Arena Market: Belgium
Belgium has the benefit of being an extension touring territory for both French and Dutch domestic acts (who, if they sing in their own language, do not always export easily) and also a major stop-off for international tours. It is a relatively small but well-connected country, meaning audiences can travel with reasonable ease to any of its major cities.
Jan Van Esbroeck, MD of be•at, oversees the 20,000-cap Sportpaleis and 7,400-cap Lotto Arena, both in Antwerp, and the 8,400-cap Forest National in Brussels. He says the live market in Belgium has been particularly strong recently – but only for acts at a certain level.
“[We have had] almost no bad-selling shows in our arenas,” he says.
“Mid-size artists [playing venues with capacities of between 4,000 and 8,000] are really booming, with a lot of [relatively] new talent storming the arenas.” The challenge, he reveals, is for acts booked into the biggest arenas in the country. “For the big headliners, we experience tough competition with stadia and the AAA markets in Europe,” he says.
Music is the key category in all three of these arenas, making up…
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