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‘Happy To Be On Full Speed Again’: Q’s With Greenhouse Talent’s Wouter de Wilde
Greenhouse Talent has had a monumental 2023, as head promoter and COO Wouter de Wilde told Pollstar. He expects more growth for the business in 2024. The company’s last announcement of 2023 unveiled a stellar lineup for Gent Jazz, including Diana Krall, Jamie Cullum, Patrick Bruel, AIR, and more. But that’s not all, as de Wilde unveiled.
See: All Of Pollstar’s Inaugural Dutch Focus
Pollstar: Taking into account the two insanely busy past two years, the challenging economy at present, and any post-pandemic effects that may still affect your business in terms of supplies, staff, audience behavior: can you sum up the business reality, and your state of mind as we approach the end of the year?
Wouter de Wilde: It has of course been challenging, with rising costs for pretty much everything, and with the constant pressure on our team, due to all the above-mentioned challenges. But, overall, we are very happy that we are on full speed again. We also see that the market is strong, and we even believe in more growth for our business in 2024. We have promoted and booked approximately 500 shows this year with our team in the Netherlands.
Our highlight has been the two sold-out greenfield shows with Rammstein at the Groningen Stadspark, selling 110,000 tickets. We are looking forward to 2024, to optimize the growth of our business and to make sure that the team is prepared for all of the challenges mentioned above.
Many promoters and agents have been saying, that it’s been a struggle to get avails at venues these past two years. Do you share that experience, and how is it looking for 2024? Is the overall touring load becoming manageable again?
I don’t think we have lost any business because of not getting avails, but venues certainly have been busy. We expect nothing less in 2024, as it seems to be a very busy year again with very little avails left as a result of that. It will be a puzzle once more, but that is a challenge for us – not an issue.
The stadium business is in rude health. Blockbuster shows are selling out in no time. Can the same be said for the arena, theatre, and club business? What are some recent success stories you’d like to highlight?
We sold out three Johan Cruijff Arena’s in Amsterdam with Taylor Swift and have two shows at Goffertpark with Rammstein, which is massive and monumental for our company. Besides that we have successfully promoted a lot of arena shows and are looking ahead at even more in 2024.
Other recent success stories include Zuiderpark Live – a show series that we promote at the Zuiderpark open air theatre in The Hague. The capacity of this beautiful theatre, surrounded by nature, is 1,200. We successfully promoted 20 shows there during the summer with international acts like Young Gun Silver Fox, Paul Carrack, Curtis Harding and Xavier Rudd, and of course a good number of domestic acts. The success of this shows us that not only stadium business is doing great at the moment. We do see that small club shows can struggle, as so much focus in the market goes out to the bigger shows.
Do you have a business philosophy?
As the biggest independent promoter and booking agency in the Benelux we are having a strong focus on ambitious and creative plans for the artists we promote and book. We are always aiming to keep agents, managements and the artists happy and inspired, whilst always being very service-minded and dedicated towards them. We are really thankful for all the faith [placed] in us, and want to be humble, flexible, and hard-working. We like to see everything as challenges instead of problems.
What upcoming shows/events/projects would you like to highlight?
In July we are promoting Taylor Swift in The Netherlands. These will be our first shows at the Johan Cruijff Arena – after these shows we will have officially promoted in all stadiums and venues in the Netherlands.
Next to that, we promote Rammstein at Goffertpark in Nijmegen twice. Additionally we will be partnering with This Is Live Group for a unique week of headline shows, and a festival in the city of Tilburg in June 2024. Capacity per day will be 12,000 people. Zuiderpark Live returns for the its fourth season and after three years we are finally promoting the C2C: Country to Country festival again. The last edition was in 2020. We have a beautiful line-up for the growing group of country fans in the Benelux.