2023 lineups: Mad Cool, Rock Werchter and more
Mad Cool, Rock Werchter, Northside, Frequency, Railbird and Ressurection have each announced a wave of new additions for their 2023 instalments.
Live Nation’s Mad Cool has unveiled an almost full lineup for its sixth edition, taking place in Madrid, from 6–8 July 2023.
Robbie Williams, Lil Nas X, Lizzo, Machine Gun Kelly, Queens of the Stone Age, The Black Keys, Sam Smith, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Liam Gallagher and The Prodigy top next year’s blockbuster bill, with two more headliners to be announced.
The 1975, Nova Twins, Franz Ferdinand, Tash Sultana, Paolo Nutini, Jamie XX, Sigur Rós, Angel Olsen, Years & Years, The Amazons, Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats, Jacob Collier, Touché Amoré, The Blessed Madonna, Honey Dijon, Genesis Owusu, Rina Sawayama, Rüfus du Sol, Bombay Bicycle Club and Sylvan Esso are also among the raft of acts announced this week.
Last year, Mad Cool expanded to five days in celebration of its fifth anniversary, which featured Florence + The Machine, Queens Of The Stone Age and Haim.
Aurora, Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats, The 1975 and Sam Fender join the Rock Werchter lineup
Meanwhile, Belgium’s Rock Werchter has added dozens of names to an already-packed lineup for 2023.
Aurora, Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats, The 1975, Sam Fender, Cavetown, The HU, slowthai, The Interrupters, Wadruna, Tamino, The Black Keys, Adekunle Gold and Dean Lewis have joined the bill.
Other new additions include Sigur Rós, Xavier Rudd, Paolo Nutini and Machine Gun Kelly. Adding to the list for 2 July are Lovejoy, Pip Millett, Amenra, Puscifer, Gabriels, Jacob Collier and The Lumineers.
They join previously announced acts Muse, Queens of the Stone Age, Arctic Monkeys, Fred Again, Oscar and the Wolf, Stromae and more.
Last year’s edition, promoted by Live Nation Belgium and Herman Schueremans, shifted 67,000 combi-tickets and four lots of 21,000 one-day tickets.
Anderson .Paak and Knxwledge aka NxWorries will be reunited at Northside
Denmark’s Northside has confirmed another slate of names for the 2023 event, taking place between 1–3 June in Eskelund park, Aarhus.
It was announced today that Anderson .Paak and Knxwledge aka NxWorries will be reunited at next year’s instalment, having released their first new single in six years.
First Aid Kit, JPEGMAFIA, Tobias Rahim, Gilli, Purple Disco Machine and LF SYSTEM have also been added to the bill.
They join previously announced acts The 1975, White Lies and Muse at the Down the Drain-promoted event.
Austria’s Frequency Festival is taking shape, with Imagine Dragons, Kraftklub, Armin Van Buuren and Alligatoah at the top of the 2023 poster. The Barracuda Music-promoted event is set for 17–19 August at Greenpark, St. Pölten.
Spain’s Ressurection Fest has assembled some of the biggest names in metal for the 2023 edition
Elsewhere, Live Nation has outlined Railbird Music Festival, a two-day music event in the US state of Kentucky.
Tyler Childers and Zach Bryan head up the bill, and are joined by acts including Zach Bryan, Weezer, Marcus Mumford, Whiskey Myers, Sheryl Crow, Charley Crockett and Jenny Lewis.
In addition to music, fans will have the opportunity to purchase from an impressive lineup of hand-selected barrels from Kentucky’s finest distilleries chosen in collaboration with co-owners Justin Sloan and Justin Thompson of Lexington’s treasured Justins’ House of Bourbon.
The festival will take place at The Infield at Red Mile, Lexington, on 3 and 4 June, 2023.
Spain’s Ressurection Fest has assembled some of the biggest names in metal for the 2023 edition, including Ghost, Slipknot, Pantera, Papa Roach, Architects, Alter Bridge and Powerwolf.
Titled Chapter XVIII Where We Belong, the next instalment will take place in Galicia, between 8 June to 1 July 2023.
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IFF ’22: ‘Agents and promoters must stick together’
Top agents and festival promoters say that the spirit of collaboration cultivated during the Covid-19 pandemic must be maintained if the industry is to overcome the next set of challenges.
The discussion took place today at IFF (International Festival Forum) during the panel Festivals & Agents: Happier than ever?, which featured Nikolaj Thorenfeldt (Smash! Bang! Pow!, DK), Chris Payne (WME, UK), Adele Slater (Wasserman Music, UK), Rauha Kyyrö (Fullsteam Agency, FI) and Cindy Castillo (Mad Cool, ES).
Fullsteam’s Kyyrö told IFF delegates that the bright side of the pandemic was an increased sense of understanding and patience among colleagues in the business.
“What I’ve noticed during the summer and autumn is that none of the companies to me seem to be working 100% efficiently,” she said. “I think everyone’s still struggling a little bit with how to set up their business and how to work internally so this is making us a little bit more patient. I’m no longer getting so many angry emails about not responding right away. I might get a reminder, but it’s usually a kinder reminder.”
Wasserman Music’s Slater said the pandemic also gave promoters and agents the chance to get to know the person behind the email address, thus humanising business relationships.
“We all had to club together because no one really knew what was going on at any point,” she said. “With promoters, once you’d rescheduled your shows, you would check in on them and see if they were okay and actually get to know the person rather than asking for a pencil. You had time to get to know people. It helped relationships with people rather than [feed into] the whole agent versus promoter [thing].”
Thorenfeldt from Smash! Bang! Pow! agreed, adding: “Some of the best conversations I’ve had with various business partners was when we actually got to talk about stuff that’s not numbers of whatever. You actually started to get to know certain relationships a lot better, which I think has been incredibly fruitful in a lot of ways since we returned to business. You found out what’s important in some of your work relationships and got a better idea of what sort of pressure each of us is feeling in our everyday life.”
Mad Cool’s Castillo said she personally experienced this newfound empathy from industry peers when the promoter cancelled Mad Cool Sunset.
“I think we have become more willing to look for solutions when problems arise”
The festival was called off after organisers were unable to find a “suitable” replacement for Rage Against The Machine, who recently cancelled all forthcoming dates in the UK and Europe.
“Four or five years ago, the response probably would have been ‘You’re gonna pay me everything now’,” explained Castillo. “Now, 95% of people said ‘Okay, Cindy, don’t worry. We understand the situation. It’s a shame this has happened. Let’s look for a solution.
“I think we have become more willing to look for solutions when problems arise. Maybe a couple of years ago, there would have been more aggressive communication with people demanding what they want but now there’s understanding.”
And it’s not just the bonds between agents and promoters that have strengthened because of the pandemic, according to WME’s Payne.
“We’ve got closer as a team internally because we’ve had to help each other. It might be that one of my colleagues has got a show but I’ve got a better relationship with a promoter and I’ll go down and help a little bit. And hopefully, that’s happening in the promoter world as well. It makes you just run harder and faster and better together.”
The panel agreed that, going forward, different forces in the industry must continue to work as one in order to overcome issues such as soaring costs, staff shortages and talent drains.
“These are crazy circumstances and we need to try and compromise,” continued Payne. “So I’m hoping compromises are a bigger part of everyone’s conversations, from agents to promoters, because we’re in an ecosystem and you don’t have one without the other.”
Thorenfeldt from Smash! Bang! Pow! added: “We want to help great artists achieve their wildest dreams – that’s the mutual goal for all of us. I also think that if there’s a mutual problem we need to look at it together, as well.”
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Live Nation Spain’s Cesar Andion plots AMF sequel
Live Nation Spain’s Cesar Andion tells IQ he hopes to establish the Andalucía Music Forum as an annual event following its successful launch earlier this month.
The newest gathering for the international music industry in southern Europe debuted at the Albeniz Cinema in Málaga from 5-7 September, attracting 350 delegates and speakers.
Showcases were limited to acts from guest country Mexico, alongside local Andalucían talent.
“We are all super-happy with how everything turned out – it was exactly what I had in my mind when I was designing it,” says Andion. “The attendance was perfect for deep and friendly networking, as we wanted AMF to be a forum and not a big conference fair.
“The vibe was friendly, professional, easy-going, laid back and fun, and Málaga was the perfect spot as a gateway for Latin America in Europe and vice-versa. It’s very different to most of music conferences and we want to keep it that way in terms of the concept, vibe and style.”
“We are also planning another one in Madrid that will be completely different to AMF”
Andion says the biggest organisational challenges concerned the timing.
“We organised it all in just a few months and during the summer, which is quite a hard time to work because everyone is either on holidays or working on festivals,” he says. “But we have a great team with pros in Europe like Ruud Berends (Netherlands) and Ignacia Snadoval (Germany), Fabrizio Onetto and Malfi Dorantes from Mexico, and of course Esteban Ruiz and Erica Romero in Andalucía. The Mad Cool team worked really hard to make it happen and I am very thankful to everyone.”
And not only does Andion now have a sequel in the works, he also has his sights set on launching a sister conference in Madrid.
“We are also planning another one in Madrid that will be completely different to AMF,” he reveals.
AMF is part of the Andalucía Big by Mad Cool project, which also included the new 30,000-cap Andalucía Big Festival, held near Sacaba Beach from 8–10 September, with acts such as Muse, Jamiroquai, Years & Years, Glass Animals, Michael Kiwanuka, Wolf Alice, Franz Ferdinand and Aurora.
“It’s a very ambitious project and has been a total success”
“The project is ‘big’, as it is titled, because it has three ‘legs’ as we say in Spanish: the pro forum, the festival and a tour of Andalucían provinces,” explains Andion. “It’s a very ambitious project and has been a total success. Málaga deserved a big festival as it’s one of the coolest and most visited cities in Spain, but also because it’s the cultural and event capital of Andalucía.
“The festival had incredible vibe, I was really impressed with the audience, which was Spanish in majority but with great attendance of Brits.”
Mad Cool Festival and The Spanish Wave are also teaming up to promote Spanish talent at next week’s International Festival Forum (IFF), ILMC’s invitation-only event for music festivals and booking agents. The event will mark the culmination of a nationwide project to find the best emerging acts from Spain.
Three Spanish artists – Hickeys, Irenegarry and Pablo Drexler – were chosen from more than 500 applications and will perform at the Mad Cool Festival & The Spanish Wave Presents showcase at London’s Camden Assembly from 9pm on Wednesday (28 September).
Spain is the guest country for IFF 2022, which takes place in London between 27-29 September.
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Mad Cool Sunset scrapped over RATM cancellation
Mad Cool Sunset has been called off after organisers were unable to find a “suitable” replacement for Rage Against The Machine, who recently cancelled all forthcoming dates in the UK and Europe.
Organised by the same team behind the Live Nation-backed Mad Cool festival in Spain, the one-day sister event was set to debut in Madrid on 10 September with acts including Biffy Clyro, Glass Animals, Stereophonics and Run The Jewels.
Rage Against The Machine were to be the main headliner of the inaugural event but the band recently cancelled their upcoming UK and European tour dates and festival appearances after frontman Zack de la Rocha injuring his leg on stage.
On 11 August the band shared that due to “medical guidance” de la Rocha had been advised not to proceed with performing. The tour cancellation also impacted their plans to headline Reading & Leeds last weekend, where they were replaced by The 1975.
Rage Against the Machine’s performance at Mad Cool Sunset would’ve been their first in Spain after over a decade, and one of two exclusive concerts the band were due to play in the country.
View this post on Instagram
“We understand that the cancellation of Mad Cool’s Sunset main headliner has meant disappointment and a change of plans for many of the attendees, since being part of RATM’s return, was in many cases, the reason why many of you purchased tickets,” reads a post on the festival’s Instagram page.
Ticketholders have the option to either get a refund or to trade their Sunset ticket for a three-day pass to Andalucia Big Festival in Málaga – Mad Cool’s other new sister festival.
The new 30,000-capacity festival is also scheduled for September, with acts including Muse, Jamiroquai, Years & Years, Biffy Clyro, Nova Twins, Michael Kiwanuka, Paolo Nutini, Stereophonics and Run the Jewels.
Flagship festival Mad Cool took place in Madrid between 6 and 10 July, with more than 160 acts including headliners Metallica, Florence and the Machine and Stormzy.
Director Javier Arnáiz recently spoke to IQ about how the team behind the marquee event has continued to improve its customer experience.
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Mad Cool on improving the customer experience
Mad Cool director Javier Arnáiz has spoken to IQ about how the festival has continued to improve its customer experience.
The Live Nation-backed festival took place in Madrid between 6 and 10 July, with more than 160 acts including headliners Metallica, Florence and the Machine and Stormzy.
The recent edition took place over five days instead of three as part of “a commitment to offer the best experience for the community of music fans”.
Since launching in 2016, Mad Cool has grown rapidly from an overall capacity of 45,000 to 80,000. But this “massive growth” has led to some “incidents” in past editions, as Arnáiz told IQ after the 2019 season.
With the 2020 and 2021 editions cancelled due to the Covid pandemic, this year was the festival’s first opportunity to premiere a new and improved customer experience. Organisers added additional access points, doubled bar services and toilet points, increased the internet network, security and cashless points, and decreased the daily capacity by 10,000.
“It has been a very tough road till here but we finally see the light at the end of the tunnel”
“We have worked really hard for everything to work well,” says Arnáiz. “I think everyone felt the difference clearly and internally the team worked better.”
However, there’s still room for improvement, he says: “At the exit, we had some problems regarding transport due to MADO (Madrid Gay Pride) taking place the same weekend as the festival. This made the general public transport services collapse at certain moments.
“We paid for the metro services to remain active, offered free bus rides to the city centre (paid by the festival), we and had taxi and private transport. We had a critical situation with Uber rates that were disproportionately high and the audience, logically, complained. We are already working on improving this too.”
Alongside improving the customer experience, Mad Cool faced common post-pandemic challenges such as a shortage of personnel and materials, as well as acts cancelling last minute due to Covid.
“It’s been hard work and a continuous challenge, but this 2022 edition has been good and we will probably recover from these two last years thanks to the results of this edition,” says Arnáiz, adding that the festival sold a total of 312,000 tickets for this year’s event.
“Mad Cool festival didn’t receive any financial support of any kind during the pandemic, it has been a very tough road till here but we finally see the light at the end of the tunnel,” he adds.
“We will probably recover from these two last years thanks to the results of this edition”
The festival team’s attention will now turn to Mad Cool Sunset, a one-day event in September taking place at the same location as the flagship festival.
Also in September, the team will launch Andalucia Big Festival, a new 30,000-capacity festival for Málaga, Spain with headliners Muse and Jamiroquai. Years & Years, Biffy Clyro, Nova Twins, Michael Kiwanuka, Paolo Nutini, Stereophonics and Run the Jewels are also among the 52 acts slated to perform.
The ministry of tourism is reportedly dedicating €4m of its EU funds to the event in order to bring tourism to the area outside the normal peak season.
The organisers estimate that the event will have an economic impact of around €25m in Andalusia.
“We studied the market before the pandemic and realised Andalucia was lacking an event of such characteristics and that the market and population would embrace it,” explains Arnáiz.
“We started working together with the local authorities, agencies, and collaborators and the project has become a reality. Sales are doing well and we are sure it will be a great success in every sense.”
Andalusia Big Festival is to take place near Sacaba Beach from 8–10 September this year.
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Mad Cool unveils new 30k-cap festival in Malaga
The organisers of Mad Cool festival in Madrid have announced a new 30,000-capacity festival for Málaga, Spain.
Andalusia Big Festival is to take place near Sacaba Beach from 8–10 September this year, with headliners Muse and Jamiroquai.
Years & Years, Biffy Clyro, Nova Twins, Michael Kiwanuka, Paolo Nutini, Stereophonics and Run the Jewels are also among the 52 acts slated to perform.
According to the organisers, the festival will comprise three stages in the 50,000 square metre arena next to the beach.
The organisers estimate that the event will have an economic impact of around €25m in Andalusia
The ministry of tourism is reportedly dedicating €4m of its EU funds to the event in order to bring tourism to the area outside the normal peak season.
The organisers estimate that the event will have an economic impact of around €25m in Andalusia.
Alongside the launch of the Andalusia Big Festival, the Live Nation-promoted Mad Cool will return to Madrid between 6–10 July this year, in an extended five-day format.
Florence + The Machine, Queens Of The Stone Age, Haim, Chvrches, Sam Fender, Arlo Parks, Glass Animals and Easy Life are slated to play the fifth-anniversary edition.
Those artists join the 104 acts announced for Mad Cool 2022 last June, which include Muse, The Killers and Metallica.
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Mad Cool adds fifth day for 2022 edition
Live Nation’s Mad Cool has announced an additional day for next year’s edition, in celebration of the festival’s fifth anniversary.
According to organisers, the expansion comes from “a commitment to offer the best experience for the community of music fans” who attend the Spanish festival in 2022.
The five-day event will take place between 6–10 July 2022, in Madrid, with acts including Florence + The Machine, Queens Of The Stone Age and Haim.
The fifth-anniversary edition was due to take place in 2020 with a reduced capacity, increased stage numbers and a fourth day (up from three days).
However, both the 2020 and 2021 editions of Mad Cool were cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The expansion comes from “a commitment to offer the best experience for the community of music fans”
Since launching in 2016, Mad Cool has grown rapidly from an overall capacity of 45,000 to 80,000 last edition.
This “massive growth” has led to some “incidents” in past editions, festival director Javier Arnáiz told IQ in a post-season reflection.
Florence + The Machine, Queens Of The Stone Age and Haim are among 32 new names announced today.
The likes of Chvrches, Sam Fender, Arlo Parks, Glass Animals and Easy Life have also been added to the bill.
Those artists join the 104 acts announced for Mad Cool 2022 last June, which include Muse, The Killers and Metallica.
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Festival bosses talk cash flow, artist fees
The second IQ Focus festival panel, Festival Forum: The Next Stage, saw festival leaders from around Europe discuss the thorny issues of refunds and insolvency, as well as the outlook for 2021, in what should have been the halfway point of the 2020 season.
Hosted by IQ Magazine editor Gordon Masson, the panel welcomed Mad Cool’s CIndy Castillo, Isle of Wight Festival/Solo Agency’s John Giddings, ARTmania’s Codruta Vulcua and Goodlive’s Stefan Lehmkuhl, two months on from the initial virtual Festival Forum session.
The current situation, said Giddings, has made it “blatantly obvious” that the business has an issue with cash flow and that many promoters don’t have any kind of “war chest to go forwards”.
“I don’t understand how you bankrupt companies by refunding tickets,” he said. “You shouldn’t be spending the ticket money on costs – you need to be in the position to be able to refund all the money. We have a responsibility to the audience.”
Giddings noted that some promoters have got into the habit of “taking money from the future to pay the past”, and it has become clear that this doesn’t work.
“This may teach people a lesson on how to run a business,” he said.
The other panellists agreed to an extent, but noted that a lack of support and clarity from the authorities has complicated matters in a lot of cases.
“This may teach people a lesson on how to run a business”
“Our government hasn’t even declared force majeure yet for live events”, said Castillo, who promotes Madrid’s Mad Cool festival. “This has put us in a very tricky legal situation.”
The Mad Cool team only started its refund period last week, explained Castillo, but is allowing people to make the decision on whether to hold onto tickets for next year or refund them until after the full 2021 line-up is revealed.
In Romania, said Vulcu, an immediate reimbursement “would have bankrupted many organisers”, as the government is implementing new restrictions every two weeks.
“There are companies with shows built up, everything ready and paid for, and then suddenly it had to be cancelled,” she said. A voucher scheme implemented by the government, allowing promoters to offer credit for shows or merchandise in place of cash refunds, has been a lifeline for many.
ARTmania did choose to offer refunds, but only received 43 requests. “Our decision to trust our audience really worked for us,” said Vulcu, adding that this tactic may “work for rock and metal audiences perhaps more than for others.”
Lehmkuhl, who runs German festivals including Melt, Splash, Superbloom and With Full Force, added that a lot depends on how long the shutdown continues for.
“So far, we have been able to spend our own money,” he said,” but the next step would be to touch the ticket money, then to get low-interest credit from the government in case it takes longer.
“What happens if it takes longer than a year?” he asked. “Few companies will be able to survive for longer than a year.”
“Our decision to trust our audience really worked for us”
Mindful of cash flow, Goodlive has asked for deposits back from acts it booked for this year. “There is mutual understanding there,” said Lehmkuhl. “We are trying to rethink our festivals for next year, adjusting dates and concepts. We will start from scratch in some ways next year.”
As the promoter of Isle of Wight Festival, Giddings said he also asked for deposits to be returned. “We are doing contracts going forward for next year and will pay the deposit then.”
In terms of being an agent, Giddings said he is not going to take a fee reduction for artists. “I would rather they didn’t play than take a reduction on my act,” he said.
“As an agent I wouldn’t book an act for festival next year unless they’re going to pay me the same money,” he said, “and we’ve done the same thing as a festival.”
Ticket prices will also have to stay the same, as so many fans are rolling over their tickets to next year. “Anyone raising ticket prices is insane,” said Giddings. “We need to get an audience back first before charging more.”
Vulcu, who said she left the money with the agencies when rescheduling, agreed that she will not be paying artists less money, “but we will definitely not pay more”.
“Romanian audiences will have a lot less money and the priority will not be going to festivals,” she said.
“As an agent I wouldn’t book an act for festival next year unless they’re going to pay me the same money, and we’ve done the same thing as a festival”
Castillo said her experiences have been “positive” with every agent. “We are looking out for each other to prevent the industry collapsing,” she said.
The Mad Cool booker admitted that it will be “really hard” to get the same audiences next year, “so we need help with fees to make things happen”.
“We are running a big risk with the festival next year”.
The recovery of the music business in Spain “hasn’t event started yet”, said Castillo, as “you first have to understand our business model, identify problems and offer solutions – and we haven’t been offered any solutions yet.”
Vulcu added that support packages offered by governments in western European countries such as Germany and the UK may put newer markets at a disadvantage, as they are less likely to receive support.
Giddings replied that, although the recent culture funding package announced by the UK government is sizeable, “we have no idea who it’s going to go to and how it will work”. He added that it was more likely to benefit venues than agents or promoters.
Sponsors are another issue for 2021. “Investing in events is risky now,” said Castillo, “and this is definitely affecting us.”
Vulcu said that, while ARTmania has secured its main sponsor for next year, “it is very difficult to get new sponsors”.
“Investing in events is risky now, and this is definitely affecting us”
Most Isle of Wight Festival sponsors have also “stuck with us” said Giddings, who believes that sponsors will start to come back in once it’s clear the event is going to happen, although they may be “different kinds of sponsors relating to our changing normal”.
Giddings added that he is “praying” for some direction on what will happen next year by Christmas, with clear information needed by March at the latest.
For Lehmkuhl, the key for the “new normal” is a high level of flexibility and an ability to keep running costs very low.
The Goodlive co-founder said that the idea of testing at festivals “is one of the few realistic plans [for getting event up and running] nowadays”, provided that the government is able to provide tests for free.
“It is hard for me to imagine that we will be able to do festivals as normal next year,” he admitted, “but one thing’s for sure, I will not be doing them with social distancing.”
The next IQ Focus session State of Independence: Promoters will take place on Thursday 16 July at 4 p.m. BST/5 p.m. CET. To set a reminder head to the IQ Magazine page on Facebook or YouTube.
Watch yesterday’s session back below, or on YouTube or Facebook now.
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IQ Focus returns with ‘Festival Forum: The Next Stage’
After a week’s break, IQ’s virtual panel series – IQ Focus – is back with Festival Forum: The Next Stage, which sees representatives from a handful of European festivals give an update on the state of the sector.
The ninth panel of the popular IQ Focus series, the session will be streamed live on Facebook and YouTube on Thursday 9 July at 4 p.m. BST/5 p.m. CET, building on a previous Festival Forum panel almost two months on.
Midway through what would have been this year’s festival season, it’s a summer like no other. But are we midway through the crisis, or is there still further to go before the festival sector can confidently progress into 2021?
How confident are promoters feeling about next year, and are artists and audiences ready to return?
With a number of government support packages in place, and much of this year’s line-ups transplanted to next year, how confident are promoters feeling about next year, and are artists and audiences ready to return?
IQ Magazine editor Gordon Masson hosts this IQ Focus discussion with panellists Cindy Castillo of Spain’s Mad Cool festival; John Giddings of the Isle of Wight Festival and Solo Agency; Stefan Lehmkuhl who promotes Splash, Melt, Superbloom and With Full Force festivals at Germany’s Goodlive; and Codruta Vulcu of Romania’s ARTmania Festival.
All previous IQ Focus sessions, which have looked at topics including diversity in live, management under lockdown, the agency business, large-scale and grassroots music venues and innovation in live music, can be watched back here.
To set a reminder about the IQ Focus Festival Forum: The Next Stage session on Thursday head to the IQ Magazine page on Facebook or YouTube.
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First post-lockdown concerts take place in Spain
The first post-lockdown live music events are taking place in Spain this week, as the country embarks on phase two of its lockdown easing plan.
As of 25 May, outdoor events of up to 400 people and indoor concerts with a maximum capacity of 50 people have been allowed to resume in Spain.
Although the reopening measures have been criticised by members of the Spanish live industry for being unclear and unrealistic, a number of event organisers have taken the opportunity to restart business.
This week, five concerts are taking place in the northern region of Cantabria as part of the local government’s ‘Culture Counterattack’ campaign. Performances by acts Rulo, Vicky Castelo, Billy Boom Band, Deva and Repion will take place this weekend (29 to 30 May) in the cities of Santander, Torrelavega and Muriedas.
“These five Cantabrian artists will connect with their fans again, to a lesser extent than we would like, but with as many as is possible right now,” says Pablo Zuloaga, vice president of Cantabria, who announced the campaign last week.
Elsewhere in Spain, organisers of Barcelona’s Festival Cruïlla, who, along with promoters of major Spanish events including Primavera Sound, Mad Cool, Bilbao BBK Live and Sónar, recently called off their 2020 festival, have announced Cruïlla XXS, a series of over 200 open-air events taking place throughout the city in July.
“This is a way of putting the message out there that, little by little, things are getting better”
Priced between €15 and €45, each event – which range from concerts, talks and conference sessions to urban art and circus performances – will be seated and have a maximum capacity of 400. The events will be hosted in venues including open-air architectural museum the Poble Espanyol, the Design Museum of Barcelona, the Anella Olímpica (Olympic Ring) and the gardens of the Catalan national theatre.
“This is a way of putting the message out there that, little by little, things are getting better,” comments Cruïlla XXS programmer Jordi Herreruela. “This will have a positive impact on the collective state of mind.”
Cruïlla XXS organisers are working with the Barcelona Institute for Global Health to ensure adequate safety measures are in place. “If we want to go back to putting on events with several thousand people, we will have to show we are capable of doing so,” says Herreruela.
Two Door Cinema Club, Kase.O, Residente and Of Monsters and Men are among acts confirmed for Festival Cruïlla 2021.
Spain is due to enter it final stage of lockdown easing on 8 June, which allows outdoor events of up to 800 people and indoor concerts with a capacity limit of 80, as well as the reopening of night clubs and bars at a third of usual capacity.
Photo: Roger Canals/Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0) (cropped)
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