Summer In The Park

Live Nation’s summer season in London’s Hyde Park had another bumper year, squeezing a couple of festivals and headline shows from Kings Of Leon and Arcade Fire into the space of 10 days.

Hard Rock Calling June 24-26 and Wireless July 1-3 traditionally occupy two consecutive weekends, but LN chief ops officer John Probyn has started making more use of the infrastructure by putting on shows on the days around and between them.

This year kicked off with the Kings Of Leon shows that did 127,000 over two nights. Hard Rock Calling got 50,000 for The Killers, 65,000 for Bon Jovi, and 30,000 for Rod Stewart; and then LN promoter Steve Homer brought in a record-breaking Wireless.

Wireless did more than 140,000 for three nights headed by Black Eyed Peas (65,000), Chemical Brothers (35,000) and Pulp (45,000).
Homer said he was proud to promote “the biggest Wireless Festival yet with some of the best names in music,” as he broke last year’s record when the three-day crowd for headliners Jay-Z, LCD Soundsystem and Pink was 100,000.

The cherry on LN’s Hyde Park summer sundae was the booking of Arcade Fire June 30, tucked in between the two festivals, which brought in another 60,000.

The other acts in LN’s summer season included Mumford & Sons, The Vaccines, Tinie Tempah, Bruno Mars, David Guetta, Ke$ha, Chromeo, The Streets, Grace Jones, The Hives, Foals, and Chase & Status.