State Of The Union Jack: The UK Biz Is Showing No Signs Of A Slowdown

When the world’s biggest promoter says it’s been their best year on record, it carries weight. And according to Live Nation UK & Ireland Chairman Denis Desmond, “2024 was the best year ever for live music in the UK and Ireland, with fantastic sales for Coldplay, Taylor Swift and P!NK.”

That’s in addition to the growth of artists like Charli xcx, Fontaines D.C., Sleep Token, Chappell Roan, Sabrina Carpenter, RAYE and Teddy Swims – “many of whom we have developed from club level,” according to Desmond. He says he’s “confident in the talent coming up through the clubs – over a third of our artistes are in early career stages, which is twice as many as pre-2020.”

Some of Live Nation’s rising stars on the road are The Last Dinner Party, Myles Smith, Rachel Chinouriri, Saga Faye, Inhaler, and The Mary Wallopers. All indicators that this industry’s next headliners are out there – you just need to know where to look.

Another live veteran who never bought into the argument that there was a lack of headliners is Jim King, CEO of AEG Presents’ European festival business. One of the events he oversees, BST Hyde Park in London, makes it clear why. The 2025 edition is headlined by Olivia Rodrigo, Noah Kahan, and Sabrina Carpenter, alongside long-established acts like Neil Young and the Chrome Hearts, Stevie Wonder, and Jeff Lynne’s ELO. “What we see now,” says King, “is arguably the strongest era for stadium tours, with artists who for the large part are between the ages and of 25 and 50, such as Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran, Beyoncé, Coldplay, Harry Styles and Kendrick Lamar. There are many more coming through such as Sam Fender, Sabrina Carpenter, Olivia Rodrigo, Noah Kahan – the list just keeps
growing. The bonus is that many artists are still going strong in their 70s and even 80s.”

BST Hyde Park’s 2025 lineup is indicative of another huge UK trend, namely the rising popularity of country music. Zach Bryan headlines the festival on two nights, which, according to King, shows “the genre now travelling seamlessly from its North American home to other markets.” AEG Presents also promotes Stagecoach and Country 2 Country festivals, “both of which have seen incredible growth over the last three years, as key evidence of the growing live appeal of country music as a genre,” says King.

Debbie McWilliams, managing director of strategy and people at the Scottish Event Campus, which includes the OVO Hydro, host of the Scottish C2C editions, says, “The phenomenal growth of C2C reflects the UK’s ever-growing love for country music, and we’re proud to play a part in its success. The event welcomed over 30,000 attendees to Glasgow’s OVO Hydro in 2025 – nearly ten times the turnout of its debut at the SEC Armadillo in 2015.”

The building has been working closely with DF Concerts, AEG Presents’ C2C partner in Scotland, to support the event’s growth. DF Concerts CEO Geoff Ellis confirmed that country was doing great business, not just the main event at the Hydro, but also the supporting events his team regularly puts up at the 300-capacity King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut, one of the UK’s most famous grassroots music venues. The UK’s grassroots sector has been in the news a lot in recent times, mainly for its struggle.

And while Ellis fully acknowledges that clubs have had to shut their doors for economic reasons, he also thinks that there’s a danger of giving into the negative narrative too much. “It’s a different mix at grassroots level: I think most grassroots venues are selling more tickets than before, but they’ve been squeezed. Bar sales are down, because a lot of young people aren’t drinking like they used to. Touring at grassroots level is tough, because everybody’s costs have gone up, while the capacities of these venues stay the same. And you can’t ratchet up ticket prices in clubs. It’s tight, and we have to be innovative.”

Day time raves have become a thing, not just in the UK, where revelers in their 40s and 50s can dance in the day, and be home by 10 p.m. What is more, they still like to drink, so bar sales for those events tend to be really good.

One Scottish venue punching way above its 1,900-capacity weight class is the Barrowland Ballroom, where artists capable of filling arenas opt to perform on a regular basis. In 2024, the list included Paul Weller, Biffy Clyro, Del Amitri, The Libertines, and Callum Beattie, just to name a few. The building opened its first dancehall in 1934, and after a brief closure in 1983, Barrowland became a key part of Glasgow’s thriving live music scene. In all those years it never stopped evolving, leading to 2024, a remarkable year for several reasons.

“We were voted the No.1 venue in the United Kingdom by Time Out magazine — though, sadly, it didn’t come with another trophy to add to our ever-growing collection on the sideboard. This accolade follows our 2005 recognition by Radio 1, which conducted a poll of 60 touring bands,” says Barrowland General Manager Tom Joyes. He adds, “As venue operators, we understand the importance of maintaining our space in the best possible condition. This commitment to continual improvement ensures we remain at the forefront of the live music scene.”

With around half a century’s experience in putting on live shows for ticket buyers, Joyes’ concern for the biz is “the potential for market saturation, coupled with exorbitant ticket prices and exploitative tactics that prey on fans’ emotions, leaving them struggling to afford regular gigs.” So far, though, things are looking bright. Says Joyes, “Our schedule for 2025 is already looking incredibly healthy, with no signs of a slowdown in the number of shows. Advance ticket sales are outperforming expectations, much to the satisfaction of both bands and promoters.”

While small to medium-sized venues manage to make the numbers add up, there’s no doubt that the big business is in the big venues. “The arena market’s very good,” said Toby Leighton-Pope, MD of TEG Europe, which opened its European presence in 2022, and has hit the ground running. The Busted 20th anniversary arena tour in 2023 visited 27 arenas, selling 150,000 tickets. “Last year,” Leighton-Pope continues, “we reformed Girls Aloud, we did 29 arenas, 300,000 tickets, and this year, we’ve got Busted vs McFly, which has done 300,000 tickets already, and it doesn’t start till October. And we just launched Five, a UK boy band, and they did 200,000 tickets in the first month.”

One of the arenas Busted vs McFly will visit is Co-op Live in Manchester, which opened its doors less than a year ago, and has already propelled itself to the No. 2 spot on Pollstar’s UK arena rankings. General Manager and Senior Vice President Guy Dunstan says, “Artists are loving us and praising our acoustic design, and countless fans are publicly commending their experience. I couldn’t be prouder of what we have achieved, the artists who have graced our stage, and the incredible team that have made it happen.” The upcoming schedule includes a host of UK arena exclusives, including three nights of Bruce Springsteen, Burna Boy’s only arena show and Robbie Williams’ only indoor shows.

2025 is also another year of the stadium. Ten Coldplay and seven Oasis dates at Wembley Stadium in London are the tip of the iceberg. Scotland, too, is up from one stadium show in 2024 to seven this year, which has a lot do to with the fact that there’s no major sports tournament on this summer. Artists opt for the big capacities if their clout allows.

Lez Dwight, director at high-end audio equipment specialists Britannia Row Productions, confirms, “We are seeing an increase in artists moving into these much larger shows. The 2025 stadium show diary directly supports the appetite for big shows in the UK.”

Britannia Row has been providing audio solutions and skilled technicians to live productions worldwide for five decades. Of all the requirements events have in 2025, one development that sticks out to Dwight is that everybody is “thinking greener. Freighting less and lighter packaging is becoming a more common conversation from our production clients. We’re always striving to update our packaging to make it freight friendly and more efficient. In addition to this, we’ve expanded our inventory in all territories worldwide so that customers are able to carry less on their global tours, especially speakers, amps and rigging.”

Live Nation’s Desmond confirms: “Sustainability is a big focus for us, evident in the changes we’ve been making at our venues, shows and festivals. In the UK and Ireland, all our Live Nation venues are now powered by 100% renewable energy and we’re expanding this across our festivals. We’re also rolling out reusable cup schemes to cut down on plastic waste and working with partners to bring environmental education and awareness programs to fans on site.”

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