mean Fiddler, and then establishing AEG Live in the UK in 2005, before establishing Robomagic ten years later.

“At the moment, if you choose well, and you get your marketing right, things work well,” says Hallett. “I think the market still seems buoyant.

“I’m old enough to remember the last big recession, and we still got through it as an industry and people will still want to go to shows. People want to be entertained. So, I’m hopeful that we’ll get through this.”

The Global Promoters Report is published in print, digitally, and all content is also available as a year-round resource on the IQ site. The Global Promoters Report includes key summaries of the major promoters working across 40+ markets, unique interviews and editorial on key trends and developments across the global live music business.To access all content from the current Global Promoters Report, click here.

Inside the USA’s concert scene

The United States is the largest concert and event market in the world, yet there is only a handful of truly national promoters. Most touring is made up of a string of dates promoted by a network of regional promoters.

The sector is led by the goliath Live Nation. The other players in the industry are AEG Presents, LiveStyle (Electronic), Cardenas Marketing Network (CMN Presents), OCESA, MGM Resorts International, HYBE, and Another Planet Entertainment. There are also several well-known independents, such as Nederlander Concerts and Danny Wimmer Presents.

Between them, they account for the bulk of the country’s national promoters. Live Nation, for instance, holds stakes in C3 Presents, Red Mountain Entertainment, House of Blues, OCESA, and many others. AEG Presents includes The Bowery Presents, PromoWest Productions, Goldenvoice, Concerts West, and many more. HYBE recently acquired Scooter Braun’s Ithaca Holdings, and Big Machine. They are responsible for recent tours by The Weeknd, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Bad Bunny, BTS, and others, as well as major US festivals like BottleRock, Governors Ball Music Festival, Coachella, and more.

These giants continue to evolve, build, and acquire as the US demand for live entertainment continues. On the schedule for 2023 are Janet Jackson, Parker McCollum, Bono’s book tour, Bruce Springsteen, Morgan Wallen, Jill Scott, Def Leppard/ Mötley Crüe, and more.

Record year
According to Pollstar data, 2022 was the highest-grossing year for concerts, with the top 100 North America tours bringing in $4.8bn, way ahead of even 2019’s record-breaking $3.7bn. These tours sold 42.8m tickets in 2022 compared with 39.1m in 2019, demonstrating the pent-up demand in the market after everything ground to a halt during the pandemic.

Drilling into the detail, 2022 saw a significant rise in grosses at amphitheatres – up 18% on 2019 to $814m, with ticket sales up 2% to 12.6m, according to Pollstar Box Office reports. Arenas and theatres, however, didn’t fare as well, seeing a 2% drop on 2019’s numbers, to $4.49bn.

“We are still recovering. My business is nine to 12 months in advance of the current date”

But things aren’t necessarily as rosy as that picture might suggest. “We are still recovering. My business is nine to 12 months in advance of the current date. So, therefore, we are just now beginning to get paid from post-pandemic bookings, and our artists are just getting fully up to speed now,” said Jim Nestor, founder of the Jim Nestor Agency, who books a roster of award-winning blues and Americana artists internationally and in North America.

While the USA is something of a bubble in its own right, it’s not immune from global issues, and things such as the war in Ukraine, energy prices, and supply chain shortages that affected the rest of the world also had an impact here. Agents and promoters found themselves digging into granular details like never before, such as whether artists could get busses, crew, riggers, and so on.

The sheer number of shows also was a factor, with ticket sales patterns bearing little resemblance to pre-pandemic models. Ali Hedrick, agent at Arrival Artists told Pollstar: “There was so much competition, plus so much health and economic uncertainty at times that ticket counts were erratic and unpredictable.”

Economic problems throughout the country have derailed some scheduled tours for the year – inflation, supply chain issues, high shipping, transportation costs, and weaker currencies overseas have hit the live industry hard, and artists are being upfront with their fans about the costs touring brings.

“Far and away, my main problem in the UK and Europe is the devaluing of the pound and euro,” said Nestor.

International artists Animal Collective, Santigold, Little Simz, Sampa the Great, Moonspell, and Shinedown canceled scheduled tours or individual dates for 2022, citing financial difficulties. Anthrax and Stryker had to cancel dates due to tour bus shortages and travel fees.

“It’s been a mixed bag, but overall, it’s been positive”

“Being an independent artist, I pay for everything encompassing my live performances out of my own pocket, and touring the US for a month would leave me in a huge deficit. As much as this pains me to not see you at this time, I’m just not able to put myself through that mental stress,” said Little Simz on social media of her touring cancelation.

It shows that the everyday touring market can still be a challenge for the US business if you aren’t selling out stadiums like Taylor Swift, Harry Styles, or Elton John. Musicians returning to the road are being met with a more unstable landscape. Covid is still a threat, at least financially, and inflation is soaring.

“[For] those located outside of large metropolitan areas, selling out during the week can be challenging, but that’s often when the artist might have availability,” says Lisa White, director of communications for Nederlander Concerts.
Nederlander was behind A.R. Rahman’s three sold-out shows in three different markets, Bob Dylan’s three sold-out shows at the Pantages Theatre, and has seen an increase in show numbers for the Vina Robles Amphitheatre, which it operates.

Despite those successes, promoters remain cautious.

“It’s been a mixed bag, but overall, it’s been positive,” reflects White. “There are so many artists who are eager to tour, which presents the challenge of trying to accommodate as many as possible while still retaining audience interest and ticket purchases. Specifically for our Latin shows, the results have been incredibly strong nationwide since July 2021, which has certainly helped in our recovery.”

She adds: “Budgeting was a challenge because our budgets for things like labour and production expenses are mapped out many months in advance, with inflation by the time the shows happened, everything cost more. Also, it depends on the type of show – for some of our older [demographic] shows, there may be a little bit of slow down, as people are purchasing later.”

Festivals and blockbuster headline shows have remained strong in the US

Nevertheless, festivals and blockbuster headline shows remained strong in the US in 2022. Electric Forest, the electronic music and arts festival, is already sold-out for 2023. Tickets to Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour crashed the Ticketmaster platform, and the live music sector shows no signs of slowing down, despite the obstacles.

Live & online
Streaming live concerts continued to thrive in the US markets throughout 2022, yet another result of the Covid quarantine. The virtual event platform has made it possible for live music to go on, regardless of the circumstances.

Verzuz, created by urban/hip-hop artists Timbaland and Swizz Beatz is a popular virtual environment with a focus on virtual music. Veeps, created by Good Charlotte brothers Benji and Joel Madden, saw Live Nation purchase a majority stake. The digital landscape is here to stay with metaverse concerts (Ariana Grande) and the comfort of staying at home. With inflation, the cost of travel, parking, dealing with a lot of people, and hotel expenses – livestreaming at home with family and friends outweighs the potential costs.

Three out of four people attended online events throughout the pandemic, according to data by a division of United Talent Agency, called UTA IQ, and 88% indicated they plan to continue even though in-person events are back. The growth and adoption of technology platforms help bridge the gap between live concerts and virtual music streaming.

One solution artists have struck on to iron out the economic challenges of touring is to do a residency. This probably helped Las Vegas hit the top spot in the 2022 Pollstar Concert Rankings, with a reported gross of $197.2m from 1m tickets and 292 shows. It was followed by Los Angeles ($152.4m from 1.66m tickets and 199 shows), New York ($116.3m/1.4m tickets/881 shows), San Francisco/Oakland/San Jose ($105.5m/1m/214) and Chicago ($86m/1m/458).

Among the artists sticking in Vegas are Adele, Aerosmith, Carrie Underwood, and Usher, while 2023 will welcome global stars like Luke Bryan, Shania Twain, Garth Brooks, Miranda Lambert, Katy Perry, and Bruno Mars. The market is so hot, in fact, that Garth Brooks’s Live Nation-promoted residency recently added dates into 2024 due to “extraordinary demand.”

“Latin artists have been incredibly strong nationwide since July 2021, which has helped in our recovery and demand remains for them and marquee artists”

Younger stars are becoming more open to playing shows consecutively in the same location due to the cost benefits. Harry Styles played Madison Square Garden in New York City 15 times in a row – saving on travel costs. He did the same thing in Chicago, Los Angeles, and Austin.

Billy Joel has played Madison Square Garden monthly since late 2013 and hasn’t stopped, except for a Covid hiatus. He plays his 86th show there in December. The Garden residency has sold approximately $180m in tickets thus far. Live Nation’s president of touring, Omar Al-joulani told The New York Times that he expected 30 residency-type engagements for 2023. “That’s including a big Vegas year.”

However, having artists on the road is the bread and butter for most promoters.

Nederlander’s White explains that collaborations between local artists and packaging them for shows has been a successful method for artist building, promotion, and enticing artists to get out on the road. “Fans get more value for their money with multiple artists on the bill.

“Latin artists have been incredibly strong nationwide since July 2021, which has helped in our recovery and demand remains for them and marquee artists.”

She adds: “Investment could be a barrier for new artists, but there are also lots of acts on the Mexican and Urban side who are quickly coming up with strong traction off one song leading to growing social media numbers. A&R of their music, social media/digital strategies, and a strong management team are key to developing new artists. Additionally, engaging with fans online is so important, as is leaning into the fact that users on platforms like TikTok don’t expect videos to be as polished as content on other platforms.”

“The more people pay for shows, the fewer shows they can go to — that’s a fact”

Looking ahead, there’s a sense of bullishness in the US market – with a healthy dose of caution. Seth Hurwitz, chairman of promoter and venue-owner I.M.P., told Pollstar: “I never doubted that people couldn’t wait to get back to shows. And right now, they seem to have an insatiable appetite for it. But they got to run out of money at some point, don’t they? We already have eight sell-outs at Merriweather [Post Pavilion] for late 2023… it’s nuts.

“Unfortunately, my prediction is that people will continue to rationalise treating tickets as a fluid commodity and try and milk the public for all they’re worth. While this may earn the big acts top dollars, it will keep people from affording to go to the smaller shows that build acts to get to that point. The more people pay for shows, the fewer shows they can go to — that’s a fact. As a small and midsize venue operator and promoter, this is something I have to care about.”

The Global Promoters Report is published in print, digitally, and all content is also available as a year-round resource on the IQ site. The Global Promoters Report includes key summaries of the major promoters working across 40+ markets, unique interviews and editorial on key trends and developments across the global live music business.To access all content from the current Global Promoters Report, click here.

‘The Middle East is an exciting place to be’

The live market in the Gulf, historically centred on Dubai and Abu Dhabi, toiled for years to achieve wider recognition and a spot on the schedules of passing artists. But there is a real momentum to the region now, with experienced promoters, world-class indoor arenas and, in Saudi Arabia, a neighbour with serious money to spend.

“Historically, the reliance on greenfield sites and their associated costs were a big limitation for commercially sustainable shows,” says James Craven, Live Nation president Middle East. “But as more purpose-built venues open-up across the region, the hard ticket business really becomes more viable.”

The opening up of Saudi, combined with the normalisation of relations between the UAE and Israel, are also big news for the UAE’s live business, given their implications for regional touring. But credit must go to promoters such as Abu Dhabi’s state-owned Flash Entertainment, Dubai’s T.O.P. Entertainment (stands for Thomas Ovesen Presents) and the local Live Nation branch for pulling the market through the lean years.

Ovesen recently returned to promoting across the region after a spell with Saudi’s Diriyah Gate Development Authority, and in addition to a sell-out with 50 Cent at the Coca-Cola Arena in Dubai in September, T.O.P. staged José Carreras in November, with Chinese star Jackson Wang coming up in February 2023.

“We had the biggest crowd at the Formula 1 we have ever had, and we are seeing a surge of interest in live events”

It is a fact of life in the Middle East that state buying power, rather than ticket-buying clout, is often a key factor in drawing talent to the region. “If you look at it from afar, it looks extremely busy with all the top artists, but a lot of it is driven by governments, whether that’s in Qatar, Saudi, or our friends down in Abu Dhabi,” says Ovesen.

Flash, which operates Etihad Park and the Etihad Arena on Yas Island, brought Usher, Dave, Swedish House Mafia, Kendrick Lamar, and Def Leppard out in November for its Yasalam After-Race Concert Series, tied to the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, with Andrea Bocelli, Post Malone and the Mubadala World Tennis Championship hot on their heels.

“2022 was a strong year for us,” says Flash CEO John Lickrish. “We had the biggest crowd at the Formula 1 we have ever had, and we are seeing a surge of interest in live events. Probably not quite ’19 levels, but ’19 was obviously insane.”

Established since 2008, Flash has now added Dubai and Saudi offices to its Abu Dhabi base. “We are really focusing on that now,” says Lickrish. “We have always operated there, out of Abu Dhabi, but we just decided it was a good opportunity to get our branch offices staffed up.”

“The last few years we have diversified our live business into the Arabic music scene, which now accounts for a large percentage of our regional business”

Live Nation, meanwhile, has staged Maroon 5, OneRepublic, and Westlife in Abu Dhabi this year, with Imagine Dragons, Blackpink, and Sting incoming, as well as a growing line in non-western events.

“The Middle East is an exciting place to be right now,” says Craven. “The last few years we have diversified our live business into the Arabic music scene, which now accounts for a large percentage of our regional business. Comedy is also a key focus as we move into 2023,” he adds, noting the arrival of Pete Green, formerly of local promoters Done Events and GME Events, as head of comedy for the region.

Other promoters operating in the UAE include Blu Blood, which has brought Atif Islam and Il Divo in recent years, and South Asian specialist PME Entertainment, which has showcased Indian singers Arijit Singh and Jubin Nautiyal in Dubai and Abu Dhabi.

The Global Promoters Report is published in print, digitally, and all content is also available as a year-round resource on the IQ site. The Global Promoters Report includes key summaries of the major promoters working across 40+ markets, unique interviews and editorial on key trends and developments across the global live music business.

To access all content from the current Global Promoters Report, please click here.

Global Promoters Report: The change-makers

As the breadth of countries on international tour routing has continued to grow, with so many markets available for concerts, the world can be an artist’s oyster. But what it’s taken to reach this point is in no small part down to the promoters in those territories making it happen. These imaginative, creative, practical people have refused to allow obstacles, governments, or a lack of infrastructure prevent them enabling artists from around the world to connect with fans – live.

As Luiz Oscar Niemeyer, one of Brazil’s pioneering promoters, says: “I’ve been in this business for a long time. We started bringing international acts to play here in the mid-80s. When I first started promoting here, we had no sound system in Brazil, no lighting, no generators. We had to bring everything in from abroad. But now Brazil is part of the international routing for acts. Brazil has developed a lot of professionals and equipment companies, meaning we have a proper live music industry here, which has grown in the last 30 years.”

And change is still being driven by promoters in many territories – a look at how promoters around the world lobbied governments over reopening measures during the pandemic is emblematic of this.

“It would be fair to say the obstacles [to organising shows in India] have been significantly broken down”

Entertainment and ticketing platform BookMyShow in India has been working tirelessly to improve the concerts industry in the subcontinent, as Kunal Khambhati, head – live events & IP, explains: “It would be fair to say the obstacles [to organising shows here] have been significantly broken down, with a state of flow achieved over the past five or six years when it comes to live entertainment acts across music, performance, comedy, and theatricals marking their presence in the country.

“India follows the umbrella taxation system of Goods & Services Tax (GST), and at the highest slab of 28% GST rate for live entertainment, taxation was a bottleneck for the live entertainment industry both in the pre- and post-Covid world.

In the aftermath of the pandemic, as the industry attempted to recover gradually, India’s live entertainment ecosystem required that the government wholeheartedly support the industry, and it has significantly played its role by bringing down taxation rates to 18% for live entertainment.

“This has been a significant boost to making more commercially viable acts and formats feasible in the country. Additionally, favourable regulatory policies such as easing infrastructure roadblocks to create and enable parallel venues for various formats and scales, streamlining timelines and permissions required to host events at various venues to make out-of-home entertainment accessible to millions of Indians, have aided and will continue to further help script a strong growth story for this industry and millions of jobs associated with it.

“BookMyShow has been working with both regulatory authorities and stakeholders across the value chain to resolve some of the challenges at state and central government levels, and while we have a long way to go to make the ecosystem ideal, it would be more than fair to say the work has already begun and is well underway, paving the way for some of these experiences to make their way to India over the past five or more years.”

“There was a long period where live performance was by far the biggest income stream for an artist. This created a shift”

Promoter power
Over the past two decades, promoters have become more important – one could argue more powerful – in an artist’s career, as live revenue now often makes up the bulk of a performer’s income.

As agent Obi Asika at United Talent Agency in the UK says: “There was a long period where live performance was by far the biggest income stream for an artist. This created a shift; promoters have used that influence to create huge businesses that meaningfully effect all aspects of the entertainment industry.

“Promoters are much more connected to all aspects of a project. For many artists, the most important barometer of success is how many hard tickets they can sell. In many cases, that is more important than how many albums they sell.”

Longstanding promoter Rob Hallett has decades of experience in the industry, working first as an agent and promoter with Barrie Marshall’s Marshall Arts before joining Mean Fiddler (later MAMA, now owned by Live Nation), and then establishing AEG Live in the UK in 2005. After ten years with the company, he launched Robomagic in 2015, later acquired by Live Nation but recently going independent again after three years with the multinational. His roster includes TLC, Sleaford Mods, Goldie, and Boy Better Know, as well as Duran Duran, who Hallett represented as an agent in the 80s.

“I think we’re finally being taken more seriously, as a major part of an artist’s life”

“I think we’re finally being taken more seriously, as a major part of an artist’s life,” he says. “It was always frustrating when we were making more money for the artists, but the labels had more power and influence. Labels seems to have disappeared from the mix pretty much these days. In the old days, a label would call you before you went to sell the tour, your marketing teams would talk about how you’d mesh your campaigns, but that doesn’t seem to happen anymore.”

But in the ever-changing space of the broader music business, recent years have seen a more joined-up approach across the whole artist team, says Rauha Kyyrö, head promoter at Finland’s powerhouse, the FKP Scorpio-owned Fullsteam. “Ten years ago, promoters had more of a free hand to do what they thought would work for artists, due to our market knowledge. Now, there’s much more involvement from the artist’s organisation, who are controlling the fine details, which means more reporting between the promoter, agent, and management. This is a good thing when it works smoothly – we should all be working together to do the best possible job for the artist – although it requires more staff in my office, making costs increase. And when it works well, it’s better for everyone, and it produces better results. However, with more people involved, it can sometimes slow down decision-making. For example, if there’s a delay in one part of the chain, you can miss marketing opportunities.”

Damon Forbes of Breakout in South Africa has worked with artists such as Modest Mouse, Frank Turner, Bonobo, and Texas. “We’re fulfilling a career development with an artist as a partner, and I think that role is something that became second nature to me because I’ve been in roles including label, manager, and promoter in my career,” he says. “It’s great to be part of that journey; one can hope that you deliver for an artist, and then you build with them on the follow-up tours.”

“It would be nice to have a more symbiotic relationship with labels on data. Targeted marketing is important nowadays and is something that’s relatively new”

A people business
Relationships, of course, have always played an important role in live music, as Niemeyer reflects: “In our business, what you build through the years is very important because at the end of the day, people look at your track record, your history, and with whom you have been working. Even though we are more professional business-wise and money-wise, your history remains important. When you’re bidding for a tour, if you’re the guy who’s done it in the past, you’re in a good position to get it again.”

This is even more important now, with the consolidation in the industry and the ever-increasing artist fees, he says. “For the first half of my career, we were a batch of independent promoters and independent companies. That’s not the case anymore, which makes competition much more difficult because now we have Live Nation and AEG here, so we have two major global players. As an independent, you have to find a way to fit in. Fortunately, I have been doing a lot with AEG, and I’ve done Live Nation things as well as the McCartney shows, the Rolling Stones on Copacabana Beach in 2006.

“Now it’s really become a cooperation business because no one can sign a cheque of $20m, $30m to make a show work.”
Fundamental to success is a close relationship with audiences. And data plays a fundamental part in understanding this.

As Hallett says: “What really sells the tickets is talking to people who want to know. It would be nice to have a more symbiotic relationship with labels on data. There are so many wasted eyeballs on you just throwing marketing out there. Targeted marketing is important nowadays and is something that’s relatively new.”

“People might have become used to getting what they want by bullying in the past, but there’s another way to do things”

A welcome change for promoters is the shift in how people treat each other. Most people who have been in the business for a long time will have tales of being shouted at by someone. But that’s changing now. Kyyrö says after more than 22 years in the industry, she’s “very happy with how the atmosphere and communication has developed. People are more friendly, but you still come across some very disrespectful behaviour and that needs to change. There’s no room for the abuse of power in this business. I think it can sometimes be difficult to stand up and call that out, especially when it comes to people who have been in the industry for a long time.

“Things have certainly improved, but there’s still work to be done. People might have become used to getting what they want by bullying in the past, but there’s another way to do things. And it’s up to everyone in the industry to call out that behaviour when they see it.”

Probably the biggest difference in how promoters work in recent years was driven by the pandemic. As we see throughout the Global Promoters Report, 2022 may have been the busiest year on record in terms of sheer number of shows. The idea of ‘three years packed into one’ certainly seems to have been borne out worldwide. Yet it’s been achieved by fewer people than ever before, resulting in exhausting levels of work all round.

“Before the pandemic, everyone had a routine, it was a well-oiled machine, but now, everyone is adjusting to being back again”

Stefan Wyss, director of concerts and touring at major Swiss promoter Gadget abc, says: “Everything needs more work than it did before the pandemic. You have to go into more detail on everything and examine every specific aspect of a show. You have to go into more detail on staff because sometimes there aren’t enough, sometimes you need to find riggers, you need to do rollcalls with stagehands.

“Before the pandemic, everyone had a routine, it was a well-oiled machine, but now, everyone is adjusting to being back again.

“Everything has gone from zero to 150%, but luckily, it’s worked without massive problems. I think everyone is really tired, but they should be proud of what’s been achieved.”

At its heart though, the job remains the same. Hallett says: “There’s no such thing as a bad tour, only a bad deal. So, as long as you get your deals right and you’re working with good people, it’s pretty much the same. It’s just how you go about it that’s different.”

What drives most promoters is connecting fans and helping to grow the artists they love. Forbes says: “There’s nothing more exhilarating than seeing a crowd being totally into the music, whether it’s a smaller-capacity club-type venue or a big space. It’s a rewarding feeling, which you can’t actually bottle – it’s like lightning, I wish I could capture it, because at the end of the show, it’s gone. That’s the big driver: believing that you are making that difference because you’re seeing that connection, live as it happens.”

The Global Promoters Report is published in print, digitally, and all content is also available as a year-round resource on the IQ site. The Global Promoters Report includes key summaries of the major promoters working across 40+ markets, unique interviews and editorial on key trends and developments across the global live music business.

To access all content from the current Global Promoters Report, please click here.

Global Promoters Report 2022 out now

The Global Promoters Report (GPR), a first-of-its-kind resource that highlights the world’s leading promoters and the 40 top markets they operate in, is out now.

The new report, available to subscribers of IQ, is an indispensable guide to the industry’s leading promoters and touring territories.

The inaugural edition includes key summaries of the major players working with international artists, unique interviews and insight into each of the world’s top live music markets and dedicated editorial on key trends and developments across the global live music business.

“The promise of the ‘roaring twenties’ certainly came true this year, with record numbers of shows and sales worldwide,” says GPR editor James Drury. “More shows by more artists, grossing more than ever before – the top 100 tours worldwide brought in $6.2bn this year, eclipsing even the previous record in 2019, according to Pollstar’s 2022 box office data.”

“Each of the market profiles includes overviews of touring conditions for artists at all levels, from stadium-fillers to those looking to break into new territories. With invaluable insights, it presents local conditions, challenges and opportunities, and interviews with the very people who know their home turf best.”

This year’s GPR is available in print, digitally, and on this dedicated year-round mini site. To purchase a print copy of the report, get in touch with [email protected].

A preview version of the Global Promoters Report 2022 is below.

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