Country Continues To Conquer Europe

Country music, for a long time considered a U.S. thing, is booming all over Europe and beyond. There are multiple global developments indicative of this trend.

Zach Bryan, for example, headlines one of the UK’s biggest festivals, BST Hyde Park in London, two nights in a row, June 28-29 – joining a prestigious and short list of artists to play two consecutive nights at the event. “I don’t know if we’d even booked country two years ago,” the festival’s promoter Jim King at AEG Presents said at ILMC last month.

In addition to Hyde Park, Bryan will also perform three consecutive nights at Phoenix Park in Dublin. Given the 60,000-plus capacity of both London’s Hyde Park, and Dublin’s Phoenix Park, Bryan has sold more than 300,000 tickets for his upcoming UK/Ireland visit.

His international agent at WME, Shannon Saunders, leads the agency’s international touring team for WME’s Country and American Roots roster in Nashville, said, “While this level of sales may not come as a surprise for the artists at the top of the genre, it is noteworthy to mention we are also seeing substantial rises in volume of tickets sold across the roster from club to arena level touring artists as well. This past weekend’s C2C Festivals, which featured WME headliners Lainey Wilson and Dierk’s Bentley, had its best sales year ever in 2025. The bulk of the festival’s tickets sold before the line-up was announced showing the strong interest in the genre as a whole and not solely being driven by any one individual headliner.”

C2C: Country to Country, the brainchild of AEG Presents, indeed continues to go from strength to strength in Europe, where it is realized with local partners, like SJM Concerts, DF Concerts, and MCD in the UK, or Semmel Concerts in Germany.

Across the weekend of March 14-16, C2C took over three UK venues: London’s The O2, Glasgow’s OVO Hydro, and Belfast’s SSE Arena, headlined by Lainey Wilson, Dierks Bentely, and Cody Johnson.
Speaking on the growth of C2C in London specifically, SJM Concerts’ Jack Dowling said, “Sales are at an all-time high across the three nights, plus the amount of people, who buy on the early bird (which is a ticket without knowing the line up) has gone up every year. Showing that the fan wants to go the event even without knowing who is on. Which is real trust in the festival and a want to be part of the community.”

Recognizing this momentum, agencies are prioritizing the touring of country artists outside of North America. UTA, for instance, had rising talents Dylan Gossett, Tyler Hubbard, and Chayce Beckham perform at C2C this weekend.

UTA Music agent Curt Motley, explained, “when mapping out tours for our country artists, we aim for at least 25% of their routing to be international,” he explained, “for example, if an artist has 60-70 shows, around 20 of those take place overseas. Just last year, Megan Moroney performed 20 international shows including a massive headline set at [the 2,300-capacity] O2 Forum, Kentish Town.”
Motley said, “It’s been great to welcome so many UK promoters to our Nashville office so they can see first-hand how UTA is creating opportunities for our country clients both globally and locally. Our London based agents, Beth Morton and Sarah Casey, have been an instrumental part of the UTA country team, bringing our artists to the UK and other international markets.”

Beth Morton told Pollstar more about how her team goes about finding new markets to tour country music in. “In addition to leveraging audience data from our insights team,” she explained, “there’s a lot of creative thinking being employed by the team. We’re constantly looking to push boundaries as country finds new audiences outside of where you might historically expect to find fans. A good example is booking Dylan Gossett at Montreux Jazz Festival last year – the first country act to perform there since Sheryl Crow in 2008.”

And she continued, “Oliver Anthony Music and Dylan Gossett both started their headline tours in Europe. Oliver Anthony Music started in Sweden, and Dylan had his first ever headline shows in Dublin and London, before headlining in the USA. Last Autumn, Dylan came back to the UK to tour around 16-20 shows, and went from playing 500 cap rooms on his first tour overseas to now selling 3,600 ticket shows, and headlining his first ever festival (globally) at C2C Berlin.”

Music agent Sarah Casey highlighted other U.S. signings with much growth potential on the other side of the Atlantic: “Midland is a new international signing. We are thrilled to be working with them and this year sees them in their first festival headline billing positions at C2C (NL & DE), The Long Road Festival (UK) and Once in a Blue Moon (NL), with a great Mexico moment to come later this year also. Stephen Wilson Jr. is an artist we are seeing huge growth with globally, following a completely sold-out debut European headline tour in late 2024.”

Wilson Jr. sold out Glasgow’s legendary 300-cap King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut, Oct. 26, 2024, grossing $6,999, according to the box office report submitted to Pollstar for that show. His upcoming 2025 UK dates include the 1,900-cap Barrowlands in Glasgow, London’s Shepherds Bush Empire, and the Telegraph Building in Belfast, both at a capacity of 2,000 – evidence that playing the circuit is still the way to go, if you’re looking to build a long-term career.

“He returns [to Europe] this summer for more sold-out shows – three times bigger than the last tour – alongside festival appearances at Bergenfest (NO) and Heartland Festival (DK),” said Casey, and added, “beyond Europe and Australasia, we had Cam on the lineup at Cape Town Country festival, the first ever country festival held there. Cam is another fascinating artist at the forefront of pushing the genre forward and helping it reach new audiences. Recent collaborations include 070 Shake and a five-song contribution to Beyonce’s Grammy award winning Cowboy Carter record.”

A week before coming to the UK, C2C resided in Germany and the Netherlands. The Germany edition in Berlin, March 7-9, set new standards, according to Semmel Concerts Entertainment, AEG Presents’ local partner. It marked the fourth German edition in Berlin having taken place in 2019, 2020, 2024, and 2025. A total of 9,000 country fans flocked to the capital from all over Germany for the occasion, which is almost double the amount of visitors at the 2019 premiere. And, according to Semmel Concerts, interest from German media was also “growing rapidly.”

C2C 2025 in Germany featured 51 international artists, providing fourteen hours of entertainment each day, most of it at Uber Eats Hall. The lineup included Lainey Wilson, Dasha, Shaboozey, Sam Barber, as well as newcomers like Max McNown, Ali Walker, Adrien Nunez, and Lanie Garnder, who performed across a total of seven stages, including a new one by C2C partner Holler, the international country website. 49 Winchester, Wyatt Flores, The Castellows, Tucker Wetmore, Chase Matthew, Tanner Adell, Nate Smith, Chayce Beckham, Avery Anna, and more also featured on the bill.

Some of them may headline the festival as early as next year. “What I find most exciting about our format right now,” Saunders explained, “is we may not know who our next year’s headliners are just yet. Over the past year, we have witnessed artists experience some of the most meteoric rises in extremely short timelines, such as Zach Top, Dasha and Tucker Wetmore. All three of these Artists were relatively unknown 12-18 months ago, but are already becoming global household names.”

Sina Hall of Semmel Concerts said, “The impressive growth of the country genre in Germany was more than evident at the festival in Berlin. The enthusiasm of the fans shows how much country music has now arrived in the mainstream – and with growing momentum. Year after year, the passion grows, the audiences get bigger and the atmosphere more unforgettable. This festival has proven once again that country is not just a niche in Germany, but a movement that is constantly growing!”

But it’s not just Germany and the UK, as Scott Clayton, partner and co-head of global music at UTA, told Pollstar, “The international growth we’re seeing is driven by a stronger global connection, with country music gaining increasing popularity worldwide. While the genre has long had a presence in countries like the UK, we’re now experiencing remarkable demand and growth in key regions such as Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, and Scandinavia. Global fans are connecting deeply with the genre, leading to a consistent rise in international live touring. Many of our UTA artists are now playing larger venues and selling out shows in cities they never imagined would be possible just a few years ago.”

And it’s not just country festivals either, as WME’s Shannon Saunders explained, “we are seeing increased representation of the genre on Contemporary festivals. Following the strength of her hit ‘Austin,’ Dasha performed on Reading & Leads, Electric Picnic, and Pukkelpop among others in 2024. This summer, we are seeing even more events include a variety of Country Artists in their programming such as Mad Cool, Roskilde, Rock Werchter and Main Square to name only a few. From festivals to headline shows, the fans are younger and more diverse than ever before making this a truly exciting time to be breaking new global territories with Country music.”

Aside from the UK and Australia, which both have a well-established and strong Country music audience, her team is seeing “significant strides in countries across mainland Europe, with more demand developing in Brazil, Mexico, South Africa, and the Middle East in recent years.”

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