Creativeman on Summer Sonic’s triumphant sell-out

Creativeman’s Naoki Shimizu and Layli Odamura have spoken to IQ about how they’ve triumphed over a myriad of challenges in the Japanese industry to sell out Summer Sonic 2024.

The flagship festival will return to its longstanding locations, Tokyo’s Zozomarine Stadium and and Osaka’s Maishima Sonic Park, between 17 and 18 August.

Bring Me The Horizon, Måneskin, Christina Aguilera, Greta Van Fleet, Major Lazer, Lil Yachty, Belle & Sebastien, Bleachers, Madison Beer, Oliva Dean, PinkPantheress and more are due to perform at the twin events.

Here, the Creativeman executives tell IQ how this year’s festival has prospered over the headliner drought, the weak yen, rising costs and extreme weather…

How are the Summer Sonic dates in Tokyo and Osaka selling?
Naoki Shimizu (NS): We’ve sold out Tokyo and Osaka, which comes to 220,000 tickets. If Sonicmania on Friday sells out at 30,000, that would come to 250,000 total.

Summer Sonic 2024 is headlined by Maneskin and Bring Me The Horizon, two bands that haven’t yet headlined many festivals. What’s your thinking behind that decision?
NS: In the past, these two bands have played in Japan at Summer Sonic, headline tours etc which were all very successful due to their strength locally. This year many festivals across the world struggled to book headliners but for I believe in developing and growing artists into headliners and these two artists are prime example of this.

Layli Odamura (LO): After the pandemic had gradually calmed down, we have been lucky to have many incredible artists committed to play in Japan at the return of Summer Sonic in 2022. The fans were so ready and hungry for it and this included a new generation of them.

Maneskin’s first-ever show in Japan was at that Summer Sonic in 2022 and it was an instant, magnetic love, perfect match for Japanese audience to feel connected. Bring Me The Horizon (BMTH) had cleverly built their career and fan base in Japan gradually to the level where they even held their own festival called NEX_FEST in Tokyo, which sold out at approximately 20,000 people. This is a big achievement for this genre of artist as it has never been done before here and all due to BMTH’s exquisite artistry.

“Many festivals across the world struggled to book headliners but for I believe in developing and growing artists”

How have fans responded to these choices?
NS: Very well. The majority of our audience were seeking for a fresh act to be chosen, and a rock band in particular. One of the factors would be due to Summer Sonic audience becoming younger post pandemic.

What kind of impact is the weak yen having on booking, especially when it comes to big international artists?
NS: This is a big damage. The countermeasure we have put in place to survive the weak yen is to decrease the number of offers to those artists requiring fees in USD$ or GBP£, while increasing domestic and Asian artists to play instead. And this has proved that the festival can sell out even without the appearance of expensive acts.

LO: With the current exchange rate, as you can imagine we are paying approx. x1.6 or even more than a few years ago. This is a big problem because even when we are technically paying more in yen, from artist’s point of view in USD, the fee is still low.
Also touring costs overall such as airfare, freight, production costs etc has increased globally in the recent years so this is a double knockout situation for us.

Does this mean future lineups won’t be so Anglo-centric?
NS: I will stick to international music at the forefront. In Japan there are countless number of festivals with just domestic artists and K-pop. If that differentiation from these festivals disappears, the uniqueness and individuality will be lost. This year at Summer Sonic there are approximately 40 international artists and this ratio feels right.

“To survive the weak yen, [we have to] decrease the number of offers to those artists requiring fees in USD$ or GBP£”

There’s a trend of Asian festivals linking up and making offers together, are you doing this with your stable of festivals?
NS: Summer Sonic Bangkok starting this year is an example of this. I do hope to broaden to wider Asian territories and make offers together in the future.

LO: Summer Sonic brand has a strong presence in Asia so that always helps for us to connect with other Asian festival promoters too.

Are there upsides to the weak yen? Does it mean more tourists are visiting your festivals?
NS: Disadvantage is much bigger. However yes, inbound tourists attendance have increased and likely to reach to about 10%. If we broaden the sales network wider in the future then we could even reach to about 25% .

LO: Recent inbound tourism has strongly impacted Japan’s economy. Recently I have read a report that inbound travellers spent Y1.8 trillion in the first three months of 2024 in Japan, which is the highest figure on record. At our festivals and shows too we definitely see a lot more attendees from abroad, and are also noticing that shows such as overseas comedy acts etc are now not only promoted but sell well. This is a fairly new phenomenon because these shows are all in English, but it seems to be working as demand is there by increase of inbound tourists, ex-pats and those locals who returned from living abroad.

How much are prices rising in Japan, for things like infrastructure, artist fees, staffing etc?
NS: They have increased by about 120-150%. Aside from increasing the ticket price, it would become necessary to consider various strategies to cut down the costs such as decreasing the number of acts, number of stages etc.

“Prices in Japan have increased by about 120-150%”

Extreme heat is becoming a major challenge for summer festivals in Japan. How are you planning to mitigate that for your attendees?
NS: The Japanese summer is becoming increasing hot so for those areas such as merchandise, lockers etc where a long line is expected, we have now expanded indoor facilities to a even bigger capacity. Water supply area and first aid/medical areas have been expanded too.

Are you able to attract new and young audiences to your festivals?
NS: The well balanced line-up between the Western acts, domestic acts and Asian acts have attracted new and younger audiences. Research showed that in 2022 after the pandemic, 75% of the audience that year were attending Summer Sonic for the first time ever.

Creativeman organises a number of genre-specific festivals, how do they sell compare to your more eclectic events?
NS: When a festival is genre-specific, overall capacity does decrease compared to Summer Sonic but they still do have strong attendance. In addition to Summer Sonic and Sonicmania, Creativeman also holds multiple international music festivals such as GMO Sonic, Punkspring, Loudpark, Green Room, Blue Note Jazz, Coke Studio, Rockin’ On Sonic etc, and we are very proud to be the promoter most passionate about spreading International and Western music culture which we put so much effort in building, maintaining and strengthening locally.

LO: Creativeman is a pioneer in presenting genre-specific festivals. Our first one was nearly 20 years ago now. We do move fluidly based on demand so although some are long-running, each time gives out a freshness about it with dynamic tweaks and changes to it. Japanese fans are committed to their artists so in that sense a genre-specific festival does work well and is a great platform for many bands to gain new fanbase.

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