2025 Impact Intl. UK/Euro Honoree: Harvey Goldsmith CBE

HARVEY GOLDSMITH CBE
Managing Director
Artist Promotion Management Ltd

HOW BAND AID IS CONTINUING TO SUPPORT THOSE IN NEED

The impact Live Aid had when it aired on July 13, 1985, cannot be overstated. Aside from the money it generated for famine relief in Africa, it was considered the biggest rock spectacle ever staged. Queen’s now-legendary 21-minute set got most of the limelight in subsequent years, making it easy to forget the sheer amount of rock royalty at London’s Old Wembley that day: David Bowie, The Who, Elton John, Paul McCartney, U2, Elvis Costello, Sting, Phil Collins, Sade, Bryan Ferry with David Gilmour, Paul Young and Dire Straits, among others.

Harvey Goldsmith, CBE is the man who put the UK edition of this mega concert together, while a U.S. version took place simultaneously in Philadelphia. The concert followed the recording of the charity single “Do They Know It’s Christmas” by Band Aid, the supergroup behind the original version of the song. “When Band Aid was set up and the concert took place, we expected to close within three months,” Goldsmith recalls. “Forty years on, we are still giving grants to needed projects in the Sahel Region.”

The Live Aid musical “Just For One Day” is currently showing at Shaftesbury Theatre in London’s West End, generating further income for The Band Aid Charitable Trust. Live Aid and Live 8, which took place 20 years later, are certainly amongst Goldsmith’s most impactful successes. Also featuring high up on that list are Bob Dylan at Blackbushe in 1978, in front of 175,000 people, and Pink Floyd performing The Wall in Berlin, in front of 400,000.

Goldsmith says he fell in love with live music the week after he opened Club 66 in Brighton, England, in 1966. Over the course of his career, he’s worked with virtually every big name in music, but remains too modest to list them on the record. He does share his business philosophy, though, which is centered around four pillars: “There is no such word as ‘no’. There is always a simple solution to any problem. If you believe in it, then stick with it until success. Do not hide problems in the cupboard.”