SJM Concerts paid tribute to the late Chris York after being named Live Music Promoter of the Year at the 2025 Music Week Awards.

Accepting the award at last night’s ceremony at London’s Grosvenor House, SJM’s Jack Dowling and John Cornell described their hugely respected former colleague, who died last year aged 55, as a “special guy”.

York was a director at SJM, working with artists including Oasis, Foo Fighters, Green Day, The Chemical Brothers, Lily Allen, Massive Attack, Robert Plant, Underworld, Lorde, Morrissey, Placebo, Suede and Stereophonics over the course of 30 years.

Elsewhere, CAA took home the Live Music Agency prize for a second successive year, with agent Maria May saluting the “exceptional hard work” and collaboration of the team.

“The senior leadership is amazing,” she added. “We all love being in our jobs and we’re extremely grateful to everybody for this award.”

Reading & Leeds, whose 2024 edition was headed by Blink-182, Fred Again.., Lana Del Rey, Liam Gallagher, Catfish and the Bottlemen and Gerry Cinnamon, claimed Festival of the Year and AXS Europe received the Ticketing Company award.

“Artist management today is not an individual pursuit, it’s a shared enterprise”

In addition, Nottingham’s The Bodega came out on top in the Grassroots Venue: Spirit of the Scene category.

The night’s most prestigious award, The Strat, went to Wildlife Entertainment CEO and longtime Arctic Monkeys manager Ian McAndrew. The band’s frontman Alex Turner made a surprise appearance to present McAndrew with the honour alongside Wildlife MD Emma Greengrass.

McAndrew, who has guided the likes of Travis, Royal Blood, Miles Kane and Fontaines D.C. during his 35-year career, is also a founding member of anti-ticket touting campaign group FanFair Alliance.

“Artist management today is not an individual pursuit, it’s a shared enterprise,” he said. “I’m blessed to work with the very best. I’m particularly fortunate to work alongside my fellow director, Sarah Abbott, and Wildlife MD Emma Greengrass, who is someone I not only value as a great professional manager, she’s someone I cherish as a very dear friend.

“I’m grateful to all our former Wildlife colleagues, particularly to my old partner, Colin Lester, the doctor, with whom I shared some amazing experiences and with a lot of laughs along the way.

“I’m truly fortunate to have been afforded the opportunity to do what I want to do, which is to help my artists, my songwriters, get up in the morning, go to bed at night and do what they want to do.”

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Promoters, venues and ticketers have been encouraged to “think outside the box” and embrace the various channels available as they seek to maximise ticket sales.

ILMC’s Marketing: Navigating Channels session provided an update on the latest trends and developments in the space over the last 12 months, with the benefits of AI among the subjects up for debate.

Chaired by The O2’s Robbie Balfour, the session featured Nick Faber of creative production house Fabyl, Rob Lievesley of ticketing company AXS, Monica Steyn of Blue Blood Entertainment and Jackie Wilgar of Live Nation at London’s Royal Lancaster.

Former recording artist Faber, whose firm is dedicated to crafting moments that amplify musicians’ marketing campaigns, declared that “creativity always trumps cash”.

“It’s never about budget,” he argued. “It’s always about a good idea done well, so I’m really excited about seeing more creativity, more people thinking outside the box and trying different things, not following fads. And I’m really excited about technology – new ways of connecting with fans and making those meaningful connections.”

“AI is essentially a tool and it does very much rely on the human input”

Faber explained that AI had been a “game-changer” for his business, but acknowledged the technology’s limitations.

“It’s a game-changer for me because I’ve got a very small team and we don’t have the kind of budgets to employ copywriters and proofreaders and concept artists and stuff like that, so we rely on AI every single day,” he said. “It can be a jumping off point, and it can be a tool to deliver a concept art. We can use it through the whole process, through to delivery, but it is essentially a tool and I think it does very much rely on the human input.

“Who knows what it’ll be doing in two, five, 10, years’ time? Maybe it will have some sort of human feel that it doesn’t currently have, but a computer needs an operator – and it is essentially just a tool.”

Wilgar, Live Nation’s EVP, head of marketing & consumer technology – international, is open-minded about AI’s usefulness for the industry.

“It’s not bad,” she said. “We did a test recently with an artist [and] what came back was based on the historic materials that are in the world wide web, per se, about that artist – and it was way off. It was absolutely not applicable to where the artist’s tone or even approach is in this day. So we have a job to make sure that it is properly used to communicate on behalf of the artist, or what we’re doing.

“But the tool is a learning tool. So even a year from now, three years, five years, the tools will learn, and the AI will continue to develop to optimise those things that work and are most applicable as well.”

“If you don’t want it to take your job in the future, learn how to use it”

Wilgar also moved to break down the negative stigma around AI, saying: “People sometimes worry about it as though it’s this big scary thing, and there may be aspects of it that are not ideal and those will filter themselves out or evolve as they do, but there are really cool things you can do about it and use it for.

“There are great efficiencies you can use it for: time savings, administrative things and creative things. And of course, as any individual, you have a job to take a look at it and make sure it’s right – the same way you would check your copy if anyone had written it – but it actually can be a fun tool.”

She added: “If you don’t want it to take your job in the future, learn how to use it.”

AXS Europe marketing head Lievesley said AI was an “interesting one” for ticketing in terms of discovery.

“My dad’s in his mid 70s and he plots his holidays by going on Chat GPT and asking, ‘What’s good in Italy?'” he said. “As an industry, and certainly as a ticketing company… we need to be set up for that human fan, but we probably also need to start thinking about how we set up for the machine learning as well.”

In terms of tried-and-tested approaches to marketing, Lievesley said that email could still be effective.

“We just need to be a lot more targeted,” he noted. “Stuff will cut through if we’re actually using the right targeting and the right content and the right message… How we can best target throughout the customer journey as well: Who are the best people to hit, and when? Who are the later buyers? So email is not dead, it just needs focus.

“We should be not just using emails to sell, sell, sell all the time. We’ve also got to think of a strategy of how are we helping you get the best out of the event? How are we helping our partners make sure that people get in the door smoothly as well? So it’s [about] respecting the email address and the person on it, because you don’t want to lose them.”

“Traditional PR still has its role… But it’s also evolved. Now, you’re looking at the onset of influencers and social media collaborations”

Steyn, Blue Blood’s head of PR and communications South Africa & Middle East, said there was still a role for traditional PR.

“To have a good PR campaign, you’ve got to integrate it with a good digital and a good marketing plan,” she said. “Traditional PR still has its role… But it’s also evolved. Now, you’re looking at the onset of influencers and social media collaborations. They’re a trusted voice – people are consuming more and they’re following these content creators.”

Steyn went on to discuss how the growth of event tourism was impacting marketing strategies, pointing to a recent survey which showed that 40% of attendees for events in the UAE had travelled in.

“We need to be focusing on other ways to reach those audiences, not just the audiences that are currently in that country,” she said. “It’s making it appealing for both the local and international audiences. I think that’s something really big to put a focus to.”

Wilgar detailed the concept of “wiggle and shake”.

“In a digital space in particular, the algorithms and the tools are built to look for things that move,” explained Wilgar. “Even with something that is stagnant, find yourself a tool or technology that makes it wiggle and shake. Anything that creates an emotion, we know has a much higher engagement rate.

“Use the technology to your advantage from a creative perspective. That means make it move.”

She also highlighted the importance of “knowing your fans” as a starting point for campaigns.

“If you literally cannot answer the question, ‘Who is my fan?’ Then it’s pretty hard to do good marketing,” she advised. “And there are so many great ways you can do that, you don’t have to be investing in multi-million dollar tools to do deep analysis – even a good Google pull from a Google Analytics report on a website where cookies are dropping will give you basic insight to a fanbase.”

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Oak View Group (OVG) International has hired Matt Owen as booking projects manager in London.

The US-based venue management giant’s international projects include Co-op Live in Manchester and Arena São Paulo in Brazil.

Owen joins OVG from London’s Wembley Stadium where he was programming manager, booking artists including Taylor Swift, Green Day, AC/DC and Bruce Springsteen.

He started at the 90,000-capacity stadium in 2019, serving as a customer engagement manager for almost four years before becoming programming manager in 2022. He has previously held roles at Tottenham Hotspur Football Club and West Ham United FC.

Meanwhile, Nick Griffith has been appointed as senior director of business development for Europe at AXS Europe.

Nick Griffith has been appointed as senior director of business development for Europe at AXS Europe

Prior to joining AXS Europe, Griffith spent 11 years at Ticketmaster, most recently in the role of vice president, global client ops/sales operations – global.

He has also held roles in international sales operations, and UK-based sales operations and client development.

Elsewhere, Australian concert organiser Destroy All Lines has hired renowned promoter Scott Mesiti.

Mesiti co-founded his own touring company MJR Touring in 2012, which was acquired by TEG in 2019. Following the acquisition, he became head of touring for TEG MJR Live.

Mesiti has promoted artists such as Hans Zimmer, Snoop Dogg, Ice Cube, Cypress Hill, 50 Cent, Six 60, The Jacksons, Sia, Steel Panther, Evanescence, James, Salt & Pepa, Sean Paul, Shaggy and UB40, and festivals including Valleyways and Knotfest.

Australian concert organiser Destroy All Lines has hired renowned promoter Scott Mesiti

Finally, Vlad Enăchescu has been appointed general manager of ticketing company Eventim Romania.

Enăchescu was previously the president of the CSM Bucharest women’s handball team. A former journalist for TVR and DolceSport, he is also a renowned sports commentator in Romania.

“I happily accepted the offer because I like challenges,” says Enăchescu in a statement.

“It gives me the opportunity to be active in the vicinity of my passions: sport and art. I was always a frequent consumer of shows and culture, but also a constant presence in sports halls and arenas.”

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AXS has hired UK-based music exec John Talbot as director of business development.

Talbot worked for Ticketmaster from 2015 to 2020, overseeing business development for Ticketmaster International’s artist services business, and most recently headed up partnerships for electronic point of sale company Goodtill by SumUp.

“Joining the AXS team today is the latest step in my 15-year career in music, which has spanned concerts, ticketing and record labels,” he explains. “For almost a decade I was at Island Records, creating retail campaigns for acts such as Queen, Amy Winehouse and Florence and the Machine.

“I joined Ticketmaster in 2015 to oversee business development for their artist ticketing business in the UK and Europe, onboarding touring artists including Stormzy, Four Tet and the 1975.

“I hope to bring even more exciting partners to AXS’s wealth of existing high-profile clients”

“Earlier this year I worked for merchant services payment provider SumUp, targeting music venues, signing deals with Omeara and Lafayette here in London, as well as others.

“Outside of work, I’m an ardent music fan, I’ve managed bands and been an independent promoter and DJ for several years.”

Commenting on his new role at AXS Europe, which has preferred ticketing deals with events and venues including the O2 and SSE Arena Wembley (London) and British Summer Time Hyde Park, Talbot continues: “I’m very excited to be joining a company whose technology and culture is so well respected across the industry. I hope to bring even more exciting partners to AXS’s wealth of existing high-profile clients.”

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