Features
Unique Sites, Affordable Prices & Rich Culture: The Diversity Of East Europe
If you thought the year of the stadium was behind us, look towards East Europe, where Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran, Coldplay, Rammstein and Metallica all performed this year. When Pollstar reached out to Simon Jones, AEG Presents’ senior vice president of international touring, he was in the middle of Taylor Swift’s three nights at the PGE Narodowy stadium in Warsaw, Poland, where she broke the attendance record for any artist during a single run (the box office hadn’t been reported to Pollstar at press time).
80,000 Fans, $15M Local Impact: Ed Sheeran Sets Baltic Ticket Sales Record
Live Nation also celebrated records in East Europe, with Coldplay becoming “the first band to sell out three shows at Puskas, the new Budapest Stadium, as well as in Athens and Bucharest,” according to Steven Todd, managing director concerts Central and Eastern Europe, Live Nation, who added, “plus, Metallica’s ‘no repeat weekend’ in Warsaw, which drew hundreds of thousands of fans, selling out both nights.”
The region’s best-known festivals are doing great. Electric Castle, taking place at Bánffy Castle in Transylvania, Romania, concluded its 10th edition with record attendance, welcoming up to 68,000 daily attendees treated to a lineup led by Chase & Status, Bring Me The Horizon, Massive Attack, Rema, Sean Paul and Paulo Nutini.
The 21st edition of Colors of Ostrava in Czechia, July 17-20, welcomed 53,000 guests, among them 867 visitors with a certificate of disability, almost 3,000 children, and around 1,000 seniors, who had free entry to the festival on the last day. Sziget in Hungary had just started as this issue went to print, and Serbia’s flagship festival EXIT counted 210,000 visitors across four days, July 10-14, arriving from 80 countries.
EXIT founder and CEO Dusan Kovacevic told Pollstar that supply chain costs, which sky-rocketed in the post-COVID economy, and particularly after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, were still an issue. “It worsened,” he said, “I saw that over 100 festivals cancelled this year just in Holland, and the UK. That’s crazy. The reason are incredibly high supply prices. It is a real issue that’s hard to tackle. One of our strategies will be to speak with all of our supporters and stakeholders, corporate sponsors, and governments, the tourism boards and similar, about how they can support us even further in keeping prices affordable, especially for the locals living in the balkan region. We don’t want to change that too much. We want to keep EXIT for the people, we don’t want to create some elite gathering.”
Bulgaria’s biggest rock and metal festival, Hills of Rock, saw a record attendance of over 60,000 people across three days, July 25-27, with headliners like Korn, Bring Me The Horizon and Amon Amarth. One of the highlights of the festival, according to Stefan
Elenkov, founder and CEO of promoting company Fest Team, “was the collaboration between the world-renowned Mystery of Bulgarian Voices and Bring Me The Horizon. They performed together the intro for ‘Parasite Eve’ live on stage, which drove the audience absolutely wild. It was a remarkable and memorable moment that showcased our ability to create unique and unforgettable live music experiences.”
To catch a glimpse of how the buildings are doing, we reached out to Maciek Laski, CEO of Poland’s Atlas Arena, who said, “business and shows are booming. Just last month, we have hosted Sting, sir Rod Stewart and Lenny Kravitz. Earlier this year, we had two Depeche Mode concerts, and the finals of the Men’s Volleyball Nations League. The upcoming months will be very busy, with 13 concerts scheduled just for October. Nick Cave, Bryan Adams, Seal, Take That, Melanie Martinez, Within Temptation, Il Volo, SUM41, and Dream Theater are just some of the artists that will perform at our venue.”
Laski said, there was “a stable increase in number of events held at Atlas Arena, with many events scheduled, but not yet announced for 2025. Now we are booking show for second half of 2025 and first month of 2026. A packed calendar is rather positive feedback about the job we’re doing. It shows us, that the improvements we have made in our business model are well received and appreciated by promoters.”
One of the big changes was opening up the adjacent Sport Arena for live events. “In order to meet the market expectations and demands,” Laski explained, “we started booking events in our second, smaller venue, Sport Arena. It has a capacity of approximately 4,000 spectators and is perfect for certain artists and shows. This was yet another welcomed change in our business model with many exiting shows already held there and some great concerts scheduled for 2025.”
Laski was particularly pleased about the growing segment of family entertainment, including shows like Hot Wheels Monster Trucks Live, the motocross show Freestyle Heroes, or Paw Patrol; as well as the arena’s green initiative, “Green Arena”. “The project is aimed at increasing biodiversity and water permeability of our surroundings (parking included), making it less of a concrete desert. This is just a first steps of this agenda, in upcoming years we are to instal solar parking canopies to reduce our carbon footprint and lower energy costs.”
Fest Team just acquired one of the most experienced promoters in the Balkans, Charmenko, which operates a promotions and artist agency business with presences in Turkey, Poland, Serbia, Czechia and Croatia. Elenkov said the addition of Charmenko was “transformative for Fest Team. By combining our expertise in organizing large-scale music events with Charmenko’s robust artist booking capabilities and industry know-how, we aim to create a synergy that will redefine the music landscape. This integration will streamline our ability to connect artists with venues and festivals, offering comprehensive solutions that enhance the overall experience for both performers and audiences.”
Talking ticket prices, he continued, “currently, ticket prices in Bulgaria and the surrounding countries are not on par with those in Western Europe. However, once Bulgaria adopts the Euro and joins the Schengen area, we anticipate that prices will need to adapt accordingly. But this won’t happen immediately and will take its time.”
As long as access to affordable tickets is ensured, there’s “a portion of the population that are willing to spend on the higher price tickets,” said Jones, who emphasized that “it’s an evolving process, the same as it is still for some of the major European markets for the prices there, in comparison to the U.S and Asia.”
Infrastructure powerhouse eps, which provides materials to a vast amount of tours worldwide, and opened an office in Poland in 2008, has a unique overview over spaces and venues in East Europe. For Ed Sheeran’s East Europe run alone, the company provide
materials in Hradec Kralove (Czechia), Gdansk (Poland), Budapest (Hungary), Bucharest (Romania), Sofia (Bulgaria), Belgrade (Serbia), and Kaunas (Lithuania). Sebastian Tobie, managing director, eps event holding, said, “generally, we experience a mix of modern stadium and arenas, but also venues that have already aged some time,” which is why he couldn’t necessarily identify a need for additional buildings, but rather renovated or modernized buildings.
Jones said, “some of the stadiums are world class, with Poland, Hungary, and Romania having some seriously impressive buildings. Some are brand new, and have been designed with live concerts and big productions in mind. There are also some excellent new arenas, and some well established older ones that can take major international productions. There are some beautiful theaters, too, and numerous clubs that are more difficult to work in, but the more and more artists that decide to go, the more it will help build and maintain the infrastructure.”
Todd said, “Overall, Eastern Europe offers good venue options for touring. There’s plenty of demand for shows… and Prague and Warsaw would be prime locations for some larger venues. There are many more opportunities for growth throughout the region which is really exciting.” Budapest stood out in terms of its live infrastructure. According to Todd, “the new MVM Dome arena and Puskas stadium have led to massive growth in Hungary’s live music scene over the last few years.”
Tobie thinks “Eastern Europe has been underserved by international artists in the past years. So, there are quite some markets to be (re-)conquered for many artists. This in connection with the rise of more domestic artists to rise to arena and stadium size, and if the life of the entertainment industry stays healthy as a whole, we are very positive regarding the upcoming years in East Europe.”
Elenkov confirmed the strength of local talent, saying, “Local artists are important to the business. While international stars draw large crowds, local bands are the soul of the community. It’s our responsibility to showcase local talent and give them the platform they deserve. They help create a vibrant and authentic music scene that resonates with the audience.”
Laski confirmed the same for Poland, saying, “as in previous years, we see that Polish artists are selling out arenas during their tours, which is a sign of a healthy and wealthy music market, with plenty of different shows for everyone.”
Gints Putnins, talent buyer at L-Tips Agency in Latvia, co-promoted the Aug. 3-4 concerts by Ed Sheeran at the new Dariaus ir Girėno stadium in Kaunas, with AEG Presents, and FKP Scorpio which set an international attendance record in the Baltics. He confirmed the rise of local talent, “I started back in 1989 and at first I promoted only local artists. Since 2001, I have only been working with international acts, but shows by local artists have been booming in recent years.”
What’ll only accelerate growth in the region is a recovering economy, and Putnins already saw signs of it in several markets. “I will not hide that it is difficult due to the still growing production costs. A good example is the OneRepublic shows we promote. We were announcing shows and making budgets just before the pandemic hit. The shows took place in May 2022, by that time most of the production costs had increased by 50 to 100%. The increase has slowed down, but is still noticeable. The rapidly growing economy of Lithuania in recent years is able to partially absorb it. It is difficult in Estonia, but there are forecasts that the economy will resume growth at the end of the year or at the beginning of next year, although the VAT increase starting in 2025 is a concern. The weakest Baltic country is Latvia, as growth here lags far behind its neighbors.”
Live Nation’s Todd confirmed, “many of our Eastern European markets are seeing their economies grow — a benefit of infrastructure investments. We’ve got an impressive line-up of artists touring the region and the fans are more interested in going to live shows, so it’s looking positive across the board.”