Macklemore cancels UAE show over Sudan war
US rapper Macklemore has cancelled his upcoming concert in Dubai over the United Arab Emirates’ alleged role in the deadly conflict in Sudan.
The rapper (real name Benjamin Hammond Haggerty) said people had for months been asking him to call off the concert at Coca-Cola Arena on 4 October in solidarity with the Sudanese people “and to boycott doing business in the UAE for the role they are playing in the ongoing genocide and humanitarian crisis in the region”.
The rapper cited the UAE’s reported support for the Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which has been battling the Sudanese army.
“I know that this will probably jeopardise my future shows in the area, and I truly hate letting any of my fans down. I was really excited too. But until the UAE stops arming and funding the RSF I will not perform there.”
He added: “I have no judgment against other artists performing in the UAE. But I do ask the question to my peers scheduled to play in Dubai: If we used our platforms to mobilise collective liberation, what could we accomplish?”
“If we used our platforms to mobilize collective liberation, what could we accomplish?”
Since the war began in April last year, thousands of people have been killed and 10 million forced to flee their homes. The war has sparked the country’s worst hunger levels on record, external, according to the UN-accredited Integrated food security Phase Classification (IPC).
Macklemore is the latest artist to cancel a performance for reasons related to an ongoing war. Earlier this month, Fontaines D.C. cancelled their upcoming concert at Zorlu PSM in Turkey in solidarity with Palestinian people.
That came after Barclays suspended its sponsorship of Live Nation UK’s remaining 2024 festivals following a raft of artist withdrawals over the bank’s ties to Israel, and South By Southwest (SXSW) discontinued its partnership with the US Army and the defense contractor RTX Corporation after more than 80 artists pulled out of this year’s event in Austin, Texas, in protest of the military’s support for Israel in the war in Gaza.
Meanwhile, other artists such as Imagine Dragons have been forced to defend performances in countries involved in conflicts, while a slate of artists and DJs have quietly returned to playing gigs in Russia despite the country’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine.
Read more about how the live music industry is grappling with artist boycotts here.
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530k attend most headliner-focused Sziget yet
One of the biggest festivals in the world, 530,000 fans attended this year’s week-long Sziget festival, falling slightly shy of 2018’s record-breaking attendance.
The 27th edition of Providence Equity-backed Sziget took place from 7 to 13 August on Obuda island in Budapest, Hungary. Ed Sheeran, Foo Fighters, Post Malone, Florence and the Machine and Martin Garrix were among the more than 1,000 acts playing at the festival.
“The performances on Sziget’s main stage this year were outstanding in many ways,” says Sziget chief executive, Tamás Kádár. “We increased our funding for mainstream performers even more than last year as part of our ongoing growth strategy, bringing us nine headline acts for seven festival days.”
Hungary Today reported that organisers spent 500 million forints (US$1.7m) more this year on securing headliners, out of a total budget of more than 10 billion forints ($34m).
Two nights saw back-to-back headline performances, with Twenty One Pilots performing ahead of Foo Fighters on the closing day and a Saturday night combination of the National and Macklemore.
The first day of Sziget festival, headlined by Ed Sheeran, reportedly sold out with as many as 60,000 fans attending Sheeran’s show and 95,000 visitors on the festival site. Several fans complained about overcrowding and congestion on social media.
“The performances on Sziget’s main stage this year were outstanding in many ways”
Organisers told a Hungarian news outlet that “an unexpected, brief rainstorm” resulted in more fans leaving immediately after Sheeran’s performance than expected. “We decided to break up the crowd by only allowing visitors to leave intermittently from the festival area in order to avoid external congestion,” reads the statement.
Speaking of the extensive line-up of headliners, Kádár says that it was “a great pleasure for us to programme world stars who cover a wide, diverse fan base over different genres”, as well as “artists who fit in well with our [environmental] Love Revolution campaign messages, such as The 1975.”
Organisers celebrated Sziget festival’s most sustainable year to date, preventing the use of 1.5 million one-use plastic cups and 600,000 straws through a reusable cup system and “Don’t Suck” anti-straw campaign.
A new low-carbon dining block was introduced this year, providing attendees with sustainable food options.
Talks by Dr Jane Goodall of the United Nations (UN) peace envoy, the UN Refugee Agency’s Emitithal Mahmoud and former US vice president and climate change campaigner Al Gore also featured on the main stage.
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