Two Leave LN Sweden Office

David Maloney and Mikael Tillman have quit Live Nation’s Swedish operation amid a barrage of rumors that the two have been poached to set up a Scandinavian office for AEG.

"They’ve left EMA Telstar but we don’t know where they’re going because they haven’t told us," company chief and Live Nation international chairman Thomas Johansson told Pollstar.

If the European industry grapevine is calling it right, they’re the second and third Live Nation promoters to depart for AEG in two weeks.

Maloney also confirmed that he’s left EMA but wasn’t prepared to discuss his future plans.

At the end of August, Live Nation U.K. managing director Stuart Galbraith, who’d run the company’s Download and Wireless festivals, was fired for allegedly negotiating a position at AEG.

Maloney and Tillman made such a clandestine exit from the Stockholm-based company that some of the U.K. agents who have upcoming shows with them were not aware of their departures until hearing about it second hand.

"We have 60 people here. I’m very confident about the company that I work for and the direction it’s heading," Johansson said, playing down the importance of a couple of people leaving the Swedish operation.

He said EMA Telstar has people who can easily step in and fill the roles the others have left.

It is only two people but Maloney in particular promoted a lot of the company’s shows and has very good relations with most of London’s top agencies.

Tillman had begun as his assistant but soon moved on to making offers and promoting shows, benefiting from the strong agency ties Maloney has built up.

Live Nation has not commented on whether it feels its Los Angeles-based rival intends to lure away more of its staff.

In the U.K., where news of Galbraith’s departure and his alleged intention of getting some key colleagues to jump ship with him got coverage in The Times, the company promoted four of its remaining key promoters – Steve Homer, Jon Dunn, Andy Copping and Toby Leighton-Pope – to vice president.

Apart from AEG making a huge success of London’s new The O2, the company also has a share of Barrie Marshall’s Marshall Arts, which had previously been co-owned by Berlin-based DEAG.

It tried to further grow its U.K. presence by applying to run a super-casino on the same Greenwich peninsular site, but lost out when the government decided the first one would be in Manchester.

Since then, new U.K. premier Gordon Brown looks to have gone cold on the idea of having a super-casino anywhere at the moment.

In mainland Europe, AEG has a deal to co-promote shows with DEAG in Germany and is developing a new 17,000-seat multi-purpose arena – again branded With the O2 name – on the site of Berlin’s old Ostgüterbahnhof railway station.