LEAs Declare Neutrality - Pollstar News

Whatever high-profile arguments and legal battles are going on at the top end of the German festival market, the country’s Live Entertainment Awards declared its neutrality by handing out gongs to all sides.

Photo: Public Address Presseagentur

DEAG chief Peter Schwenkow wins for best concert (Rolling Stones).

The prizegiving bash at Frankfurt’s Festhalle April 14 had Marek Lieberberg, Peter Schwenkow and Ossy Hoppe among the big winners.

After moving his Rock am Ring 20 or so miles down the road to the former military airfield at Mendig when Schwenkow cut a deal with the Nürburgring to stage his new Green Hell fest on the site, Lieberberg’s event won best festival and his firm added best arena tour (Justin Timberlake) and best show (Cirque du Soleil). But Deutsche Entertainment chief Schwenkow came out with a couple of LEAs.

He and Lieberberg had been at it in court over what Lieberberg called Schwenkow’s attempts to “hijack the tradition of the [Rock am Ring] festival” and recently had a falling out with the Nürburgring, leading to a new venue and the name Rock Im Revier, Schwenkow won best concert (Rolling Stones at Berlin Waldbühne) and club tour of the year, the latter for the dates DEAG ran for veteran rocker Marius Müller Westernhagen.

Ossy Hoppe – a former colleague of Schwenkow and now part of his Green Hell team – took organiser of the year. In 2014 Hoppe’s Wizard Promotions, also based in Frankfurt, shifted more than 700,000 tickets for such acts as Lady Gaga, Bryan Ferry, and Black Sabbath. Berlin-based Four Artists Booking Agency, which represents Die Fantastischen Vier, Seeed, Marteria, and Clueso, among others, also picked up two awards.

Alex Richter’s firm, which is now expanding into Austria with Folkert Koopmans’ FKP Scorpio, won hall tour of the year for its shows with rapper Marteria. It also took artist / youth promotion of the year for its work on the ARD New Music Award, a German youth radio programme. The special jury prize went to Hamburg-based promoter Karsten Jahnke for his Jazz Nights, the 15-year-old annual concert series that he organises throughout Germany.

The lifetime achievement award went to Cologne-based promoter Peter Rieger. Other LEA winners included Bochum Zeche (club of the year), Berlin Tempodrom (best arena), and Argo Concerts (best local promoter).