Red Hot Chili Peppers confirm 2023 world tour
Red Hot Chili Peppers have announced a 23-date global tour for 2023, including a series of stadium gigs and festival headline slots.
The US band, who are represented by CAA’s Emma Banks outside North America, will be joined on select dates by support acts such as The Strokes, Iggy Pop, The Roots, The Mars Volta, St. Vincent, City and Colour, Thundercat and King Princess on the trek, which kicks off on Wednesday, March 29 at BC Place in Vancouver, Canada.
The group’s summer festival slate includes the Hangout Music Festival (US), Pinkpop (Netherlands), Tinderbox (Denmark), Rock Werchter (Belgium), I-Days (Italy), NOS Live (Portugal) and Mad Cool (Spain).
The tour will wrap up in the UK on Saturday, July 23 at Glasgow’s Hampden Park. The show was originally scheduled for this past summer as part of the band’s 40-date stadium tour – their biggest to date – which included sold-out shows in London, Paris and Los Angeles. Artists such as A$AP Rocky, Anderson .Paak, Beck, Haim and more joined the band on the road through 2022.
Earlier this year, RHCP became the first rock band in 17 years to achieve two No.1 US albums in the same year, hitting the top spot with both Unlimited Love and Return of the Dream Canteen.
North America
Wed Mar 29 – Vancouver, BC – BC Place
Sat Apr 01 – Las Vegas, NV – Allegiant Stadium
Thu Apr 06 – Fargo, ND – Fargodome
Sat Apr 08 – Minneapolis, MN – US Bank Stadium
Fri Apr 14 – Syracuse, NY– JMA Wireless Dome
Fri May 12 – San Diego, CA – Snap Dragon Stadium
Sun May 14 – Phoenix, AZ – State Farm Stadium
Wed May 17 – San Antonio, TX – Alamodome
Fri May 19 – Gulf Shores, AL – Hangout Music Festival
Thu May 25 – Houston, TX – Minute Maid Park
Europe:
Sun Jun 18 – Landgraaf, NL – Pinkpop
Wed Jun 21 – Warsaw, Poland – PGE Narodowy
Sat Jun 24 – Odense, DK – Tinderbox
Mon Jun 26 – Mannheim, DE – Maimarktgelände
Fri Jun 30 – Leuven, BE – Rock Werchter
Sun Jul 2 – Milan, IT – I-Days
Thu Jul 6 – Lisbon, PT – NOS Live
Sat Jul 8 – Madrid, ES – Mad Cool
Tue Jul 11 – Lyon, FR – Groupama Stadium
Fri Jul 14 – Vienna, AT – Ernst-Happel Stadion
Mon Jul 17 – Carhaix, FR – Les Vieilles Charrues
Fri Jul 21 – London, UK – Tottenham Hotspur Stadium
Sun Jul 23 – Glasgow, UK – Hampden Park
Get more stories like this in your inbox by signing up for IQ Index, IQ’s free email digest of essential live music industry news.
Record attendance marks Summer Sonic’s 20th year
Creativeman’s Summer Sonic overtook Smash Corp-promoted Fuji Rock to become Japan’s biggest outdoor music festival this year, welcoming 135,000 visitors over three days to its twin sites in Osaka and Tokyo.
Taking place from 16 to 18 August, Creativeman debuted a new three-day format, in celebration of the festival’s 20th anniversary. The pop- and rock- focused line-up featured the Red Hit Chili Peppers, Babymetal, the Chainsmokers, Fall Out Boy, the 1975, Blackpink and Japanese rock bands Sakanaction and B’z.
All tickets sold out for the Tokyo-based side of the event, held at the adjoining Zozo Marine Stadium and Makuhari Messe exhibition hall. The Osaka leg of the festival, which took place at the Maishima Sonic Park, shifted all Friday tickets and weekend passes.
Speaking to IQ ahead of the event, Creativeman director Sebastian Mair said one festival day sold out three months before the festival started. “I don’t think we have ever had a day that has sold out that early,” Mair told IQ.
“[Japanese festivals] are safe and peaceful, and people are there for the music as opposed to anything else”
Just like fellow Japanese rock festival Fuji Rock, Summer Sonic suffered from adverse weather, with Typhoon Krosa causing the cancellation of performances on Tokyo’s beach stage on Friday.
Summer Sonic will take a one-year break in 2020 to accommodate the Tokyo Olympics.
The Japanese festival scene has become fairly saturated in recent years, with international brands such as Ultra, Electric Daisy Carnival, Download and Ozzfest setting up shop in the country.
Mair comments that the festival market remains “stable”, saying that international managers and agents are “always astounded by how well they [Japanese festivals] work”.
“They are safe and peaceful, and people are there for the music as opposed to anything else,” Mair told IQ.
Read more about the “booming” Japanese live scene in IQ’s country feature below.
Land of the rise in fun: Why booming Japan is such a tough market to crack
Get more stories like this in your inbox by signing up for IQ Index, IQ’s free email digest of essential live music industry news.
Study: 1 in 4 people attend festivals sober
Streaming platform Cloud Cover Music has examined the changes in music festival experiences across the United States over the last few decades in a new survey asking respondents about sobriety, drug intake, sex, memorable acts and life-changing experiences.
The study finds that 24% of those surveyed reported being sober at music festivals. Alcohol consumption at festivals has been higher in the past decade than previously, rising from 64% in the noughties to 71%.
The survey finds that festivalgoers in the 1980s were more likely to consume marijuana or hard drugs, witness violence and rioting, have sex and witness nudity at a festival than they are now. 83% of attendees in that same decade described festivals as life-changing, compared to 53% in the 90s, 62% in the noughties and 65% now.
Burning Man consistently proved to be the least sober event, with 45% of festivalgoers saying they drank alcohol and consumed a mixture of drugs at the event
82% of respondents stated that Woodstock 1969 was life-changing, making it the most impactful music festival on the survey. However, the festival had only 17 survey respondents. Ultra Music Festival was voted the second most life-changing music festival with 78%, followed by Electric Daisy Carnival (75%) and Burning man (73%).
Burning Man consistently proved to be the least sober event, with 45% of festivalgoers saying they drank alcohol and consumed a mixture of drugs at the event. The results coincide with secondary ticketer TickPick’s survey of drug consumption at festivals last year. In contrast, 72% of respondents say they did not consume any substances at Warped Tour.
Across genres and festivals, Red Hot Chili Peppers were ranked the most memorable act at music festivals, with Jane’s Addiction, Kendrick Lamar, Beyoncé and Tiësto also making the top five.
The full study can be read here.
Get more stories like this in your inbox by signing up for IQ Index, IQ’s free digest of essential live music industry news, via email or Messenger.
110,000+ attend homegrown Lollapalooza Paris 2017
The first edition of Lollapalooza Paris, which took place last weekend, has been hailed as a success by promoter Live Nation France, which has praised the festival as a triumph of “local initiative” in the face of criticism by former culture minister Jack Lang.
Lang – a veteran Socialist party politician who served as France’s minister of culture from 1981–86 and 1988–92 – on Saturday attacked the new festival, announced in October, as part of an “invasion of the musical life of France by American multinationals”.
According to Lang, Live Nation is threatening France’s domestic, often public subsidised, festival scene with the “extension of its empire” across the country. (The company’s most recent French acquisition was Nous Productions last August.)
He also took a swipe at AEG, which is believed to be going into partnership with Matthieu Pigasse’s LNEI Live on Rock en Seine, saying the rival promoter is “already scandalously present in [Paris] with AccorHotels Arena”.
“We would have been delighted to welcome Mr Lang to the festival, so that he realises that it is a local initiative, produced by a French company called Live Nation France”
Live Nation France issued a statement in response to Lang’s attack, with deputy GM Matthias Leullier saying he “would have been delighted to welcome Mr Lang to the festival, so that he realises that it is a local initiative, produced by a French company called Live Nation France”. Leullier also notes Live Nation France has 65 permanent employees and hired 1,500 people for Lollapalooza, all of which “are paid, and not by public subsidies.”
According to Le Figaro, no fewer than 110,000 people attended Lollapalooza Paris 2017, held at the Longchamp racecourse – the home of Download Paris, also a Live Nation production – on 22 and 23 July. Headliners were Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Weeknd, Imagine Dragons, Lana Del Rey, London Grammar and DJ Snake.
Lollapalooza, revived in Chicago by Live Nation’s C3 Presents in 2005, is now staged in five other cities worldwide: Sao Paulo, Buenos Aires, Berlin, Paris and Chilean capital Santiago.
Get more stories like this in your inbox by signing up for IQ Index, IQ’s free email digest of essential live music industry news.
“Golden age” for Benicassim as 177k attend in 2017
Festival Internacional de Benicàssim (FIB) festival director Melvin Benn has said the Spanish festival is entering a “new golden age” after its 2017 edition attracted more than 177,000 people over four days.
Benicassim 2017 – headlined by Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Weeknd, Kasabian, Foals, Deadmau5 and Spanish band Los Planetas – took place from Thursday 13 to Sunday 16 July, protected by what Spanish paper El País calls the “largest safety device” in the history of music festivals in the region: a security perimeter around the festival site, closed to vehicles.
Speaking to El País, Benn says 2017 marked the beginning of a “new golden age for FIB, and we want it to last a long time”, while Javier Moliner Gargallo, president of Castellón’s legislature, calls the festival the “jewel in the crown” of the province.
“It was the best FIB of the decade”
He also praises the “courage” of Benn, whom he credits with turning around the formerly struggling festival “in just four years.”
“It was the best FIB of the decade,” he says. “We have even bigger ambitions for 2018, and we are going to make them a reality.”
A total of 161,100 festivalgoers attended last year’s 21st FIB, which was hailed in the Spanish press as “rebirth” for the event after years of dwindling crowds and financial mismanagement. The festival’s promoter, Maraworld, was jointly acquired from Vince Power by SJM Concerts and Denis Desmond’s MCD in 2013.
Get more stories like this in your inbox by signing up for IQ Index, IQ’s free email digest of essential live music industry news.
DEAG returns to profit after huge Q4
German promoter Deutsche Entertainment AG (DEAG) returned to profit in 2016, it revealed today, after a fourth quarter that proved to be its strongest in five years.
As predicted by its board in November, a focus on Christmas-themed family events delivered a huge Q4 for DEAG, with the final three months of the year generating revenue of €86.8 million – almost half the company’s 2016 earnings, and a 61% increase on the €53.9m it turned over in Q4 2015.
While provisional full-year revenue only increased slightly – €204.9m, from €200.4m in 2015 – earnings before taxes and interest (EBIT) jumped nearly 102%, with DEAG once again making a (small) profit after 2015’s €26.2m loss (initially estimated at -€17.8m), incurred by the launch of three new festivals (two of which have since since been cancelled).
Alongside Christmas events such as Christmas at Kew, Christmas at Blenheim and Christmas Garden Berlin, key to DEAG’s 2016 growth were strong performances by its non-German subsidiaries – particularly Kilimanjaro Live and classical music promoter Raymond Gubbay in the UK – and its multinational ticketing business, MyTicket.
Other major Q4 shows for DEAG included Disney on Ice and Marvel Universe Live! and tours by Böhse Onkelz, David Garrett (Raymond Gubbay) and Red Hot Chili Peppers (Kilimanjaro).
“Our strategy, with a clear focus on family entertainment, rock and pop, classics and jazz, arts and exhibitions, and ticketing, has been proven right”
“Our strategy, with a clear focus on family entertainment, rock and pop, classics and jazz, arts and exhibitions, and ticketing, has been proven right,” comments DEAG founder and CEO Peter Schwenkow.
“In addition to our strong presence in German-speaking countries, our UK business also paid off, with disproportionate organic growth, now accounting for around 35% of DEAG’s total sales. We want to carry this momentum forward and expand our UK business to as much as 40% in the medium term.”
Owing a “well-filled [event] pipeline”, a statement from the DEAG board says it is “looking optimistically into 2017”, predicting EBIT “in the medium-to-upper single-digit million euro range”.
A detailed 2016 financial report will be released on 28 April.
Get more stories like this in your inbox by signing up for IQ Index, IQ’s free email digest of essential live music industry news.