MIDEM Live Summit Report: Navigating The International Festival Marketplace

June 7 saw the first Live Summit take place at MIDEM in Cannes, France. Jake Leighton-Pope, who just announced his departure from CAA to launch his own management company, welcomed Geoff Ellis (DF Concerts), Andras Berta (Sziget), Leca Guimaraes (C3 Presents), Jan Quiel (Seaside Touring/Wacken) and Neo Sala (Doctor Music) on stage to discuss the current state of the international festival market.

Gideon Gottfried – MIDEM 2018
From left: Jake Leighton-Pope, Andras Berta, Geoff Ellis, Leca Guimaraes, Jan Quiel and Neo Sala

Leighton-Pope’s first question was whether the touring and festival businesses affected each other. Sala explained that festivals in Spain generally paid much more than touring, which meant that many agents and managers only visited the country during festival season. “We have seen in the last years, a number of acts that just play festivals, and maybe one night in Madrid and one in Barcelona. But they don’t come as much as before,” he said.

Sala said festivals were usually a great way for new acts to get exposure and win over new fans. However, given the vast lineups of many festivals these days, he questioned whether that was still the case. “Primavera Sound, this year, had 278 concerts over four days, so it’s impossible to see them [all]. So what people do is they zap: they go to see one band, stay 10 minutes, and [move on]. This prevents the act from building loyal fans.”

Ellis said, “it’s very important, now more than ever, certainly from mid-level artists upwards, to be very strategic about the touring and festival plan. To play, say, an arena show in quarter one, and then headline a festival in the same market that summer starts to become difficult. There’s a lot of people now that go, ‘yeah, we want to play a festival, but put our autumn tour on sale in April’, which hurts the festival sales.”

According to Sala, “20 years ago, festivals used to help young bands much more. They would let a young band, that maybe 100 people in the country knew, play a festival. If they were great, people talked about it. The next step was to come to the country and play clubs of 500 to 1,000 people. Record companies would give tour support. Now what happens is: the band comes, plays the festival show, people talk and write about it, but it can’t make [the ensuing club tour] work, because the record company doesn’t pay.”

Leighton-Pope added, “we always spoke to artists and managers about a strategy of always coming back, and always trying to get a foothold in the market, and you can’t do that through one festival play. And the record companies aren’t going to fund three, four, five trips anymore, so you have to try and find a way to work with the promoter.”

The panel moved on to the topic of exclusivity clauses, and basically agreed that, while they made sense for “the big ones,” they could hurt the up-and-coming acts. “Firstly, how are bands going to eat,” Leighton-Pope wanted to know, “and secondly, how does a band that’s worth 1,000 tickets hurt a festival, [if it plays other shows in the vicinity]. And yet, certainly the bigger festival companies have really pushed hard on that in the UK market. And I wonder whether we’re really being democratic enough about it to let the bands actually develop.”

Quiel explained that Wacken Open Air works with exclusivities, especially for headlining acts. “We have the clause in our contracts, saying that the band is not allowed to play in a radius of 250 kilometers around the festival for a period of six weeks prior and after the festival, but you can always talk to us. Of course, if there is a young band that really needs to play a show in Hamburg, which is not even 100 kilometers away from us, sure, they can play.”

Gideon Gottfried – MIDEM 2018
Leca Guimaraes of C3 Presents

“South America is different to Europe, where you have way more festivals and need more exclusivity. A headliner going to a market like Brazil, which is huge with more than 200 million people, we are even [encouraging] headliners to play other markets and make the whole run work,” Guimaraes explained. She added that, “even with the smaller bands, we try to book smaller venues in-between the weeks of Lollapalooza, between Chile and Brazil. We try to help the smaller markets to build the market, because that means more ticket sales for us.”

Sala said that exclusivity tells you two things: either the festival promoter has a big ego or not much to offer. “If you’ve created an experience, you won’t worry about whether your acts are playing elsewhere,” he said, “so if a festival asks for exclusivity even for small acts, think twice.”

Sometimes it was the agents that pushed the festivals to make an exclusive offer. “The agent will call you and say, ‘we’re only playing one festival in your country, you’re going to make us a really high offer.’ It happens all the time.”

The consolidation in the festival market was also briefly addressed. Leighton-Pope explained the great financial risk it takes to put on 25,000-plus events. “The bands need to get paid, all the production people need to get paid, the site gets paid, the city gets paid. Independent [promoters] will loose their houses, [if something goes wrong], which is why the Live Nations, AEGs and DEAGs have taken over that market place quite substantially.”

He thought there were safety benefits to having a financially solid player behind an event. “When you have 85,000 people there are massive health issues.”

“Certainly with a camping festival,” Ellis added, who used to run an entire hospital at T In The Park, which ceased to operate two years ago. “That costs huge sums, because you are in a remote location.”

Gideon Gottfried – MIDEM 2018
Jan Quiel of Seaside Touring/Wacken Open Air

The last topic on the panel’s agenda was the festival experience, which has become one of the sector’s buzzword in recent years. Quiel said the days when festivals comprised “a stage in a field, a couple of bands playing and a few shitty pizza places,” were over. “[Our customers] spend a lot of money on it, so you’ve got to make sure they have the best experience possible.”

Which is why the Wacken Team launched new events such as Full Metal Cruise, Full Metal Mountain or Wacken Winter Nights. Full Metal Cruise puts 2,000 metal heads on a cruise ship with a great lineup and free beer. Full Metal Mountain is basically the equivalent on a mountain summit.

Guimaraes talked about some of the initiatives implemented at Lollapalooza events, such as a chef’s stage or Kidzapalooza, which, as the name suggests, is dedicated to offering the youngest festival guests a great time. She emphasized that creating experiences was also important for sponsors, who did not care that much about having their brand displayed all over the place, but to have people remember a brand for generating a certain experience.

When the festival switched from traditional merchandise stalls to a walk-in store, merch sales increased 150 percent in one year, according to Guimaraes.

Berta talked about Sziget, which has some 50 different ticket models, including products linking the festival to the wider city of Budapest, for example by granting access to public transport. “We realize this whole VIP upselling process is getting more and more important. Now we want to turn the whole city into a festival and market the city as we would a festival, just throughout the year.”

Berta talked about these plans in detail in a recent interview with Pollstar.

Ellis said he worked closely with Scotland’s tourist board, because the TRNSMT audience didn´t come to camp, but to explore Glasgow room, which offers great bars and a nightlife scene. “We encourage the rest of the city to do something alongside TRNSMT,” he said.