DF Concerts Celebrates ‘Record Summer’ In Scotland

DF Concerts, best known for its flagship festival TRNSMT and running grassroots venue King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut, both in Glasgow, is looking back on a “record summer.”

DF Concerts also runs Connect Festival, which went down Aug. 26-28 in the new location of Edinburgh’s Royal Highland Centre, and promotes the Glasgow, Edinburgh and Dundee Summer Sessions. By its own admission, DF Concerts promotes some 1,000 concerts per year.

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The 2022 summer started off with two night of The Killers in Falkirk Stadium, June 6-7. Pollstar’s box office report for the second night shows 25,083 tickets sold for a gross of $2,311,696. It was the same week Harry Styles kicked off his European tour in Glasgow, with a sold out concert at Ibrox Stadium, selling 43,637 tickets and grossig
$4,297,836.

In total, DF Concerts had 33 days of outdoor shows from June to August, which would have been 36 had three acts not been forced to postpone due to illness. The list also includes Slessor Gardens in Dundee, Edinburgh’s Royal Highland Centre Showgrounds and Princes Street Gardens, SWG3 Galvanizers Yard, Glasgow Green, and Bellahouston Park in Glasgow, plus the stadium shows at Hampden, Ibrox, and Falkirk.

Additionally, the promoter counts 200 indoor shows of varying sizes in venues across the country. The 300-capacity King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut, ranked 122 in Pollstar’s worldwide quarterly club chart, hosted a variety of sold-out shows presenting up-and-coming as well as established acts to what some consider the best audience in the world.

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The list includes Kate Nash on May 29 (300 tickets, $8,484 gross), Blossoms on June 5 (272 tickets, $6,686), and Nick Mulvey on June 7 (300 tickets, $6,996 gross).

By its own calculations, the events put on by DF Concerts have an economic impact of around £72.4 million ($83.2 million), including the tourism and hospitality business they attract. “With ticket sales projections to the end of the year, DF Concerts will have welcomed over 50% of the population of Scotland to one of its concerts or events in 2022,” a company statement concludes.

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