‘I Never Bought That There’s A Lack Of Headliners’: Q’s With Jim King, CEO, European Festivals, AEG Presents

Jim King oversees AEG Presents European festival portfolio, which includes All Points East, Lido and Forwards in the UK, Rock En Seine in Paris, France; as well as the flagship BST Hyde Park in London, which has raised the bar for the elevated experience is offers its guests, from GA to VIP ticket holders. The world’s biggest acts seem to be attracted to BST Hyde Park like moths to a flame, and the 2025 lineups of All Points East or Lido are not to be scoffed at either.

We reached out to King for Pollstar’s annual UK Focus, to talk about all of the above, and more.

Pollstar: How do you pull of such a lineup each year?
Jim King: The last few years have been truly special with the biggest names headlining the festival. Ever since we launched BST Hyde Park back in 2013, the ambition was always to book the biggest artists in the world. But it takes a minute, or several years to be precise, to build an event to this level.

So, it’s been a lot of hard work from our team delivering the very best festival that we can so that artists choose BST Hyde Park as their festival of choice over the many other options that they have.

You don’t think this business has a headliner problem. Why is that?
I have never bought into the argument that there is a lack of headliners. What we see now 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, Beyonce, 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.

Can you talk a bit about the appeal of country in the UK right now, as evidenced by Zach Bryan’s two nights at Hyde Park this year?
I like to use the reference points of 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.

So many new younger fans are embracing the genre via pop leaning country artists as well as existing superstars embracing country music influences on their recent albums. The combination of this shows that country music is set to dominate the pop genre for many years.

Music fans are also generally switching on in huge numbers to country music through the sheer quality of the song writing and musicianship of artists like Lainey Wilson, Luke Coombs and Zach Bryan.

The success of Zach’s two sold out shows at BST Hyde Park is testament to this huge appeal and shows the genre now travelling seamlessly from its North American home to other markets.

How do you explain the continued appeal of premium offers for live events?
Live music is no different from any service industry in that we need to satisfy the wide and diverse demands of all fans attending.

Fans attending a music event will have the benefit of choosing their class of travel, accommodation, choice of restaurant, even their choice of Uber, all of which have varying price points versus the level of experience being offered. Music events are no different with affordable entry price points to the highest premium offerings.

How important is sponsorship in today’s live entertainment world?
Quality partnerships play a valuable role in helping add value to the fan experience. Sponsorship has played an important role in supporting sports, arts and culture for many years. We look to build valuable relationships that then offer value to fans and artists.

Are there ways in which a mega event like BST Hyde Park can help the grassroots scene?
Amongst the many discussion points about how the industry can help the grassroots scene, the primary function of everyone is to ensure that there is both the healthy supply of new artists and then the venues in which they can play. You can’t have one without the other.

A key role for any festival is to ensure that we continually invest into new artists and provide bookings and quality experiences for them to perform in front of fans to help build their fan bases. This then makes headline touring viable having started out in a grassroots venue.

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