Features
‘Changes Are Felt A Lot Stronger & Sooner In Small Markets’: Q’s With Girts Majors, CEO, Positivus
Positivus Festival took place on the island of Lucavsala located on the Daugava River in Riga, Latvia, July 19-20, with a lineup is led by Jason Derulo, Benjamin Clementine, Jacob Collier, local rap star Ozolos, and more.
It was the last edition to take place on the island, a green oasis in the heart of the city. Festival director Girts Majors wasn’t able to disclose the new location at press time, but said Positivus would remain in Riga. It only moved to the capital in 2022, leaving its former coastal location about 100 kilometers outside the city, where it used to be a camping festival. Now, a fully-fledged city event with no camping offered on site, there’s a lot that has changed, as Majors tells Pollstar.
He also spoke about the things that have remained the same since the festivals inception in 2007, the challenges of booking the world’s biggest artists in one of the world’s smallest markets, and how Positivus’ other business segments, concert promotion and venue operations, help offset the challenging festival economy.
Pollstar: How did this year’s Positivus go?
Girts Majors: A week before the festival, we lost two artists and another two artists during the festival. It was the biggest change we have come across in our 16-year history, and it was sad to see how badly some of the artists and agents handle emergency circumstances. Although our program was drastically changed, it was still a good year for the festival. We had so many great performances from different artists, and we didn’t lose out on visitors, which was 20,000 per day.
Has this year’s experience already inspiren any changes you’ll implement in 2025?
We’ll change location next year, still remaining in Riga, but somewhere that is better suited for the audience and the festival. And we’ll probably move away from hip hop, which used to be a significant part of our program in recent years. It’s just too small a market to do it on a main-stage level. We won’t abandon it completely, but book the younger hip hop acts on other stages around the festival.
You established Positivus as a concert promotion business in 2000. Since then, you’ve added a festival and a venue to your business portfolio. Can you take us through the history of Positivus up to the present day?
We were in our early 20s. International touring, too, was at a very early stage in the Baltics. There wasn’t the infrastructure we are used to nowadays. It was much harder to book bands for the Baltics in those times, also, because we weren’t yet in the European Union. The Baltics used to traditionally only get shows when they toured through Russia.
We realized that, if we had our own assets, like the festival, or some kind of regular business, it would become a bit easier to attract talent. We were very young, so we just jumped on the idea. We chose to go with a camping festival concept, and found an exceptionally beautiful site 100 kilometers from the capital, on the coast, very close to the Estonian border. That’s where we started to build our festival, with less than 2,000 capacity, but a very expensive lineup from the first year. It took us around three years to reach the breakeven point, and it slowly grew from there.
We eventually decided that, for our small market, the festival was probably too boutique and too expensive. Being so remotely located, there was no hospitality infrastructure around the site, and, knowing how much more expensive is to build a site and everything around it so remotely, we decided to move the festival to the capital. It’s the stronger location for visitors, but there’s other aspects that come together. Artist costs have risen dramatically, and if we would have stayed at the original location, we wouldn’t have been able to continue to attract the same level of acts we do now. So, right after pandemic, that was the first year we held the festival in the city.
What’s the capacity of the new site?
It’s 25,000 capacity, but because it’s taking place on a green island we can easily expand it, if necessary. That’s in line with past years, I think our maximum has been around 30,000 daily capacity, the past two years were over 20,000.
It’s a big change, switching from a remote camping festival on the coast to a city festival. Do you feel like the fans have accepted the new location, and does it speak to a change in audience behaviors and expectations?
We didn’t only change the location, we also changed the direction, in which we’re targeting the audience. I think we lost a bit of our younger audience over the past years at the original location. We’ve always been more like Glastonbury than Coachella, generally speaking. Moving to Riga, we decided to target a younger audience than before, to keep the brand cool. If we’re not relevant with the younger audience, we won’t be able to keep it alive in the long run. That’s why, in 2022, we had a massive lineup that included A$ap Rocky, Meghan Thee Stallion, and others.
At the same time, because we are operating in such a small market, we can’t afford to only go for one segment of the audience, or one style of music. It was always part of the festival’s values to represent contemporary pop music, but it wasn’t limited to that. When you are in such a small market, it’s hard to do a hip hop-only or a rock-only festival. We always try to balance and mix styles together, which actually plays out very well. Some pairings might look strange on paper, but if you know your audience, and do it in the right way, it can work quite well. We need to attract the parents and the kids to the festival with our headliners.
We still have a unique site in Riga, it’s a green island, very centrally located. It’s amazing, you don’t have many capital cities around Europe, where you can find that much green space so centrally located. It’s not a 24-hour festival anymore, and there is no camping, because the younger audience nowadays is not so interested in camping as much as in Airbnb, and all the other options for accommodation. A city festival is completely different than a camping festival, and we are learning from year to year just how different they are.
I believe that any changes in audience behavior, popular music, etc. are felt a lot stronger and sooner in small markets. In a bigger market, you have some inertia. That’s why we need to adapt to stay alive. Festival are certainly not an easy business nowadays, but, luckily, it’s one of three businesses for us. And you will have periods where one of these businesses may be struggling, while the other ones are strong, and you can still develop. That’s the only way we’ve been able to do business in this small market since more than 20 years.
Of all the differences you’ve observed between the camping and the city festival, is there one that surprised you most?
The less amount of time most visitors spend inside the festival site now that it’s in the city. At the old location, we had strong attendance from the every first slot, because it was a place where you didn’t have any other distractions. A city festival is more about the big shows. Maintaining that festival spirit in a city is what’s most challenging.
Do you have multiple stages?
Oh yeah, we have three main stages, at least two of them dedicated to international acts, and one for international and local acts. We have about three, four more stages, dedicated to electronic music and DJing, plus some stand-up, cinema, things like that. Positivus has always been about the many things and activities to discover around the stages, and that’s something that has really picked up in the city. That kind of madness around the site, it’s even busier than it used to be at the previous location, which is cool.
What makes the festival business the hardest to run amongst your other businesses, which are concert promotion and venue operation?
Concerts feel easier than festivals, and I don’t exactly know why. Of course, I have many guesses and learnings, but that’s a question the festival community needs to try to answer. Not many are shouting about it, but the overall reality is that festivals sell slower than they used to. I think it’s related to the young audience [that’s never been out to a show before], there’s no loyalty [yet], and all these headline shows are vying for their attention. The business lies with the one-off shows right now, which also poses questions about adjusting the festival concept. Without the concert business, we wouldn’t be able to run the festival. Of course, we are the main festival in the Baltics, and we are not doing too bad. There are more sponsorship opportunities in Riga, as well as policy support, so we can keep the brand alive. But it’s a huge effort.
Are there many promoters operating in Latvia?
There are a few working on international shows. Luckily, we have a relationship with Live Nation for their shows in the Baltics. But we are also booking many shows ourselves as much as we can. It’s harder to book arena or outdoor shows for the Baltics this year, but our third business, the medium-sized venue, is booming. Smaller shows, the entire local scene, can do much more, because there are not so many big shows around. And we are developing that scene, investing in in-house production, to make it more affordable for the bands and promoters to do shows at our building. We can already see these investments paying off, we are generating much more per show than we used to in this medium-size segment. There are definitely less arena shows, and we don’t have any outdoor shows this summer, but we still have work to do, and lots of opportunities.
What are the reasons for the lack of arena and stadium concerts in the Baltics this year?
There are a few. One, there are definitely less touring acts. As far as stadiums are concerned, you can’t compare the infrastructure in the Baltics with Europe, not just in terms of capacities. There’s a huge difference between what artists can make in other European markets and the Baltics, where, on average, revenues are lower, but not always. If you have the right act, you can still make good business even in the Baltics. There’s currently also no route to Russia, but that’s definitely not the most important reason.
Can you talk about the venue you operate in Riga?
It’s called the Palladium Riga, and has a capacity of 1,600. It’s beautiful. It’s an old cinema with two levels of balconies giving in the feel of a London theater.
How much does your business depend on international vs. local acts?
The locals are doing the majority of our business, that’s for sure. The Palladium didn’t have a summer season at all in the past. Nowadays, we can easily do the summer season indoors as well, given the right acts.
What’s the go-to arena in Riga?
It’s Arena Riga, a 12,000-cap arena, which is very busy, because there’s a lot of sport events going around.
How important are non-music events to your business?
We’re trying to expand, but we first need to develop the infrastructure, put in the right chairs, invest in screens, etc. Again, if you need to rent that stuff from elsewhere, your budget collapses. We’ve invested in new chairs, which we’ll have from autumn. We have seated shows for stand-up acts, and comedy, and, in December, there’s a cabaret act doing about 25 nights over the festive season. But, generally, the Palladium is more suited for standing events. It’s as multifunctional as you could make it. We are private owners, a small company, we can do this work gradually.
Is there anything you would like to see for the market in Latvia, and the Baltics in general, that would make it easier to generate business, string together tours, create a proper circuit?
There are some gaps that need to be filled. In Riga, for instance, we don’t have a nice theater-style, seated-only venue with a 1,000-plus capacity. I think the Baltics need at least one European-level football stadium. We have unique outdoor venues in the Baltics, where you can host large shows, but, unfortunately, most of these stadium tours are configured for Europe’s stadiums, and you can’t adjust them for the outdoor infrastructure we have in the Baltics.
We have a brand-new 60,000 outdoor amphitheater in Riga, it’s amazing. There have been some international acts who have played there. It’s more beautiful than any stadium, probably in the world. But since it’s an amphitheater in a green field, you can’t generate the same turnover you can generate in the stadium. You can’t build a 360-stage, and there are many other reasons why it’s not the same.
There’s an arena in Lithuania that generates solid business, because they’ve got a strong basketball franchise as tenant. There are probably some empty spots in each Baltic city, that need to be filled, but overall, I think the situation is fine. There are enough examples that you can work successfully with the existing infrastructure.