Boomtown team launch 3,500-cap. venue
The organisers of the UK’s Boomtown festival are launching Area 404 Complex, a new 3,500-capacity events space in the city of Bristol.
The venue is opening on the weekend of 1 and 2 November, in time for Halloween celebrations, for “a nighttime festival experience beyond this world.
The venue features five rooms, with a main room showcasing music similar to that found on the festival’s main stage. Smaller rooms will host a mixture of reggae, techno, house, drum and bass and disco.
“We are so pleased to be able to finally announce this venue, it feels like a proper homecoming for us. We’re unbelievably excited to be able to showcase everything we’ve grown into since we started putting on gigs in Bristol over a decade ago,” comment Boomtown organisers.
“We are so pleased to be able to finally announce this venue, it feels like a proper homecoming for us”
“To be able to bring our unique mix of interactive and immersive theatre, beautifully hand crafted intricate set designs and a huge amount of music genres all under one roof, is going to be something incredibly special!”
Founded in 2009, Boomtown attracts 66,000 fans each year to its site in Winchester, England. The 11th edition of the festival took place from 7 to 11 August, despite high-speed winds and heavy rain causing the cancellation of other UK events. Headliners included Lauryn Hill, Prophets of Rage and the Streets.
Tickets for the Area 404 Complex Halloween events sold out in under 30 minutes. Tickets are available to attend the venue on Friday 8 November here, priced at £36.30.
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100,000+ for first Download Madrid
More than 100,000 people attended last weekend’s inaugural Download Madrid, exceeding the expectations of Live Nation Spain and cementing the event as one of Spain’s “rock and metal festivals of reference”, says the promoter.
Download Madrid was announced last October alongside the French edition of Lollapalooza, and joins a string of new festivals launched in the Spanish capital over the past two years, including Live Nation’s Mad Cool and Glaciar Music’s Utopía.
Taking place at the Caja Mágica (‘Magic Box’) stadium from Thursday 22 to Saturday 24 June, festival performers included Linkin Park, System of a Down, Prophets of Rage, Mastodon, Five Finger Death Punch and 58 other acts playing across four stages on more than 35,000m² of artificial turf.
Following the successful debut, “the Caja Mágica,” reads a release from Live Nation Spain, “has become the meeting place for an audience that cried out for a rock/metal event of this magnitude in the capital.”
The festival will return in 2018.
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50% increase in ticket sales for second Maximus
Move Concerts doubled ticket sales in Sao Paolo for the second edition of Maximus Festival, in what CEO Phil Rodriguez calls a “gratifyingly very positive” year for the fledgling twin rock/metal festivals.
Maximus debuted last September with two one-day festivals in Sao Paolo, Brazil, and Buenos Aires, Argentina, headlined by Rammstein and Marilyn Manson. It returned earlier this month – on Saturday 6 May at the Tecnopolis in Buenos Aires and Saturday 13 May at the Interlagos race circuit in Sao Paolo – and featured performances from Linkin Park, Prophets of Rage, Slayer, Rob Zombie, Five Finger Death Punch, Böhse Onkelz and more.
“Both festivals were flawless in execution,” Rodriguez tells IQ, “and the response from punters, artists and press was gratifyingly very positive. And the weather on both dates was perfect, which always helps!
“Both festivals were flawless in execution, and the response from punters, artists and press was gratifyingly very positive”
“In Sao Paulo, we had an increase in ticket sales of over 50% from the 2016 edition, selling more than 32,000 tickets. This year we also had our third stage in Sao Paulo host hardcore bands – Rise Against, Pennywise, The Flatliners – and it was an absolute success.”
Upcoming shows for Move Concerts, Latin America’s largest independent promoter, include the South American legs of Ed Sheeran’s ÷ and Ariana Grande’s Dangerous Woman tours. It also promoted Kraftwerk’s 23 November show in Buenos Aires, after a judge overturned the city’s ban on concerts where “synthesisers or samplers are the primary instrument”.
Some sample shots of both festivals, courtesy of photographers Stephan Solon and Camila Cara, are below…
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