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01.02.13 MusicWeek 15
LEFT Download: Live Nation has already
announced Rammstein, Iron Maiden and Slipknot as headliners for the 2013 festival
want to work on a commercial basis, while the community gets its share. After this year, I guess there’ll be a tender process. We’re giving it a go this year. Touch wood, if it goes well, we’ll want to be back in there again next year – either on an annual or longer-term basis.
Do you expect to clash with the AEG-owned O2 – it’s only down the road from the Olympic Park… No, that’s an indoor arena – to which we’re the biggest content supplier and will continue to be. That’s a great relationship for us. AEG operate the O2 and other buildings in Europe, but we’re the biggest content supplier full stop. The O2 is not an issue for us – it shows a private operator can run a great building. Half the audience for these London shows comes from outside the M25. Transportation links at the Olympic Park are very good, so we’re very happy with that.
Will technology facilitate a completely paperless future for ticketing? Eventually I think it will, yes. There’s no question about that. You’ll see mobile take up more and more of a share of all ticketing.
Where’s the growth going to come from for Live Nation in the UK in the coming years? The first important thing was to get a site in London that worked for everybody and the Olympic Park is perfect. We have a run coming up: T In The Park, Creamfields, Reading & Leeds, Download, Latitude – which are all festivals that are in good shape. London’s the key, though. Wireless as a brand has grown and grown and has found its niche as a big urban pop festival, but it needed a home unfettered by noise and other issues, we think we’ve found it – Hard Rock Calling likewise. And we’re going to fit another couple of things in, not just at the Olympic Park but in other places too.
And across Europe? We’re very strong in Northern Europe – our mission now is to build on that by finding some new brands and some new opportunities. Then we have to get Southern Europe right, building our French business. We’re also establishing our business in new and developing markets in the rest of the world – we have a big business in Australia, a new joint venture in Japan with Creativeman [Productions, based in Tokyo] – just broadening the footprint. You don’t want to run before you can walk; you have to follow the money, but stay smart about the macro-economics of Spain, for example.
Where there is close to 25% adult unemployment at the moment… Right. We won’t be going bonkers in Spain this year. But the one thing people do gravitate towards when times are hard are trusted brands that work,
right? When you’ve got a field somewhere in the middle of England with possibly a second-tier set of acts on the bill, you know the festival experience isn’t going to be great, regardless of the weather. But you know what you’re going to get at Reading – an evolving set of great set artists, stages and facilities. That’s what [Festival Republic boss] Melvin Benn and other people in our organisation do so well.
Does the return of Glastonbury in 2013 strike fear into you? No. It’s a great business and [Michael Eavis] does a great job. People love it, it’s a rite of passage, but so are Reading & Leeds for their market, as is Download or T In The Park for its audience. They all have their communities – our job is to ensure we evolve with the fan.
Some said Sonisphere fizzled out last year because its headliners weren’t up to scratch. How much does a festival live or die on who tops its bill? It depends on how strong the brand is. Some festivals are headliner-driven. It’s the same the world over. But some festivals – Glastonbury, Creamfields or Lowlands in Holland – you can put on and sell out without announcing a single headliner. But then the day you start trading in the brand and stop giving people the best, that can change – you can’t take the piss. Regardless of the headliner, if people have a shitty experience at a festival, they won’t be back the next year.
How many gigs have you got lined up at the Olympic Park? The stadium is only open until September, then they’ve got to go through this refurbishment. And by the way, I don’t know what’s happening after that – whether they’ve made a deal with a football team or otherwise, it’s not for me to speculate about. I will say LLDC are good guys to work with; they
Does the Olympic Park offer enough romance to people compared to Hyde Park? There is a huge element of romance for people at the Olympic Park – consumers as well as artists. The people who didn’t go in the summer will definitely want to come. And I think the people who were there in the summer for the Games will want to come back too – if only a few of them return, that’ll be a lot of people, right? A great number of artists want to open the Park. That’s an interesting one for us to juggle.
Surely you could book the biggest act in the world? Who’s that then?
You tell us! The Olympic Park is on everybody’s radar now. We’ve already booked two of the biggest acts in the world for this year at the Park in what is arguably the biggest genre of music in the world. That’s all you’ll get out of me.
You famously had problems with noise caps and curfews in Hyde Park. AEG say they’re going to sort that out by just moving the stage… I’ve read that too…
Did that never occur to you? [Laughs] We’re out of Hyde Park, but every cloud has a silver lining. My view of Hyde Park is the same as it was last year: a very vocal minority [of local residents] have an unduly large voice in the running of what is one of the country’s greatest spaces. That problem will continue for any commercial operator. It was and will be an issue for artists. I genuinely hope they [AEG] find a way to get over it. It won’t be easy.
But they’re just going to move the stage! Put it this way, we’ve all had that stage positioning [suggested by AEG] drafted as a plan at some point. Every venue or building is a compromise of sorts; some require greater compromises than others. And when that compromise becomes a problem for the consumer and the artist, it’s not good, wherever it is in London. All London sites are challenged, but the Olympic Park looks like it will be less challenged [than Hyde Park] in terms of infrastructure, noise, curfew and transportation. That’s one big reason why we’ve gravitated there.
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