Live Nation has strengthened its foothold in Japan with the acquisition of Hayashi International Promotions (HIP), one of the country’s leading promoters for domestic and international artists.

Founded over 40 years ago, the Tokyo-headquartered firm has promoted shows with Bruno Mars, Maroon 5, U2, Taylor Swift, The Weeknd, Red Hot Chili Peppers and more. It has also brought international festival brands such as Slipknot’s Knotfest and Ozzy Osbourne’s Ozzfest to Japan.

Since 2021, HIP has been led by Kaori Hayashi, following the death of the company’s founder and her father, Hiromichi “Massy” Hayashi.

Live Nation says that its global network, combined with HIP’s local expertise, means that more global superstars will reach Japanese audiences and J-pop will be elevated on the international stage.

“HIP is one of Japan’s iconic concert companies, and we’re honoured they’ve chosen to join Live Nation”

“HIP is one of Japan’s iconic concert companies, and we’re honoured they’ve chosen to join Live Nation,” says Michael Rapino, CEO & president, Live Nation Entertainment.

“As Kaori continues to build on the incredible legacy her family started, we’re excited to partner with her and the HIP team to bring even more live music to fans across Japan.”

Kaori Hayashi, CEO at Hayashi International Promotions, says: “HIP has been at the heart of Japan’s live music scene for over 40 years, and our focus has always been on delivering incredible concerts for fans. Partnering with Live Nation allows us to keep doing this with greater scale, giving Japanese artists the opportunity to perform to new audiences and strengthening Japan’s position as a must-visit destination for major acts.”

The partnership strengthens Live Nation’s existing presence in Japan, with Oasis, Kylie Minogue, and KYGO all performing in the country in 2025.

Read more about Japan, the world’s second-largest music market, in the latest edition of the Global Promoters Report.

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The Japanese prefecture of Kyoto is set to gain a 10,000-capacity arena that will host concerts and sporting events.

The new venue is designed to address the Prefecture’s shortage of indoor facilities that can host both national and international events.

Planned for the city of Mukō, on a site that also houses the Mukomachi Keirin Velodrome, the arena is proposed to seat 8,925 fans for sporting events, rising to 9,328 for concerts.

With an expected price tag of ¥34.8bn (€215m/$234.6m), Kyoto Prefecture has signed an agreement with a consortium to develop the new venue.

A major change in Japan’s men’s basketball leagues will see a whole host of new venues opening over the coming years

The consortium includes Itochu Corporation, Obayashi Corporation, Harima B.Stem Corporation, Itochu Urban Community, NTT TC Leasing, Azusa Sekkei, Dentsu, Kyoei Build Kanri Corporation, Shinko Sports and Kyogin Lease.

In addition to hosting concerts, the arena is intended to be the future home of B.League basketball team Kyoto Hannaryz and is expected to collaborate with the Velodrome, which is due for renovation. A delivery date for the arena is yet to be announced.

A major change in Japan’s men’s basketball leagues will see a whole host of new venues opening over the coming years. New rules for B League top category (B1) teams mean they must attract an average audience of 4,000 per game and build a home venue of at least 5,000-capacity. This means nine likely new venues will be built in time for 2027, and with basketball games taking up only 30 days per year, this leaves live entertainment with a huge opportunity.

At least four new arenas will open to the public this year: The IG Arena in Nagoya (17,000), The Tokyo A-Arena (10,000), the Kobe Arena (10,000), and the Kagawa Prefectural Arena (cap. 10,000). Read more here.

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Fred Again.. will deliver his first-ever performance in Asia at Japan’s Fuji Rock, set for 25–27 July in Niigata.

He’ll be joined by Vampire Weekend, Vulpeck, HAIM, Four Tet, RADWIMPS, Faye Webster, Hyukoh & Sunset Rollercoaster, The Hives, James Blake, Confidence Man and more at Naeba Ski Resort in Niigata, Tokyo. The festival is promoted by  Smash Corporation.

Elsewhere, Malta is set to host the very first edition of Breaking Borders Malta which is set to be the largest music festival in Europe celebrating South Asian heritage. Taking place between 4–7 September this year, the Live Nation festival will feature “nonstop” live music from acts including Karan Aujla, Arjan Dhillon, Jazzy B, Navaan Sandhu, Sukha, Tegi Pannu, Talwiinder, Raf Saperra, Priya Ragu & JK & Tru Skool.

Czechia’s Rock For People has completed its international lineup with the addition of Shinedown, While She Sleeps and Pertubator. They join headlining acts Linkin Park, Slipknot, Sex Pistols, Avenged Sevenfold, and Guns N’ Roses at the extended 30th anniversary edition. With four-day tickets now sold out, organisers have increased the capacity of the festival grounds to 50,000 visitors. The event takes place at Park 360, Hradec Králové, from 11–15 June.

France’s Rock en Seine has added a raft of international acts to its lineup including Queens of The Stone Age, Fontaines D.C, Vampire Weekend, Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory, Stereophonics and Wallows. It comes after the AEG Presents festival confirmed a 100% pop female-led opening day a few weeks ago, headlined by Chappell Roan, London Grammar, Suki Waterhouse and Luvcat. The festival takes place between 20–24 August 2025 at the Domaine national de Saint-Cloud, near Paris.

The 10th anniversary edition of Lollapalooza Berlin is taking shape with confirmed artists including Justin Timberlake, j-hope, Gracie Abrams, RAYE

Meo Kalorama has revealed the first wave of artists for its twin events in Lisbon and Madrid, set for 19–21 June and 20–21 June respectively.

The lineup so far consists of Pet Shop Boys, FKA twigs, Damiano David, Jorja Smith, Azealia Banks, Father John Misty, The Flaming Lips playing Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots, L’Impératrice, Róisín Murphy, Scissor Sisters, BADBADNOTGOOD, Boy Harsher, BRANKO, Best Youth, Cara de Espelho, jasmine.

The Last Tour-promoted event was brought forward by two months due to the “reduced availability of artists” at the end of August when the festival previously took place.

Japan’s Summer Sonic has confirmed the first wave of acts, including Fall Out Boy, The Prodigy, aespa, Beabadoobee, aespa, KATSEYE, Camila Cabello, BABYMETAL, Jorja Smith, Elijah Woods and Porter Robinson. The Creativeman-promoted festival takes place concurrently between 16–17 August at Tokyo’s ZOZOMarine Stadium & Makuhari Messe and Osaka’s Expo ’70 Commemorative Park.

Brazillian mega event The Town in Sao Paulo is gearing up for its second edition

The 10th anniversary edition of Lollapalooza Berlin is taking shape, with artists including Justin Timberlake, j-hope, Gracie Abrams, RAYE, Benson Boone, Armin van Buuren and The Last Dinner Party set to perform. Goodlive, C3 Presents and Live Nation GSA will deliver the special edition between 12–13 July in Berlin’s Olympiastadion and Olympiapark.

Belgium’s Rock Werchter has added a raft of acts including London Grammar, Heilung, Sigrid, Yseult, Charles and Grade 2, PVRIS, Celeste, Berre and Thee Sacred Souls, Damiano David, Cymande, Hermanos Gutiérrez, Faye Webster, Jazz Brak, Bright Eyes, Jacoténe and Matt Hansen, Soulwax, USED: Live, FINNEAS, Foster The People and Remy Bond.

Previously announced acts for the 3–6 July event at the Festivalpark in Werchter will also include Linkin Park, Green Day, Olivia Rodrigo, Sam Fender, Simple Minds, Deftones, RAYE, Iggy Pop, Noah Kahan, Gracie Abrams and girl in red.

Brazilian mega event The Town in Sao Paulo is gearing up for its second edition between 6–14 September 2025. Katy Perry, Green Day, Mariah Carey, Camila Cabello, Jessie J, Iggy Pop, Jacob Collier, Kamasi Washington, Snarky Puppy and Ivete Sangalo are lined up for the 105,000-cap festival. The brainchild of Rock in Rio founder Roberto Medina, the festival launched at the Interlagos race track over five days in 2023, breaking records by selling 350,000 tickets in less than three hours.

Orange Warsaw, Poland’s biggest festival, has assembled acts including Chappell Roan and Charli XCX

The sixth edition of All Together Now in Ireland is set for August Bank Holiday, 31 July– 3 August 2025, at Curraghmore Estate, Co Waterford. Nelly Furtado, Fontaines DC, BICEP presents CHROMA (AV DJ), London Grammar, CMAT, Michael Kiwanuka, Wet Leg, Leftfield, Ben Böhmer (LIVE), Bonobo (DJ), Groove Armada (DJ) and Folamour are set to perform at the festival, promoted by POD in association with Aiken Promotions.

In the Netherlands, NN North Sea Jazz Festival has confirmed a raft of acts including Diana Ross, Mary J Blige, Norah Jones,  Herbie Hancock, Ezra Collective, ANOHNI & The Johnsons, Jacob Collier (artist in residence), Maxwell, Jorja Smith, Kamasi Washington, Nubya Garcia and Jordan Rakei. The Mojo-promoted festival will take place between 11–13 July at Rotterdam’s Ahoy Centre. Attracting around 80,000 music fans each year, the festival has built a legendary reputation since its debut in 1976.

Orange Warsaw, Poland’s biggest festival, has assembled acts including Chappell Roan, Charli XCX, Michael Kiwanuka and Barry Can’t Swim. The Alter Art-promoted event will take place between 30-31 May at Służewiec Horse Racetrack in Warsaw.

Northern Europe’s largest festival, Denmark’s Roskilde, has unveiled a fresh wave of artists for its 53rd edition. Doechii, Nine Inch Nails, Beabadoobee, Lola Young, Wet Leg, Lucy Dacus, FKA Twigs and Olivia Rodrigo join the lineup. Previously confirmed acts for the 28 June to 5 July event include Stormzy, Arca, Fontaines D.C., Magdalena Bay, Beth Gibbons, Electric Callboy, Jessica Pratt, Geordie Greep, Sanam, Esy Tadesse, MØ and Faye Webster.

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A veteran Japanese rock band have announced they will be setting up daycare centres at their concerts in Tokyo this month.

Luna Sea will bring their Era to Era 35th anniversary tour to a close at the Tokyo Dome on 22-23 February. The performances are entitled The Millennium Eve 2025 and LUNA TIC TOKYO 2025 – Black Suit Only Gig, respectively. General tickets are priced between 12,100 and 15,500 yen (€76-98).

The five-piece group, who have released 10 albums through their career, say they are planning to set up a childcare centre for the shows, enabling parents to drop off their children and pick them up later after the show.

Luna Sea previously set up a nursery at their Saitama Super Arena concerts in 2014

Children under three years old are also permitted to enter the concert for free as long as they sit on an adult’s lap.

Full details are still to be confirmed, but the move has won widespread praise online – particularly in light of the band’s older fanbase and Japan’s population decline.

Livedoor reports it is not the first time that Luna Sea have introduced childcare facilities at their gigs, having previously set up a nursery at their Saitama Super Arena concerts in 2014. Other artists with children such as MINMI and Angela Aki have also followed suit in the past.

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K-pop festival Waterbomb will stage an Australian edition for the first time as it relaunches its international expansion.

The touring series plans to stop in Sydney later this year, picking up on the Waterbomb World Tour that faltered in 2024. Dates and performers will be announced in the coming months.

Waterbomb’s expansion comes after organisers failed to deliver its rapid global expansion last year, after it announced editions in Hong Kong, Vietnam, Taiwan, the UAE, Singapore, the US, the Philippines and Indonesia.

The only new editions to go ahead were Hong Kong, the UAE, and Singapore, while the event continued its tour of multiple South Korean and Japanese cities.

The Los Angeles edition was postponed due to “operational challenges” with less than three weeks to go to the event, while the Indonesian debut in Jakarta was delayed in October. Extreme weather and flooding forced the cancellation of the Taipei and Ho Chi Minh events. No new dates have been announced for these editions.

“We’ll return stronger and better prepared to deliver the Waterbomb experience you’ve been waiting for,” said organisers at the time of US cancellation.

In contrast, another Australian festival will not return his year

Four stops are already confirmed for 2025, with plans to return to China, and South Korea, where the Seoul edition has been held annually since the event launched in 2015. The festival will debut in Manila, Philippines and Bali, Indonesia next month, after pushing both countries’ inaugural editions late last year.

Artists due to perform in Manila include Kangdaniel, Dynamic Duo, Sulreggae, Chanyeol, Bambam, Viviz, and other K-pop, hip-hop and dance stars.

Though lineups vary by city, past performers have included Blackpink, aespa, TWICE’s Nayeon, American rapper Jay Park, and SHINEE’s Taemin, and South Korean singers Hwasa, Chung Ha, Bibi, Simon Dominic, and Jessi.

In contrast, the Australian festival Hello Sunshine will not be held this year. The family-friendly event was set to return to Melbourne for its third year and debut on the Gold Coast this March.

Organisers cited low ticket sales and rising production costs as reasons for the cancellation.

Stone Temple Pilots, Smash Mouth, Wolfmother, Kasey Chambers, Rogue Traders, and Drapht were on tap to headline the event.

The cancellation is the latest to hit the Australian festival sector. Last November, the debut edition of You & Me Festival was cancelled for similar reasons. They join several Oz festivals cancelled in the past year, including Splendour in the Grass, Groovin the Moo, and Return to Rio.

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During a panel session at the 2025 Eurosonic Noordenslag (ESNS), a group of executives shared the recent music tech innovations they predict will change the global live scene.

Hosted by Music Tech Europe co-founder Yvan Boudillet, panellists included MusicTech Japan MD Takayuki Suzuki, shesaidso co-director Maiju Talvisto, ComeTogether co-founder Stathis Mitskas and Effenaar director Jos Feijen.

Major themes revolved around best practices for fan engagement, utilising data to expand reach and strengthen engagement and unique attributes of their specific markets.

Feijen launched the discussion by highlighting the experimental work Effenar Lab is focusing on, including measuring audiences’ emotions via brainwave to deliver a better live experience and the creation of digital twins in holographic form.

Initiatives like these create “a completely different way of thinking about how to involve in your audience”, Feijen says.

Placing fans at the forefront of live experiences is key, as echoed by Suzuki. He delved into the ‘superfan’ culture of Japan and explained exclusive artist or promoter fan clubs, in which audiences pay a fee — which helps fund the label and artists’ activity — and get access to exclusive pre-sale access, among other benefits.

“It’s a transformation of the value chain and the mindset of the fanbase,” he says.

Advancements in ticketing were another core theme of the discussion, as ComeTogether’s Mitskas, shesaidso’s Talvisto and Music Tech Europe’s Boudillet discussed how best to harness and utilise ticketing data.

“Live is a perfect lab for more than music”

Boudillet posed how to capture and utilise secondary ticketing data to further expand data sets for artists and touring markets, while Mitskas conceptualised individual-to-individual link distribution to help build accurate and engaged data sets.

Maiju highlighted Coldplay’s combination of activism and ticket sales to further their ideologies, specifically within their own fanbases.

She went on to discuss how technology could help mix up and expand bookings across one-off shows and festival lineups, with inclusion being a necessary facet of fan engagement.

“Festival booking, for example, is very pale and very male … Hopefully tech would help diversify lineups and ease bookings and make it easier to tap into a whole sector that could be used much more,” she says.

On a general point, the panellists also flagged the need for walls between artist teams, labels, promoters, and ticketing companies to be reduced to create a more cohesive approach to live experiences.

The conversation wrapped up with a nod to how live could lead to further developments in non-cultural spheres, like medical and educational advancements.

“Live is a perfect lab for music and more: it’s for society,” Boudillet concluded.

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At least four new arenas will open in Japan next year amid a wider venue boom in the country.

The IG Arena in Nagoya (17,000), The Tokyo A-Arena (10,000), the Kobe Arena (10,000), and the Kagawa Prefectural Arena (cap. 10,000) are set to open their doors for the public in 2025.

IG Arena will open in Nagoya in summer 2025, replacing the current Aichi Arena inside Nagoya Castle, which was completed in 1964 and is now ageing. The venue’s ‘hybrid oval’ bowl will enable both oval and horseshoe bowl configurations. It is expected to be the main indoor venue for the 2026 Asian Games and will be operated by the Aichi Smart Arena Group, a consortium led by Maeda Corporation and the mobile communication giant NTT Docomo. Others in the consortium include AEG and finance firms.

It was today announced that Niterra, a Japanese manufacturer of ignition parts and vehicle electronics, has become the first ‘founding partner’ for the arena. This agreement will give Niterra the exclusive naming rights to one of the main visitor entrance gates, other branding opportunities such as permanent and digital signage within the arena, and the ability to feature its products inside the venue.

Also set to arrive next year is The Tokyo A-Arena, a 10,000-capacity space being built for the Alvark Tokyo team in the Odaiba area of the capital on the site of the Mega Web theme park. Architects are planning a highly accessible venue with facilities for disabled people at the heart of the design, plus a high-speed Wi-Fi and 5G signal. With a VIP lounge, an enormous centre screen, Sky Lounge with views over the sea, and more.

The Kobe Arena is a waterside venue expected to be capable of hosting 10,000 people. The aim of the arena’s exterior design is to depict “excitement” and “spreading its wings to the world,” according to the arena website. It will be the home of the Nishinomiya Stokes and plans to host concerts, sporting events, e-sports, and exhibitions. As well as the arena and a new hotel, the venue plans to develop an open space around the arena.

As B1 teams must attract an average attendance of 4,000 per game, several new venues will be built in time for 2027

The Kagawa Prefectural Arena (cap. 10,000) is expected to open in February 2025. Designed by SANAA, it will be the largest arena in the Chugoku and Shikoku region, and will also include a 1,000-capacity space.

These are just a handful of the new venues that will open in the next few years due to a rule change in the country’s men’s basketball leagues. As B1 teams must attract an average attendance of 4,000 per game, several new venues will be built in time for 2027.

The first was Yokohama’s K-Arena in 2023, where Sam Smith became the first overseas act to play at the 20,333-capacity venue, with Mötley Crüe, Def Leppard, TLC, and Janet Jackson succeeding the multi-genre English singer-songwriter over the following months.

This year saw the opening of the Nagasaki Stadium City, comprising a 20,000-seat stadium and a 6,000-capacity arena and offers visitors the opportunity to zip-line across the venue. It will mainly be used by the J2 V-Varen Nagasaki soccer team, who have been named the home team.

Another arena that made its debut this year is the LaLa Arena in Tokyo Bay, the new home for the Chiba Jets Funabashi basketball team. Japanese acts such as boyband Mr. Children, dance troupe The Rampage from Exile Tribe, and singer-songwriter Aimyon were the first musicians to take the stage at the newly built 10,000-capacity venue.

In autumn 2027, AEG is scheduled to open the Osaka Arena in partnership with Mitsubishi Corporation Urban Development and Kanden Realty & Development.

Located within the city’s Expo Memorial Park, the new venue will have a maximum capacity of 18,000 – which will make it the country’s second-biggest indoor arena after the Saitama – and will be part of a complex that includes a hotel and several retail blocks.

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Summer Sonic promoter Creativeman is collaborating with the team behind Rock in Japan to launch a new international music festival.

Rockin’ on Sonic will debut at Makuhari Messe International Exhibition Hall, Chiba, on 4-5 January 2025. Acts announced so far are Pulp, Weezer, Manic Street Preachers, Primal Scream and The Lemon Twigs.

The event, which will feature two stages without overlap, is being hosted by Rockin’ on Japan and Makuhari Messe, with Creativeman responsible for operations and production.

Producer Yoichiro Yamazaki says the event is “focusing on highly trusted artists familiar to long-time international music listeners”, as well as younger acts.

“While it is unusual to hold a festival over the New Year holidays, we thought it would be a great time since many people are off work and have more free time,” says Yamakazi, as per Niew. “We believe this New Year festival will create a new and fun gathering place for international music fans.

“One concern was whether international artists would be willing to come to Japan during the New Year period. However, international management and artists have warmly welcomed the event. They expressed a strong desire to come to Japan more often and perform in front of Japanese audiences.”

“Given that it will be held in the middle of winter, we envisioned an indoor and convenient urban festival from the start”

The venue will utilise stages from year-end domestic music festival Countdown Japan, including the 20,000-cap Galaxy Stage and 8,000-cap Cosmo Stage.

“Given that it will be held in the middle of winter, we envisioned an indoor and convenient urban festival from the start, making Makuhari Messe the ideal venue,” adds Yamazaki.

One-day tickets cost 18,000 yen (€111), with two-day passes priced 33,000 yen (€204).

Creativeman’s flagship Summer Sonic festival returns to Tokyo’s Zozomarine Stadium and Osaka’s Maishima Sonic Park this weekend (17-18 August). Acts will include Bring Me The Horizon, Måneskin, Christina Aguilera, Greta Van Fleet, Major Lazer, Lil Yachty, Belle & Sebastian, Bleachers, Madison Beer, Olivia Dean, OneRepublic and Nothing But Thieves.

The company’s Naoki Shimizu and Layli Odamura preview the event here.

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YouTube is to livestream the 20th anniversary edition of Belgium’s Tomorrowland to a global audience.

The electronic music spectacular will take place across two weekends in Boom, Antwerp, from 19-21 and 26-28 July. Tickets to the 70,000-cap festival sold out in less than a day back in February.

The livestream for its first weekend will feature performances by the likes of Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike, Afrojack, Amelie Lens, Timmy Trumpet, James Hype, Swedish House Mafia, Oliver Heldens and John Newman, while sets by Solomun, Steve Aoki, Tale Of Us, Tiesto and David Guetta, among others, will be broadcast during weekend two.

As well as Tomorrowland, YouTube also previously struck a similar partnership with Coachella.

“We’re continuing our tradition of bringing the biggest music festivals to a global audience with this livestream of Tomorrowland’s 20th anniversary,” says Sam Vergauwen, head of YouTube for the Benelux region.

People will be able to experience four concurrent livestreams, starting with the Main Stage livestream which will run 24/7 between 19-28, with live performances during the festival and highlights of sets between the two weekends.

Fuji Rock Festival in Japan will also be livestreamed via a link-up with Amazon

In addition, there will be a Main Stage livestream on YouTube Shorts, while a livestream of the Freedom Stage will run 24/7 for the duration of both weekends. In addition, One World Radio studio will feature video interviews with artists at the festival and live audio sets.

To celebrate the DJ community, YouTube will run a Yoodle (an alternate logo on the YouTube main page) in the UK, France, Germany, Brazil, Canada, Latin America, Japan, and Australia, which will also link to the Tomorrowland livestreams.

“The livestream will also be part of a YouTube Yoodle celebrating the DJ livestreaming community, bringing the festival’s magic to even more people than ever before to allow fans who cannot attend the festival in person to experience its electrifying performances,” adds Vergauwen. “We’re thrilled to see this partnership grow and evolve over the years.”

Upon the conclusion of the festival, Tomorrowland will upload each artist’s set on its YouTube channel as a permanent video on 29 July.

Elsewhere, this month’s Fuji Rock Festival in Japan will also be livestreamed via a link-up with Amazon. Performances from the Green Stage, White Stage, Red Marquee and Field of Heaven, as well as video interviews with the artists and footage from around the festival, will be available worldwide on Prime Video and Twitch free of charge.

The 26-28 July festival at Naeba Ski Resort will feature acts including The Killers, Kraftwerk, Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds, Peggy Gou, Girl in Red, Turnstile and Raye.

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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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