Europe: Finsbury Park, Mojo Barriers, London Overground, L-Acoustics

QOTSA, Iggy Pop At Finsbury Park

Queens Of The Stone Age, Iggy Pop, Run The Jewels and The Hives will convene in London’s Finsbury Park, June 30, 2018. More acts are to follow.

Queens Of The Stone Age will have just returned from the American leg of their world tour in support of their latest album Villains, which kicks off Dec. 2 at Chicago’s Aragon Ballroom and ends May 25 at The Dome Arena in Rochester.

The band will play Northside Festival in Denmark, June 8, and come to London’s Finsbury Park after, June 30. They’ll share the stage with Iggy Pop, for whom it will be a UK exclusive, promoter Festival Republic announced.

More acts are to be announced, and there will be two stages set up in the park.

The announcement follows a court decision determining that London’s local councils are allowed to continue hiring out the city’s parks to promoters. The case involved Live Nation/Festival Republic and the Friends of Finsbury Park charity.

Since 2014, Live Nation stages Wireless Festival in London’s Finsbury Park. The 2016 edition called for the closure of the park over an extended period. This prompted the Friends of Finsbury Park to raise money and take Haringey council, which authorized the event, to court.

The charity argued that UK law dictates that councils hold parks in trust for public recreation and that the exclusion of the public from parks constituted a breach of that trust.

When a judge dismissed the challenge brought up by the Friends, they appealed. This appeal has now been refused. The court decided that local authority indeed has the power to exclude the public from parks, notwithstanding the public’s rights.

The Friends, however, emphasize that the court also stated that the council’s power “must be exercised lawfully and not perversely or to frustrate the purpose of the trust (i.e. the public’s right to use the land for recreational purposes).

“Crucially, the Court of Appeal raises therefore the prospect that where a local authority uses section 145 [of the local government act] to exclude the public from a park, that decision can be challenged by residents asserting that the closure of a park is unlawful because it interferes too much with the public’s right to use the park for recreation,” a statement released by the charity reads.

The Friends of Finsbury Park intend to appeal again, and also question Haringey Council “to account for all the monies they have raised by the hire of Finsbury Park as they are only allowed to spend the monies on Finsbury itself. The friends are concerned that in fact the Council has been using the monies for it’s general parks budget.”

Mojo Barriers Appoints Distributor In Hungary

– Mojo Barriers Budapest Distribution
Stanley Jilesen and Dániel Benis

Mojo Barriers has a new distribution facility in Eastern Europe. A range of its aluminum crowd safety barriers are now located in the Hungarian capital Budapest.

The new supply of barriers has already been hired for the front of stage at the Gorillaz concert, Nov. 13, in Budapest’s Papp Laszlo Arena.

According to Mojo’s project and touring manager Stanley Jilesen, the live events market in Hungary in Eastern Europe in general is expanding. He said he was “proud to support organizers with local resource to help keep their events safe.”

For several years, Mojo has been supplying the region’s largest festival Sziget, which turned 25 this year and attracts around half a million visitors over the course of one week. Together with the festival’s production team, Mojo is going to deliver its barriers to other events in the region.

Sziget’s production director Dániel Benis said: “We wanted to deliver our events to the highest of international production standards, particularly when it came to the safety of our audience, artists and crew.”

Including Budapest, Mojo now has distributorships in 12 different locations alongside its main international offices in the Netherlands, UK, USA and Australia, making it easy for festivals and concerts in the region to hire the range of barriers.

East London Gets 24-hour Overground

Just in time for its 10^th anniversary this year, London’s Overground, one of the city’s public transport options, introduces a 24-hour weekend service to accommodate London’s nightlife.

The new 24-hour service will be operating from Dec. 15, on Fridays and Saturdays, between New Cross Gate and Dalston Junction in East London. Two more stations are to be added next year.

Last year, London mayor Sadiq Khan made the city’s £26 billion night-time economy one of his priorities. Part of his so-called “24-hour vision” was the hiring of night czar Amy Lamé, as well as the introduction of a 24-hour service on five of London’s Underground lines.

Kahn said: “Our Night Tube services have been a real success right across the capital, so I’m delighted to announce that we’ll be bringing the Night Overground to the East London line later this year. It will provide huge benefits to Londoners and visitors to our city, helping those working hard through the night and all those out enjoying everything London has to offer, as well as creating jobs and boosting our economy.”

– London Overground Plan

L-Acoustics Hires

Tony Szabo has joined French sound experts L-Acoustics as head of application, touring.

As part of the company’s senior leadership team, Szabo will work with L-Acoustics’s worldwide partners. Together with Florent Bernard, director of applications, touring Szabo will deploy the application strategy for the touring market and manage the touring applications team.

Szabo is looking back on 25 years of experience in the industry, from monitor technician to FOH engineer, show controller, crew chief and senior FOH systems engineer. Most recently, he worked for L-Acoustics UK partner Adlib Audio Solutions, where he designed systems for tours and festivals, led technology acquisition decisions and managed the systems engineer team.

Having lived in Australia, Canada and the UK, Szabo toured with artists including David Bowie, Bryan Adams, Kylie Minogue and was involved in large-scale events like the Sydney Olympics Opening and Closing Ceremonies.

Bernard said, “Tony’s extensive experience in key posts in the industry brings a unique and fresh perspective to lead our market development strategy. His combination of technical expertise, industry knowledge, and business acumen will be a great asset for L-Acoustics.”

Szabo said, he was “proud” to join what he considered to be the “leading pro audio brand.”