Features
ICS Festival Service & 5B Artist Management Form JV With Cobra Agency
Wacken promoter ICS Festival Service from Germany and 5B Artist Management, which has offices in L.A., New York and London, have entered into a joint venture with Austrian hard rock agency Cobra.
– A new hard rock powerhouse
Pictured (from left): Leonard Loers (MPS-Hanseatic), Holger Hübner (ICS Festival Service), Dominik Meyer (Cobra Agency), Jan Quiel (ICS Festival Service), Justin Arcangel (5B Artists + Media), Guenther Beer (Cobra Agency) and Adam Foster (5B Artists + Media)
Former Rock The Nation agents Dominik Meyer and Guenther Beer launched Cobra Agency in the beginning of this year, bringing their entire roster of acts along, including Powerwolf, Behemoth, Sepultura, Amon Amarth, Kreator, Arch Enemy, Danzig, Tesseract, Eluveitie, and others.
Some of those acts, including Kreator, Behemoth and Amon Amarth, are managed by 5B, as are Slipknot, Stone Sour, Megadeth, King Diamond, Lamb of God and Trivium.
ICS Festival Services’ portfolio of events includes the world’s most famous hard rock and metal gathering Wacken Open Air, the sister event Wacken Winter Nights, Full Metal Mountain, which just celebrated its third edition April 2-8, as well as Full Metal Cruise, which is happening for the sixth time, April 15-20.
The synergies this JV could generate are obvious, given that all three companies have been working closely together in the past.
“We’ve known and worked with both ICS Festival Service and 5B for many years and we’re very confident that this joint venture is going to offer extraordinary opportunities to our clients,” said Meyer.
5B’s director of management Justin Arcangel said, “This alliance is a natural outgrowth of 5B’s core mission, to serve our client roster.”
He added that Cobra Agency was “more than a booking agency. They provide myself and their clients with a wealth of insight with the greatest attention to detail and foresight into the European market, and their advice goes into ancillary opportunities that go far beyond the conventional roles of a booking agent.”
Holger Huebner, CEO of ICS Festival Service, commented: “We have known the two successful Austrian guys for quite some time and are happy to be part of this enduring joint venture with our American colleagues. We are very much alike, as we are authentic, honest and loud!”