French-headquartered media giant Vivendi is reportedly exploring the sale of See Tickets along with its festival division.

According to Sky News, the conglomerate is working with advisers on potentially offloading parts of its Vivendi Village subsidiary, which also includes 11 festivals such as the UK’s Love Supreme and Kite, as well as Garorock in France.

Sources indicate that Vivendi, which announced the partial spin-off of its stake in Universal Music Group in 2021, has concluded its ticketing and festival businesses were not of sufficient scale to compete with the likes of Live Nation and AEG.

The remainder of Vivendi Village’s operations, including Paris’ L’Olympia venue and a cinema chain in Africa, are not believed to be part of the strategic review process, which is expected to begin imminently. However, insiders caution that the sales of the two businesses were not inevitable, with no final decision yet made.

A Vivendi spokesperson has declined to comment on the report.

“The business is mainly driven by ticketing, which represents 70% of overall revenues and is experiencing strong growth”

See Tickets, which was acquired by Vivendi in 2011, opened its first US base in Los Angeles in 2014 and operates more than 15 offices worldwide including in London, New York, Nashville, Paris, Amsterdam and Zurich. Its executive committee comprises five members: Rob Wilmshurst (Group CEO), Boris Patronoff (Group COO), Leanne Lipscombe (Group CFO), Marijke van den Bosch (CEO Benelux and Germany) and Laurent de Cerner (CEO France).

In 2022, the firm sold more than 39 million tickets for 8,000 clients including the UK’s Glastonbury festival, Tomorrowland in Belgium and AmericanaFest in Nashville, US.

Vivendi Village posted revenues of €238 million last year – up from €102m the previous year – and reported sales of €81m for the first six months of the 2023 financial year.

“The business is mainly driven by ticketing, which represents 70% of overall revenues and is experiencing strong growth, due in particular to the expansion of its customer base to new market segments beyond its traditional activities in the field of music,” said Vivendi in response to the financial results.

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Europe’s biggest outdoor jazz festival, Love Supreme, is set for its most successful edition yet after tickets for its 2022 return officially sold out.

The 25,000-cap festival, which specialises in jazz, soul, R&B and pop, returns this weekend from a two-year hiatus this to Glynde Place in East Sussex, UK.

Produced in partnership with Vivendi’s live music arm, U-Live, Love Supreme was founded nine years ago by Ciro Romano, whose company Neapolitan Live also co-founded the Nocturne Live concert series at Blenheim Palace and the newly launched Kite Festival in Oxfordshire.

“Jazz continues to go from strength to strength and it’s an incredible exciting time to be working within the genre”

“The Love Supreme journey really has been a remarkable one,” says Romano. “When we launched in 2013 we were the UK’s only major greenfield jazz festival so to have got to this point is testament to both the incredible hard work of the Neapolitan and U-Live teams and the enduring popularity of this music.

“Jazz continues to go from strength to strength and it’s an incredibly exciting time to be working within the genre.”

Running from 1-3 July, Love Supreme is topped by headline shows from Erykah Badu and Gregory Porter, and will also feature performances by the likes of TLC, Tom Misch, Lianne La Havas and Sons of Kemet x Nubya Garcia.

Love Supreme’s inaugural Japanese edition was held earlier this year in Tokyo, having originally been due to launch in 2020 prior to the pandemic.

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The team behind Love Supreme, the biggest outdoor jazz festival in Europe, has detailed the inaugural edition of its festival, Kite.

The three-day live music and ideas event is scheduled to take place on the grounds of a stately home near Oxford, UK, this summer.

Grace Jones, Tom Misch, TLC, Mavis Staples, Self Esteem, and Black Country, New Road are slated to headline the music programme.

The idea programme features the likes of Ai Weiwei, Russell Tovey, Jon Ronson, David Miliband, Bimini, Armando Iannucci, David Olusoga, Delia Smith and Jarvis Cocker.

The festival will host a combination of live music, comedy and educational talks and workshops, with a main stage featuring headline artists and a second stage showcasing more experimental acts. The Big Top Tent and the Bookshop stages will see pop-up performances, with emerging artists performing on the Bandstand. The ThinkIn Village area will provide a space for discussion.

Grace Jones, Tom Misch, TLC, Mavis Staples, Self Esteem and Black Country, New Road are slated to headline

Kite is a joint venture between U-Live – in which Chinese entertainment giant recently acquired a stake – and Neapolitan Music, who together promote Love Supreme, as well as Tortoise Media, the brainchild of former BBC new director James Jarding and ex-Wall Street Journal and Down Jones president Katie Vanneck-Smith.

The festival is launching off the back of a 2020 Kickstarter campaign, which saw 238 backers pledge a total of £38,386 to bring the event to life.

The backers (aka ‘festival founders’) will gain access to the best ticket prices for all future Kite festivals, as well as special experiences and exclusive goodies.

The inaugural festival was due to launch last year but was postponed due to the pandemic.

Kite Festival is taking place from 10 to 12 June in Kirtlington Park, Oxford, in the south east of the UK. More information can be found on the festival website.

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The UK’s Love Supreme Jazz Festival, the largest greenfield jazz, funk and soul festival in Europe, will hold its debut Japanese edition this May.

Launched in partnership with Vivendi stablemate Universal Music Japan (Love Supreme is co-promoted by Vivendi-owned U-Live), Love Supreme Jazz Festival Japan will take place in the 375-hectare Chichibu Muse Park, just outside Tokyo, on 15 and 16 May 2021. As a result of ongoing coronavirus restrictions, the debut festival will feature only Japanese artists, although an international line-up is planned for 2022, according to Love Supreme founder Ciro Romano.

“There’s an incredible jazz scene in Japan and it’s long been a plan of ours to launch a sister festival in Tokyo,” explains Romano, who launched Love Supreme (20,000-cap.) through his company Neapolitan Live in 2013. “The majority of the artists we book for the UK festival have huge fanbases across Japan, and so it made perfect sense to look at replicating the Love Supreme ethos over there.

“This year will focus on the rich pool of incredible Japanese artists, but the plan moving forward is definitely to draw on the full spectrum of international jazz, soul and R&B talent.”

“There’s an incredible jazz scene in Japan and it’s long been a plan of ours to launch a sister festival in Tokyo”

Love Supreme Japan was originally scheduled for May 2020 but, like its UK sister festival, was called off amid the Covid-19 pandemic. Love Supreme UK is scheduled for 2 to 4 July 2021.

In a statement, Universal Music Japan says it is committed to keeping all festivalgoers safe and urges all ticketholders to keep an eye on updates from the festival as it approaches. Among the “maximum infection countermeasures” already announced are a seated-only format, which the festival says is necessary to protect fans, staff and performers.

“What used to be normal may no longer be normal, and it may cause more trouble for everyone,” reads the statement from the festival. “However, the excitement that can only be experienced live should […] still be shared with everyone at the festival. Please feel such a loving musical experience at Love Supreme Jazz Festival Japan 2021, held for the first time in Japan.”

Tickets for Love Supreme Japan, headlined by Dreams Come True and Soil & “Pimp” Sessions, start at ¥11,000 (€85) for a single-day pass.

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The inaugural Kite Festival, a three-day live music and ideas event, is taking place in the grounds of a stately home near Oxford, UK, this summer.

Announced today, the new festival is a joint venture between Universal Music Group’s live music arm U-Live – in which Chinese entertainment giant recently acquired a stake – and Neapolitan Music, who together promote Love Supreme Jazz Festival, as well as Tortoise Media, the brainchild of former BBC new director James Jarding and ex-Wall Street Journal and Down Jones president Katie Vanneck-Smith.

The festival will host a combination of live music, comedy and educational talks, with a main stage featuring headline artists and a second stage showcasing more experimental acts. The Big Top Tent and the Bookshop stages will see pop-up performances, with emerging artists performing on the Bandstand. The ThinkIn Village area will provide a space for discussion.

The launch of the festival comes with a call-to-action for ‘festival founders’ to become involved in the project and give financial backing via creative projects fundraising platform Kickstarter. Founders will gain access to the best ticket prices for all future Kite festivals.

“We are very excited to develop a new festival that puts equal emphasis on both music and ideas”

“We are very excited to develop a new festival that puts equal emphasis on both music and ideas,” comments festival director Ciro Romano. “Alongside our founding community and the teams at U-Live and Tortoise we can deliver a festival that is perfect for the new decade.

“Across the board we see festivals dedicated to literature, politics, science but we couldn’t see anywhere that was programming music and debate on an equal footing. We will deliver a pioneering line-up with legendary and contemporary artists alongside world class public figures, thinkers and cultural icons.”

“All the team at Tortoise are thrilled to be part of creating Kite,” adds Harding. “Building on everything we’ve learned during Tortoise’s first year, the ThinkIn Village at Kite will bring together global politicians, comedians, business leaders, authors and others who are interested in how we understand our world – and do something about it.”

Kite Festival is taking place from 12 to 14 June in Kirtlington Park, Oxford, in the south east of the UK. More information can be found on the festival website.

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