Residents Reduce Hyde Park Shows

The number of Hyde Park concerts has been cut to eight in 2013 because of complaints from local residents, according to London’s Evening Standard.

Next year, six of the shows will be produced by AEG and held over two consecutive weekends in June or July to minimize the disruption to residents caused by crowds of up to 65,000 per night.

This year, during the Olympic Games, there were several events in the Royal park, although Live Nation – which held the contract to run the shows until recently – was previously forced to agree to reduce the number of shows from 13 to nine.

Given the BBC’s Proms in the Park, the annual tie-in with the Last Night of the Proms, and the Radio 2 Live in Hyde Park pop concert have also been retained, then there would be eight.

The Royal Parks, the agency that runs Hyde Park and a handful of London’s other open spaces, says three of the AEG concerts would have a capacity of 65,000 and three would be limited to 50,000.

This summer, 28 events were staged in the 350-acre park. There were 15 free Olympic concerts, 11 rock and pop shows, including gigs by Bruce Springsteen, Madonna and Rihanna, and the two BBC events.

It was the Springsteen show in July that caused the noise issue to make front-page headlines as LN pulled the plug on his duets with Paul McCartney, fearing the two of them were going beyond the 10:30 p.m. noise curfew.

Mayfair Residents Group vice chairman Mike Dunn told the Standard that 2012 was an exceptional year because of the Olympics, and that the new schedule was a vast improvement on 2011.

“We are supportive of what they are doing but the argument about noise levels does continue. The 75db level at the listening points we still consider to be far too high,” he said, “We have put them on notice that the fight goes on as far as noise levels are concerned.”

In February, when LN COO John Probyn agreed to reduce the number of 2013 shows to nine, he resisted pressure to reduce the 75-decibel noise limit.

Agents including Solo Agency chief John Giddings warned that bands would rather find somewhere else to play than drop the volume even further.

The Royal Parks isn’t shedding any light on the bidding process for the new contract.

Live Nation says it pulled out because the process was “flawed,” although it’s not known if it pulled out before it knew its bid had failed. Industry reports suggest LN simply got outbid for the new contract.

“It looks like they want people to get out the big cheque book,” Probyn said, when it became clear LN had lost Hyde Park.

The Standard reckons LN paid £1.5 million to use the park in 2012 and says Royal Parks isn’t saying what AEG is paying for the next five years.