Glastonbury organiser Emily Eavis has said “everyone is welcome” at the festival after UK prime minister Keir Starmer said he did not think it was “appropriate” for controversial rappers Kneecap to perform at the event.

The Belfast trio are scheduled to perform on the West Holts stage on Saturday afternoon despite calls to have them removed from the lineup after band member Mo Chara was accused of displaying a flag in support of Hezbollah during a London concert in 2024.

Chara appeared in court last week charged with a terror offence and has been bailed until August.

Asked for her reaction to the PM’s comments, Eavis told the BBC: “We haven’t responded to that. At the moment, we’re just focusing on bringing the best festival to the people who want to come here. We’re incredibly lucky that so many people want to come to Glastonbury, it blows us away. We’ve got millions of people trying to get tickets.

“There have been a lot of very heated topics this year, but we remain just a platform for many, many artists from all over the world. And everyone is welcome here.”

Glastonbury 2025 runs from 25-29 June at Worthy Farm in Pilton, Somerset, headlined by The 1975, Neil Young and Olivia Rodrigo.

“I wanted to give them a platform to say what they’ve got to say. It is frustrating they don’t have that platform anymore”

Meanwhile, DF Concerts boss Geoff Ellis has shared his frustration at Kneecap being pulled from the bill of Scotland’s TRNSMT (11-13 July) due to police concerns about the safety of the event.

The group had been set to perform on the opening day of DF’s 50,000-cap Glasgow Green festival, but Police Scotland said it would “require a significant policing operation” to enable the performance to go ahead.

Speaking at this week’s Courier Business Conference in Dundee, Ellis said: “I love Kneecap. They are one of the most exciting bands to come out of Ireland and the UK in many years. To me, rock and roll is about challenging the establishment. It’s not about appeasing anyone, or not offending anyone. Rock and roll should be uncomfortable. It should get people angry.

“Sex Pistols sang about anarchy, abolishing the monarchy. And they were a band that scared people. I remember asking my mum when I was a kid to buy me Anarchy In The UK. It was exciting, it was naughty. It was something our parents were angry about.

“Kneecap are just the latest version of that. And thank God someone is actually standing up and creating controversy. You don’t have to agree with everything they say. I wanted to give them a platform to say what they’ve got to say. It is frustrating they don’t have that platform anymore.”

“It’s freedom of expression. It’s what artists should do”

Scotland’s first minister John Swinney had earlier backed calls for the hip-hop group to be dropped from the bill after footage emerged from a 2023 gig that appeared to show a band member saying: “The only good Tory is a dead Tory. Kill your local MP.”

“John Swinney got involved and said they shouldn’t be on the TRNSMT bill. Keir Starmer came out and said Kneecap shouldn’t be on the Glastonbury bill,” continued Ellis. “It’s freedom of expression. It’s what artists should do. I’m against [censorship]. And you do have to be careful to avoid giving an out and out platform to racism. But politicians [should] back away.”

Elsewhere, George Akins, MD of DHP Family, which is promoting Kneecap’s biggest headline show outside Ireland to date – at London’s 12,500-cap OVO Arena Wembley in September – recently shared his pride at the company’s longstanding relationship with the group. Organisers of Spain’s Bilbao BBK Live also spoke out in support when adding the band to their 2025 lineup.

“In times of conflict and censorship, music remains an essential loudspeaker and Bilbao BBK Live will always be a space for voices that provoke, question, and refuse to stay silent,” said a statement from the festival. “Kneecap’s appearance in Kobetamendi on July 11 is an act of cultural resistance, a celebration of freedom of expression and of those, like them, who aren’t afraid to speak out against injustice.”

Meanwhile, US rapper Azealia Banks has pulled out of UK festivals Boomtown and Maiden Voyage after claiming promoters were pressuring her to express support for Palestine. A spokesperson for Boomtown confirmed her withdrawal, but added: “For clarity, Boomtown does not and will never dictate the personal views and beliefs of performers.”

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IQ Magazine has revealed the LGBTIQ+ List 2025 – the fifth annual celebration of queer professionals who make an immense impact in the international live music business.

The list is once again the centrepiece of IQ’s annual Pride edition, sponsored by Ticketmaster, which is now available to read online and in print for subscribers.

The 20 individuals comprising the LGBTIQ+ List 2025 – as nominated by our readers and verified by our esteemed steering committee – are individuals who have gone above and beyond to wave the flag for an industry that we can all be proud of.

The fifth instalment comprises agents, promoters, assistants, bookers, festival organisers, comms executives, DEI experts, marketers and ticketers from across the world.

In alphabetical order, the LGBTIQ+ List 2025 is:

Allie Galyon, WME (US)
Amy Hylands, CAA (UK)
Anouk Ganpatsing, Friendly Fire (NL)
Ben Tipple, Co-op Live (UK)
Chris Jammer, PriOr1ty Ai (UK)
Christopher Tweed-Kent, Ticketmaster (US)
Dean Reynolds, Ginger Owl Productions (UK)
Glyn Fussell, Mighty Hoopla (UK)
Jane Chen, Live Nation (US)
John Shortell, Musicians’ Union (UK)
Judith Ritz, FKP Scorpio (DE)
Katie Cavanagh, AEG Presents (UK)
Kiana Rodriguez, The Zoo XYZ (US)
Melissa Ferrick, Paladin Artists (US)
Mika Christoffersen, Roskilde Festival (DK)
Nicki MacLeod, DF Concerts & Events (UK)
Oliver McGillick, Rock For People (CZ)
Paul Kemp, Brighton Pride (UK)
Ryan Cameron, Wasserman Music (UK)
Shaq Milli, UTA (US)

From tomorrow (17 June), IQ will be publishing full-length interviews with each person on the LGBTIQ+ List 2025.

However, subscribers can read the full Pride edition now. Click here to subscribe to IQ – or see what you’re missing out on with the limited preview below.

Check out previous Pride lists from 2024, 2023, 2022 and 2021.

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Kneecap have been removed from the bill of Scotland’s TRNSMT due to police concerns about the safety of the event.

The Belfast rap trio had been set to perform on the opening day of the 50,000-cap Glasgow Green festival on 11 July, but Police Scotland said it would “require a significant policing operation” to enable the performance to go ahead.

Promoter DF Concerts said the band’s slot had been pulled “due to concerns expressed by the police about safety at the event”. It followed Kneecap member Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh being charged with a terror offence last week after allegedly displaying a Hezbollah flag at a London gig in November 2024.

“Any decision on the lineup at TRNSMT is for the organisers and there was no prior consultation with Police Scotland before acts were booked,” says a Police Scotland spokesperson. “Officers have highlighted the potential reaction of such a large audience to this band would require a significant policing operation in order to support the delivery of a safe event.

“We have also passed on information from the public around safety concerns to allow organisers to make an informed decision on the running of the festival.”

DF Concerts CEO Geoff Ellis tells IQ: “Ourselves and the band were put in an impossible situation by what the police told us.”

“Glasgow has always been a huge city for us. We’ve played there many many times, with no issues – ever”

Apologising to fans on social media, Kneecap said: “Glasgow has always been a huge city for us. We’ve played there many many times, with no issues – ever. Make of that what you will.”

In the wake of the cancellation, DF is staging the group’s concert at the 2,500-cap O2 Academy Glasgow on 8 July. A pre-sale for the show sold out today in a reported 80 seconds.

The Primary Talent International-represented trio, who headlined last weekend’s Wide Awake festival in Brockwell Park, are also still scheduled to perform at next month’s Glastonbury Festival.

It emerged last week that the band have threatened to sue senior live music industry figures who have made representations to a number of festivals in recent weeks, including Glastonbury, in attempt to have the band removed from their lineups. A legal letter, according to the Daily Mail, accused those in the live industry behind the complaint of making “untrue and defamatory” claims.

Kneecap split with their North American booking agency earlier this spring after sharing a “fuck Israel, free Palestine” message onstage at Coachella. The band were dropped from a slew of festivals in Germany and the UK in the wake of the controversy, prompting more than 100 artists, including Massive Attack, Paul Weller and Idles, to sign a statement in support of the band.

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ILMC’s annual state-of-the-nation opening session delved into the stadium boom, ticket pricing and the industry’s evolution following a huge year for live music.

Chaired by CAA’s Maria May, The Open Forum: Setting the Course brought together DF Concerts’ Geoff Ellis, Samantha Kirby Yoh of UTA, FKP Scorpio’s Folkert Koopmans and Ashish Hemrajani of India’s BookMyShow.

In her introduction, May noted it had been a “great year for some” but a “hard year for others”, and questioned whether the business needed to refresh its ideas.

“We’re seeing the massive disparity between the top end of the business and the lower end of the business needing much more support,” she said. “We’re seeing lots of ideas coming out with the levy on venues, and I feel like there’s a real need for innovation.”

However, UTA partner and co-head of global music Kirby Yoh reported positive results from the last 12 months.

“Ticket sales are doing good,” said Kirby Yoh. “I think that the headline shows are doing great. The number one thing for me is understanding the artist’s audience and then, in partnership with the local venues… understanding what is happening in each of the local markets and how we tap into the local media partners.”

“The business is as strong as it’s ever been and the appetite is there at all levels”

Kirby Yoh observed a shift in the tastes of the younger demographic.

“The audience is moving away from wanting the festival experience, and they want to actually go more to have the full two-hour-plus experience, seeing their favourite artists for £100, versus going to the festival for £500,” she said.

Glasgow-based DF chief Ellis said the business is “as strong as it’s ever been”, with the appetite for live music evident “at all levels”, and stressed the need for government support for grassroots venues.

“We have more shows this year than we did last year,” he said. “It’s not easier, because the costs are higher so the margins are tighter, but we’ve seen an appetite for ticket sales as strong as it’s ever been and lots of sold out shows, even in January with just local bands. So that appetite is there for grassroots artists, but also for the big artists as well.

“We’re seeing great sales for outdoor shows like Kendrick & SZA, which was a very high ticket price. The average ticket price isn’t huge. It’s significant, but it’s not huge. It can be £150 to buy a ticket on the floor but there’ll be tickets in the seats for £45/£55, so you’re getting that spread across the levels.”

“We’ve got to get better – and we are getting better – at pricing the house”

In response, May asked whether the industry is becoming “smarter” at pricing tickets.

“Artists want their tickets to be affordable for the mass market and that’s understandable,” said Ellis. “So we’ve got to get better – and we are getting better – at pricing the house. You’ve got an entry level ticket and a premium price ticket, so you might be paying £150 for the best seats but those people would go onto the secondary market otherwise – if you price the whole house at £75, you’re underpricing them and the artist should be getting that money.

“This secondary market shouldn’t exist, but it exists because we don’t always price it properly. You don’t price everybody out because you want the working class people to still go to live music – that’s where most of the audiences come from – but charge a premium for the small section of the house and that helps fund the cheaper tickets.”

FKP CEO Koopmans suggested that although ticket prices on headline shows were “reaching a ceiling”, there were still “enough people to pay those high ticket prices”, but raised concerns over the festival market.

“I think on festivals, there is a big problem,” he warned. “People don’t want to spend €250-300 for a festival ticket anymore. I think it’s also got to do with the change in the community, that during the pandemic… we kind of lost the generation.”

Koopmans said the situation facing grassroots venues in Germany was similar to that in the UK.

“It’s the same story,” he said. “There is hardly any subsidy from the government. You can’t make a penny playing a grassroots venue, and the venues itself are suffering. There are countries like Holland where the grassroots venues get [subsidies]. Therefore, you have a lot of shows and bands get a decent fee to play there. So from my point of view, that’s the way to go.”

“The Indian market’s going to go 10x in the next five years”

Moving onto emerging markets, Hemrajani, who is founder and CEO of Big Tree Entertainment Private Limited, which operates India’s leading online entertainment platform BookMyShow, referenced its recent successes including Coldplay’s record-breaking Ahmedabad concerts and Ed Sheeran’s six-city Indian tour.

“Ed Sheeran was unique, because as a top tier artist, we went really deep into the country,” explained Hemrajani. “It was heartening to see that we could do an end stage format produced by us. It wasn’t easy, but it was historic. The average ticket price was about $100.”

Hemrajani predicted the Indian market would balloon “10x in the next five years”, despite acknowledging shortcomings with its current infrastructure. And said its first fully-fledged arena was in the works for Mumbai.

“Arenas is very loose word in India because we have… mostly festival grounds,” he said. “‘We don’t have arenas in India. And we have a six-month window where we can do outdoor events, because our weather permits us to do events between October to April, or at best May.

“The need of the hour is actually to have indoor venues with real air conditioning and 18-20,000 capacities. We’re building an arena in Mumbai, which will be the first hard arena.

“Infrastructure continues to be a challenge, and we’re trying to solve that as you build more routing around Middle East and Southeast Asia, because the timing works. It’s the same time of the year, from October to March, April, when you can tour in the Middle East and Southeast Asia. I think anchoring around those markets is a good segue to actually building volume into that market.”

“Electronic music isn’t dead, but nightclubs have to adapt their model”

May brought up statistics showing decreasing alcohol consumption among young adults in the EU and US, plus a reduction in binge drinking in the UK, and queried whether venues in the UK needed to change their business models as a result.

“Clearly everybody needs to innovate and adapt. We’re always needing to do that as business,” offered Ellis. “You’ve just got to adapt constantly, because the market doesn’t stand still.

“The rise of country music is phenomenal, particularly in the UK. It’s always been big in Glasgow, but it’s exploded now. If any promoters out there are going, ‘I’m not going to do country music,’ they’re going to miss out big time, so we always have to evolve and adapt.

“Electronic music isn’t dead, but nightclubs have to adapt their model because, as we said, people aren’t coming in and drinking. Not everybody wants to be out until 3am anymore.”

Kirby Yoh pointed out that LCD Soundsystem had added a successful afterparty element to their New York residency.

“It is the continual that actually gets a whole new crowd that comes in later,” she said. “Secondly, they have also taken one of the bars at the back and made it an organic wine bar, bringing in local vendors. I know that’s harder, but it’s another way that has encouraged people to come back.”

On the subject of diversification, Koopmans said he was most excited by FKP’s expansion in the exhibitions world under its FKP Scorpio Entertainment (FKPE) umbrella.

“We invested quite a lot in that,” he said. We are building a [new exhibition] venue in Oberhausen. There’s a lot to be done in that area.”

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The increased workload of the summer season – and the fact that DF Concerts now promotes around 1,000 events per year – means that Geoff Ellis has had to take on more staff in the company HQ.

“It’s challenging, but it’s all good because it means we’ve employed more in our team,” he reports. “We’ve got some more experienced people that we brought in on the event management side of things, precisely because we have TRNSMT, we’ve got the run at Bellahouston Park, and then we’ve got the various projects in Edinburgh. So instead of having to rely on freelancers, we’ve been able to take more people on full-time– including our sustainability and accessibility teams – meaning the team is stronger year-round, which really helps from a planning point of view.

“We’ve also got a couple of new people in the sustainability team. That means that instead of paying for consultants to come in for specific projects, we can use the expertise of our own people across the board – for our own venue, our offices, as well as our festivals and all of the concerts we promote. A lot of what we do now is with a focus on sustainability, so those additions have definitely helped fortify the team, which is now the strongest it’s ever been at DF.

“We’re still working with some of the main external contractors – site managers and production managers, for example. But again, we’ve now got in-house folk that can do a lot of the advancing on the site stuff as well, which is helping to make everything we do much more efficient. And it means we can do more, while allowing us to cost things more quickly as well.”

“The new expanded DF set-up gives us another string to our bow, to handle third-party events as a one-stop-shop contractor”

That efficiency has enabled Ellis to look at other growth opportunities for DF Concerts. “We recently won the tender for the Clyde Chorus, which will celebrate 850 years of Glasgow as a city,” he reveals. “It’s going to involve lots of smaller concerts in small venues, so it’s not exactly a stretch for us to book it, given that booking artists is what we do, day-in, day-out. But that’s a great project for our younger team of promoters to get wired into that with all their emerging artists.

“We also won the event management contract, which is a relief because it would have been a nightmare booking the acts and then having to advance it with somebody else. Now though, with the way DF has evolved, we can do the whole thing internally, as we would normally with one of our own events. So the new expanded DF set-up gives us another string to our bow, to handle third-party events as a one-stop-shop contractor, which also allows organisers to take advantage of our efficiencies, too.”

Improving Venue Sector
Thanks in no small part to the hard work of Ellis and his colleagues, Scotland’s live entertainment business has gone from strength to strength during the past 40 years. From zero festivals, the country now has a plethora of summer gatherings, while the top end of the venue chain is continuing to expand with stadia like Murrayfield in Edinburgh and Hampden Park in Glasgow, an integral part of the nation’s outdoor concert season, while other football grounds including Ibrox in Glasgow and Falkirk Stadium have hosted occasional shows.

Indoor venues have prospered even more. In terms of arena space, for decades Scottish music fans had to settle for the makeshift transformation of the SEC exhibition halls in Glasgow or the Aberdeen Exhibition and Conference Centre to see their favourite acts. That changed in 2013, when the Scottish Exhibition Centre opened the £125m Hydro on its campus. That offering was augmented in 2019 when the £333m P&J Arena opened near Aberdeen, with formats that allow shows from 5,000 to 15,000 capacity.

“The Hydro has been a game changer for everybody”

And AEG is currently working on a project to construct the proposed 8,500-capacity Edinburgh Park Arena in time for opening doors in 2027, further enhancing Scotland’s ability to attract world-class talent.

“The Hydro has been a game changer for everybody,” notes Ellis. “That whole area of Finnieston has been largely transformed into a cultural hub because of the arena – it’s a real destination area in its own right. But the Hydro enables us to compete with other European cities on a bigger level, because we can have capacities of about 13,500, although for some shows it’s possible to get 14,000, sight lines permitting.

“Before Hydro opened, we were reliant on the old SEC, but we could not use it all-year round because they’d have a calendar of exhibitions and conferences to host. So, you’d have a concert window, and Scotland would typically lose out on tours if the dates did not coincide with that window.”

Ellis also praises the P&J Arena. “It’s a lovely venue, because the old AECC was not a great audience or artist experience at all. I remember when the dressing rooms were caravans, I went in to talk to Sharleen [Spiteri] from Texas, and when the support band came on, the whole bloody caravan started shaking.

“I think Edinburgh is one of only two capital cities in Europe that does not have an arena”

“But the new venue is great, and it’s huge – it’s actually bigger than Hydro, but it’s also very flexible in terms of where they can put the stage and how they can drape it down. So, just like the Hydro, it can work on 7,000 people without looking like you’ve draped off at all. In fact, [they do] a really good job where they can make it work for a couple of thousand people.”

And he’s enthusiastic about the prospects for the new Edinburgh arena. “I think Edinburgh is one of only two capital cities in Europe that does not have an arena. So, while an arena in Edinburgh won’t necessarily steal business away from Glasgow, it’ll give us the opportunity for supplementary business. It might be acts who maybe have done Hydro once and are then maybe doing a tour of secondary cities on the next tour. Or it could be people who have played at Academy-level and are not yet ready to step up to the Hydro, but they’re on an upward trajectory.”

Highlighting the incredible uptick in demand for live entertainment, Ellis says, “There’s a stat that there are on average at least seven gigs a night in Glasgow – proper gigs, not just bands playing for free in a bar. And that shows the strength of the local scene, both venue-wise and in ticket sales, because it means fans are prepared to go out on a Monday or Tuesday night to hear live music.

“In saying that, I think Scotland in general is still missing those all-standing venues of 4,000- to 5,000-cap. There’s still that gap for bands before they get to a Hydro-sized arena. But SEC is looking at the old halls in the main SEC building to see if they can be reused. And there’s also potential with the council’s Emirates Arena, which they want to make available for concerts as well as sports.”

“2025 is looking like a bumper year, and our stadium shows have done spectacular business”

Landmark Year
While celebrating 40 years in music has been a pleasing moment, Ellis is laser-focussed on making sure DF Concerts leads the way in what many professionals are claiming will be the busiest live music year on record.

Perusing a hectic 2025 schedule, Ellis is not at all phased by the congested calendar. “It’s always a good thing when availability is an issue,” he tells IQ. “If it’s an issue because there’s lots of concerts, then that’s good. But if availability is scarce because you’ve got a World Cup or European Championship or whatever, and you’re having to turn business away, that’s not so good. But 2025 is looking like a bumper year, and our stadium shows have done spectacular business – we sold out Lana Del Rey in a matter of hours. We expected it to sell out, but the speed of it was incredible. But she’s been away for a while, particularly from Scotland, and when you have an artist like Lana with that amount of depth in terms of the music, she appeals to a broad range of people.”

He continues, “The best thing I’ve witnessed recently is that despite the cost-of-living crisis that has hit fans financially, people have finally started to value live music, which for years, I don’t think was the case. People used to expect cheap ticket prices. But now, I think fans realise that a large proportion of the money goes on the costs of the artists putting on a great show, and that means they are more prepared to pay, because they know Lana Del Rey is going to put on a spectacular performance, for example, or Taylor Swift is going to be a great show. But it’s still a major part of what we do to keep ticket prices affordable by scaling them.”

However, it seems that in Scotland, the industry is getting that balance right. “We’re in a very healthy position, at the moment,” he says. “People never baulk at the prices for West End theatres, so it’s heartening to see a change in the way fans are acknowledging that prices for concert tickets are reasonable. The litmus test is ticket sales, and people are buying the tickets.”

“We sold 1.4m tickets, just in Scotland, in 2024”

Indeed, Ellis reports that across all sectors of business, DF Concerts had a record year in 2024. “We sold 1.4m tickets, just in Scotland,” he reveals. “We’re selling more tickets at club-level than ever, as there’s a rich vein of emerging artists coming through. But heritage acts are also selling well. The Charlatans, Shed Seven, and the Stranglers are great examples of bands who sell out every time. That’s encouraging to see because logically you might think the numbers would dwindle, but they’re not, so there must be new people coming to see them. The Kooks are a great example of a band that keep getting 16- to 18-year-olds coming to follow them.

“And of course, a lot of the Oasis sales were young people who have never seen the band before, so the fact they are appealing to a younger generation of people is great, because they obviously are not losing the older fans. So we’re really looking forward to those shows in August at Murrayfield.”

Professionalism
While a chunk of the credit for Scotland’s emergence as one of Europe’s most robust live music markets inevitably goes to Ellis and the DF Concerts team, other promoters in the country have also helped raise the level of the country’s stature on the international stage.

“It’s really competitive because it’s a small market with several national promoters. But a good gauge of how the business has grown is that there are now England-based promoters who do shows in Scotland as well. So you cannot low ball an offer, because there will be someone else who will step up. I don’t think anybody is constantly crossing swords, because there is plenty of business to go around. But it is competitive, and that helps the health of the overall market.”

“The newer promoters we’ve brought in, Chris Beltran, Chris Loomes, Ellen McEleney, are really motivated and hungry”

Nevertheless, it’s a friendly rivalry, as Ellis counts rival promoters Paul Cardow (PCL), Mark Mackie (Regular Music) and Donald MacLeod (Triple G Music) among his friends. What pleases Ellis the most, however, is the development of DF’s own promoting stable.

“The newer promoters we’ve brought in, Chris Beltran, Chris Loomes, Ellen McEleney, are really motivated and hungry; they’re bringing a freshness not just within the company but to the industry as a whole, and it’s gratifying to know we have a generation that is developing a whole swathe of new acts.

“It’s also good for the old guard like me, Dave Corbet, Dave McGeachan, and Craig Johnston (although I shouldn’t call Craig old), because we can help guide those people in our team while also benefitting from the fresh ideas they bring to the table.

“It’s definitely brought a vitality to DF in the last two or three years, and to see people like Chris Loomes doing his first Academy show; Ellen doing her first Barrowlands and Academy shows; and Chris Beltran having his first Hydro show with Fontaines D.C. and then The Snuts in the same week… it’s really positive for the future of DF and the future for Scotland’s music scene.”

He continues, “That’s now one of the things I really want to concentrate on – guiding these younger people to help develop their careers, teaching them the ethics of the business and impart what us older people have learned over the years. But I think because most of the staff have grown with the company, from doing King Tut’s bands and local bands, their own roster of acts is growing. I see that with Craig Johnston, who promotes Lewis Capaldi and Sam Fender, who can now do stadiums. It’s great to see the acts grow, but it’s equally as pleasing for me to see the people in our team grow as well.”

“I think this business is about always trying to stay ahead of the game”

The Future
After four decades in the business, Ellis is reticent to look back at past triumphs. Rather, he is focussed on the future of DF Concerts and ensuring the newest members of staff can also enjoy lengthy careers.

“I think this business is about always trying to stay ahead of the game,” he states. “You’re trying to make sure that you’re bringing through new artists all the time – that’s the key. It would be easy to say, ‘We’ve got a load of big artists now, so we can rest on our laurels.’ But that’s a very short-term view, and certainly myself and the senior staff at DF want to develop younger promoters and make sure there are new promoters joining us, too. Otherwise, us old folk would not be able to feed that pipeline of bringing new acts in development.”

Elsewhere, he says the company mulls over adding extra days to existing events like TRNSMT or using existing festival sites to do stan- dalone headline shows, using the same production infrastructure. “We just need to make sure we’ve got the right content to make that work. But with the solid team we now have in place, we’re able to constantly look for those new opportunities while realising that we cannot add dates to the calendar just for the sake of doing it – there needs to be a gap in the market and a need for it.

“So, the future, for me, will revolve heavily around investing in our teams to keep them young, fresh, and relevant, particularly in areas like marketing, where you have to keep on top of where things are going, be that TikTok or other relevant channels, depending on the show and the talent involved. And we’re lucky enough to have a pool of experienced people who can mentor people.

When you see the crowd really enjoying a show you organised, it gives you a great buzz”

“Bottom line is that we are trying to enhance what we already do well and service the artists much better. More than ever, we need to get in early and nurture the talent – finding out who is the next Last Dinner Party, the next Wet Leg? And making sure you’re supporting those acts early on. That’s where it’s good to be part of the Live Nation family, because that’s brought a lot of benefits to us; a lot of support, especially with US artists where we can deliver the Scottish leg of a global tour.”

On a personal level, Ellis says highlights so far in his career have included working with acts like Paul Simon and Stevie Nicks. “When you see the crowd really enjoying a show you organised, it gives you a great buzz. I just always want to be enjoying doing what I do and that hasn’t changed. It’s a privilege to work with the colleagues and the team that we have at DF Concerts – and our wider colleagues in Live Nation: Phil Bowdery, Stuart Douglas, Lynn Lavelle, Scott [Barton] at Cream, Sam Kandel, Melvin [Benn], Denis Desmond, John Reid, and everybody else.”

He adds that he and wife Fiona are watching what children Joe and Evie might do career-wise, with both perhaps following different routes into music and carrying the Ellis name forward. “Bottom line, of course, is that we just want them to be happy. But they’ve both helped out at festivals and are not afraid to get their hands dirty,” he says. “My daughter is very passionate about sustainability but is also really into artists – she’s tipped me off about a lot of great acts.

“My son, is writing a lot of songs and looks like a rock star, so I can definitely see him going down that songwriter route. Whether he ties in performance with it, we’ll see. But I would not be surprised if at some point we’re putting together a proposal to get him to do a show. And maybe my daughter is running that show…”

Read part one of Geoff Ellis:40 years in music here.

Geoff Ellis will appear at next week’s International Live Music Conference (ILMC) on The Open Forum: Setting The Course.

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In the decade since IQ last profiled Geoff Ellis, there have been some monumental moments in the Scottish live music business.

As part of that 2015 celebration of his 30th anniversary in music, Ellis spoke about his desire to launch more DF festivals, while taking its flagship event, T in the Park, to even greater heights as it trundled toward its 25th edition.

Unfortunately, fate – and frustrating bureaucracy – intervened, and T in the Park held its swansong 23rd gathering in 2016. But for the other half of his wish list, Ellis and his DF team can be
justifiably proud, establishing a number of successful outdoor extravaganzas that companies twice the size would be happy to boast.

“Our festival portfolio has grown significantly over the past decade,” says Ellis, naming TRNSMT, Connect Festival, Country to Country Glasgow, and Summer Sessions in the cities of Glasgow, Edinburgh, Stirling, and Dundee, among a slew of annual outdoor escapades.

As for T in the Park, Ellis remains sanguine about the festival’s legacy and the hugely successful event it went on to inspire. “T in the Park became one of the biggest festivals in the world,” he states. “We had a period where we could have sold out the capacity without announcing the lineup, but instead, we’d sell half the tickets up front and then do the second release once we announced the lineup. That way, we could be sure that we were getting the fans of the bands, as well as the fans of the festival.

“But everything has a shelf life, and the latter years of T were tough. But out of those lessons came TRNSMT, and a host of other new events, so we can all look back on T in the Park gratefully.”

“T in the Park became one of the biggest festivals in the world”

Early Years
Born in Ashton-under-Lyne, near Manchester, England, Ellis was raised in nearby Romiley by parents who had met in Scotland during the war. The youngest of four children, Geoff’s formative years were punctuated by the death of his older brother, Anthony, who was just 24 when he died while travelling in Australia, and his father leaving the family around the same time.

“Dad was a stone mason, and because I didn’t really know what I wanted to do for a career, working in construction seemed like a good option, so, aged 16, I enrolled at Stockport College to
do a diploma in building. That then led to a move to Coventry, where the plan was to complete a degree in building at Lanchester Polytechnic.

“I hated it,” states Ellis. “I definitely wasn’t meant to be a builder, and Coventry was a backwater at that time when it came to music.” But those depressing circumstances were to provide a
sea-change for the 19-year-old, who decided that a career involving the arts (with any luck, music) would be much more suited to his personality.

Middlesex Poly, on the outskirts of London, was to prove the turning point. Ellis began studying for a humanities degree, and while playing football one day, a classmate mentioned a job
working on the door at the students’ union.

“That’s where it all started,” recalls Ellis. “It wasn’t long before I was pasting up all the union’s posters around campus. Then I started writing gig reviews for the polytechnic newspaper and generally helping out when we had bands coming to the venue.”

“I turned a loss-making entertainment department into a profitable venture – probably because we couldn’t do a lot of gigs”

That hard work and willingness to muck in paid off when, in 1986, the Student Union entertainments manager departed and recommended that Ellis be his temporary replacement. But he liked the gig so much that he applied for the job and spent the remainder of his four years in Middlesex running a successful entertainments programme.

“I turned a loss-making entertainment department into a profitable venture – probably because we couldn’t do a lot of gigs,” he recalls. However, such tenacity hadn’t gone unnoticed, and Steve Parker and Ben Winchester at Miracle Artists contacted Ellis about a position at legendary London venue The Marquee. “Miracle had just taken on the booking contract, so I became booker for The Marquee,” he says.

But the remit had certain caveats. “The venue refused to do any promotion on the acts, and they never paid guarantees – only percentages,” reports Ellis. Working within such limited parameters was never going to be a long-term prospect, but Ellis used his time at The Marquee wisely, building a network of contacts that have served him well in the decades since departing London.

“I worked a lot of rock acts that I hadn’t done before, and I got to know agents like Rod MacSween, John Jackson, Paul Bolton, and Jeff Craft really well,” he says. Stepping away from The Marquee, he promoted house and indie club nights in London with Rob Ballantine, before hitting the road as a promoter’s rep for SJM with acts like The Mock Turtles, The Charlatans, and The Farm, to add another string to his bow.

“I think it’s because I got on so well with [Stuart’s] dogs that I landed the job [at DF Concerts]”

Heading North
Determined to find a full-time job in music, Ellis was on the lookout for something where he could properly demonstrate his skills, and when he spotted a Music Week job advert to run a venue in Glasgow, the planets came into alignment.

The venue was King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut, which had been launched in 1990 by DF Concerts founders Stuart and Judith Clumpas to great acclaim, providing an important stage for emerging talent eager to find fanbases to support their dreams.

“At my interview, Stuart had his two Labradors with him, and I think it’s because I got on so well with the dogs that I landed the job,” says Ellis. “To begin with, I worked out of the King Tut’s production office, which was more of a cupboard than an office, and I shared that with Texas tour manager Graham Cochrane, who was a chain-smoker. When people tell me that they need a bigger production office, I tell them that story.”

But the Clumpas ethos of looking after both the talent and the audience inspired Ellis, and he’s tried to evoke and improve that philosophy ever since across anything that DF has been involved with. “That nurturing spirit was the simple key to making King Tut’s such an internationally recognised club. And, to this day, everyone in the DF team has carried that on throughout everything the company does.”

Indeed, it was under the stewardship of Ellis that Tut’s became a venue of folklore, with Creation Records boss Alan McGee famously signing Oasis on the back of witnessing their performance at the club in May 1993.

“We put together a lineup with three or four acts who we knew would sell tickets, rather than one big headliner”

T-Time
It’s perhaps as his role of promoter of T in the Park that Ellis first came to prominence in Scotland. It began in 1993, a year after he first arrived in Glasgow, when Ellis found himself involved in talks about a major new festival, as DF Concerts sought to cement its claim to being Scotland’s leading live events promoter. “We had meetings with Tennent’s brewery, and we looked at a bunch of potential sites before deciding to launch T in the Park festival, in July 1994, at Strathclyde Park,” Ellis recalls.

The move was embraced by the music industry at large because, at the time, the UK only really had Glastonbury and Reading festivals as annual events. “We were working with agents from our generation who we knew already, and we put together a lineup with three or four acts who we knew would sell tickets, rather than one big headliner,” Ellis explains of the original lineup, which included Rage Against The Machine, Primal Scream, Blur, Crowded House, Björk, Oasis, and Cypress Hill.

Despite pulling in just 35,000 visitors across the two days – and losing money – T in the Park caught the imagination of Scottish music fans, as well as giving the nation’s youth that rite-of-passage gathering that had been missing for so many generations.

By year three, T in the Park was sold out and profitable, and the DF hierarchy made the decision to move the event north to Balado Airfield – a relocation exercise that cemented the brand as a festival for Scotland, rather than a Glasgow event. T revelled in its Balado home for 17 editions, until the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) objected to its licence because of an oil and gas pipeline that ran beneath the site.

“The HSE’s argument was, ‘It’s less safe if you do it again.’ My response was that, by their theory, if I keep asking Claudia Schiffer to dinner, eventually she will say yes. But they didn’t understand. What they said was that there was a one in a four-and-a-half-million-year risk that the pipeline would rupture and explode. What I was saying was that the risk remains the same each year – it does not increase on a yearly basis.

“Also, the same pipeline runs beneath Aberdeen Airport, and also has a school on it – and there are obviously people in that school and the airport every day – but HSE hasn’t shut down the school or the airport, so you have to ask why? The HSE issue was that the magnitude of the risk was unthinkable, rather than the risk being remotely possible. So the HSE had made up its mind and would not budge on Balado.”

“T had its time, and we knew we needed to make a decision”

Beak Spot
With the HSE intransigent in its approach, T in the Park’s organisers were determined to sign off from their beloved long-term home with a bang. The 2014 headliners were Arctic Monkeys, Biffy Clyro, and Calvin Harris, while other acts on the bill included Pixies, Ed Sheeran, Paolo Nutini, Paul Weller, The Human League, Pharrell Williams, Ellie Goulding, Tinie Tempah, Franz Ferdinand, Elbow, and James.

“The last year at Balado, we did such a great job, marketing-wise, to say goodbye to the site – and we had an 85,000-capacity sell-out.” But T’s relocation to Strathallan Castle was the beginning of the end, with rare birds of prey proving to be an unexpected obstacle.

“The move was significant – it was really challenging,” says Ellis. “Localised traffic issues and licence conditions that were put on us, because of the osprey, were enormous. And ironically, the osprey flourished when the festival was on – both years, they had chicks, and that doesn’t happen all the time. But the exclusion zone around the birds made it difficult to run the festival because it restricted some areas of movement. For instance, we had to do pick-ups and drop-offs for fans and campers farther away than we wanted, and it became a really hard event for people to go to.

“With hindsight, I think the council were scared of upsetting the objectors, who were very small in number but very vocal. Otherwise, the community in general was very supportive of the
event, but it just became so difficult that it was untenable. Also, I think also people over the age of 20 no longer wanted a camping festival as much as they had done previously in Scotland. So, T had its time, and we knew we needed to make a decision.”

As a result, T in the Park’s final edition was held in 2016, leaving Scotland bereft of a major summer festival. But not for long…

“With TRNSMT, there’s a healthy influx of people – some of whom might go to a nightclub afterwards or a late drink somewhere”

New Focus
Rather than leave a gaping hole in the calendar, Ellis decided that a new festival format was required for 2017. “We had to reinvent what we did, and we knew we had Glasgow Green sitting there – the biggest metropolitan site in the country, which is easily accessible with public transport. And the advantage of that is that you no longer need a campsite.”

In January 2017, DF Concerts launched TRNSMT, alerting fans that it would be staged over three days in July in the city centre park, and Radiohead being the first act to confirm. “It’s great for Glasgow – where the majority of the T in the Park fans came from – but we’ve found that people from all over come to TRNSMT, too,” observes Ellis. “If you’re coming from Newcastle or Preston or Aberdeen, you get off the train in either Central Station or Queen Street Station, and it’s pretty much a ten-minute walk to the main stage.”

And the event has the support of the city’s commercial sector, too. “All the businesses in Glasgow used to moan about the T in the Park weekend because there was such a migration out of the city. Whereas with TRNSMT, there’s a healthy influx of people – some of whom might go to a nightclub afterwards or a late drink somewhere. But people are staying in hotels, Airbnbs,
or whatever, so there’s a real economic boost.

“And we’ve made it flexible, rather than forcing everyone to commit to all three days. The result is that sometimes the Friday and Sunday combined ticket sells more than Friday and Saturday, depending on the lineup.”

“We resurrected Connect Festival, which we paused last year mainly because of headliner availability”

More Festivals
As for Geoff’s 2015 ambition to extend the reach of DF Concerts in the festival business, despite the loss of T in the Park, that mission has been well and truly accomplished. “We resurrected Connect Festival, which we paused last year mainly because of headliner availability,” he tells IQ.

“We had two years of Connect at the Royal Highland Showgrounds in Edinburgh, and by that second year, the numbers had increased quite a bit. We built it with the TRNSMT kind of model in mind – embracing the original Connect Festival ethos.

“So, when it returns, we’ll probably do the same thing over two or three days, depending on if there are acts available that fit the Connect kind of vibe. Like TRNSMT, it’s not a camping festival, albeit we did do boutique camping for about 1,000 people with yurts and huts and stuff.”

Another successful expansion to DF Concerts’ outdoor portfolio also uses that Royal Highland Showgrounds location – the Edinburgh Summer Sessions series of gigs. “We lost our original site at Princes Street Gardens because the potential rock fall from beneath the castle meant that we were prevented from using trucks to do the load-in. Of course, if we were able to secure the rock, it would have been a different story. So, we were forced to give up using that site. But the opportunity to use the Royal Highland Showgrounds meant we could cater for 27,000 people, rather than the 6,000 that we could do in Princes Street Gardens, so that allows us to do bigger acts – Paulo Nutini and The Killers in 2023, for instance.”

“We’ve not announced Edinburgh Summer Sessions, but we’ve got some heavy hitters in the pipeline for this year”

As for 2025’s Edinburgh Summer Sessions, he says, “We’ve not announced the programme, but we’ve got some heavy hitters in the pipeline for this year. And the site works so well because it’s got a lot of infrastructure already there – there’s lots of roads going through, there are permanent toilets and shower blocks.”

The Summer Sessions also set up shop in the likes of Dundee, Stirling, and Glasgow. Of the latter, Ellis comments, “It just made sense to consolidate more shows into Bellahouston Park for
Glasgow Summer Sessions. Last year, it was just one show with Green Day, whereas in 2025, we’re on sale with four shows: Punk All Dayer, Sting, Simple Minds, and Stereophonics.”

And always bearing carbon footprint in mind, Ellis has worked diligently to make sure that certain production equipment can be used for both Summer Sessions and TRNSMT. “We can use the same stage on both sites to make both events more sustainable. The events cannot overlap, but by scheduling them close together, we get the benefit of the stage being in Scotland, and it’s not a big mileage – it’s five miles – to transport between sites, which also means you can use the same crews, more or less, in both places.”

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IQ 133, the 156-page, biggest-ever issue of the international live music industry’s leading magazine, is available to read online now.

With the International Live Music Conference (ILMC) fast approaching, the February 2025 issue reveals the full agenda for the sold-out 37th edition.

ITB co-founder Barry Dickins is honoured as part of The Architects – a new series celebrating the pioneers who built the foundations for the modern global business – and DF Concerts chief Geoff Ellis celebrates 40 years in the business.

The bumper edition also looks at the growing influence of African artists, legislative moves internationally to tackle resale, and the growing trend of artists broadcasting concert films.

Readers can enjoy a behind-the-scenes look at James Blunt’s anniversary tour 20 Years of Bedlam and a report on the trucking and freight forwarding industry. Elsewhere, the shrinking nature of tour routings is investigated and there is an in-depth report into the Italian live music industry.

For comments & columns, Ross Patel makes a case for everyone to battle the climate crisis while Jess Partridge argues against withholding tax rules.

A selection of magazine content will appear online in the next four weeks but to ensure your fix of essential live music industry features, opinion and analysis, click here to subscribe to IQ – or check out what you’re missing out on with the limited preview below:

As one of the biggest arena acts on the planet, The 1975 have been making headlines wherever they go for the past 20 years. Having just brought the curtain down on their third consecutive year on the road, their fanbase continues to grow, making their efforts to rewrite the rulebooks on sustainable touring all the more impressive. Derek Robertson learns just what it takes to take such a cultural phenomenon on the road.

Can you have too much of a good thing? Clearly, The 1975 think not. For an A-list arena band, they have been remarkably prolific – aside from releasing an album every two years since 2016, they’ve also toured behind them relentlessly: 18 months and 150 shows for I Like It When You Sleep, For You Are So Beautiful Yet So Unaware Of It; a 24-month world tour behind Music For Cars; and a seven-leg, 96-date stint doing their At Their Very Best show. And barely a month after that wrapped on the 13th of August 2023, they were back on the road in Atlanta starting Still… At Their Very Best – another 66-date, worldwide jaunt – in support of their fifth studio album, Being Funny In A Foreign Language.

Even taking into account the enforced breaks during the pandemic, that’s quite a workload – particularly when you consider some of the bands’ struggles with mental health and the pernicious effects of fame. Yet manager Jamie Oborne says that after the Music For Cars tour was interrupted by lockdowns (while first rescheduled, the remaining shows for that tour were ultimately cancelled), “we collectively had a desire to tour, and Matty (Healy, frontman) was very excited about doing a show that was ‘different’ to what people expected or had seen in an arena before. It felt like the right time to get back on the road.”

Work it real good
“The boys love to work,” says Maarten Cobbaut, tour manager. “The first real break they had from their intense schedule was the pandemic, but within a week of restrictions being lifted and everything, they were back in the studio working on new music. They are just so passionate about what they do and put so much of themselves into the music and these shows.”

And these shows for Still… At Their Very Best are, unsurprisingly, fairly close in terms of concept, setup, and logistics as the At Their Very Best show. “An evolution, not a revolution,” as Oborne puts it. “It was part of the same cycle, but so much had happened since the tour commenced that Matty felt a creative need to highlight this evolution. The plan was always to use this tour cycle to market Being Funny In A Foreign Language, so we didn’t really see it as two separate tours.”

“The Finsbury Park show sold out instantly, and it was clear the fanbase was still growing on this cycle”

“Both UK runs were all part of the global touring for Being Funny In A Foreign Language, and weren’t seen as separate projects,” adds Matt Bates of Primary Talent, the band’s agent. “Of course, the first run was billed as At Their Very Best, with the second run having a slightly different name, but they very much coexisted together. And there was a lot of demand – the Finsbury Park show sold out instantly, and it was clear the fanbase was still growing on this cycle.”

Treading the boards
The show itself was certainly “different” – both from what you’d expect from an arena band and from their previous bombastic show for Music For Cars. That tour was “really big and ambitious,” says creative director and show designer Tobias Rylander. “We really went for size and technology with massive LED screens and automated cubes. But for At Their Very Best and Still… At Their Very Best, we wanted to be very analogue – Matty wanted the show and design to be more personal and really show them as a band.”

Healy is, says Rylander, always very conceptual in the approach for each era and tour. While the design for the previous tour reflected social media and internet behaviour, “This time around Matty wanted the show and design to be more personal and show them as a band,” explains Rylander.

“Matty wanted it to reflect their history as friends and a group, while also focussing on them as a live act and musicians. He wanted the stage to reflect how they recorded this last album live, together in the studio. He knew he wanted a house, and some sort of living room. And he wanted it to be focusing on the I-mag camera. No video content: just live camera. That’s how I started to design and look at the house. To always have a good background and setting for the camera shots.

“We looked at anything from Ingmar Bergman to Steven Spielberg for inspiration and references,” adds Rylander; Stanley Kubrick and avant-garde theatre were other touchstones (one review described the show as being: “part performance art, part stage play, part Charlie Kaufman movie about a rock star in crisis.”)

“I always remain amazed by the creative ideas of Matty and the band”

Our house
The design eventually started to take on a life of its own as it developed – it literally became Matty’s “home,” housing his memories. “It’s monochromatic and anonymous at the same time; it can reflect and take the shape of anyone’s childhood memories or their new memories leaving the show,” says Rylander. “It’s a very inviting and inclusive set.”

The first half of the show has almost no “effect” lighting and looks more like classic theatre than a rock show. “That’s something we’ve never done before, and something that’s not very common these days – I think we are the only rock band tour out there that brings a whole ‘Broadway’ set,” says Rylander.

And for the second leg of the tour, they kept all the theatrical parts and added a large, curved video screen behind the set that allowed them to add set extensions and environmental backgrounds. “We could go from night to day in a very beautiful way, but also play some really fantastic bits of video content reflecting older tours and eras from the past,” he adds. “And using the upstage video screen as a theatrical set extension like we do – I don’t think I have seen that on stage before.”

“I always remain amazed by the creative ideas of Matty and the band,” says Matt Bates. “The show was brilliant theatre while not losing the ethos of what makes the band so special in the first place. It truly showed a band at the top of their game creatively and musically, and, in their own words, ‘at their very best.’”

Boys on film
As noted above, video – shot live and intimately – was key to the whole look and feel of the show. Head of video Ed Lawlor has been with The 1975 since 2016 and was tasked with turning concept into reality while ensuring the solution was practical enough for a world tour. “We didn’t want to compromise on providing the best IMAG show possible for the budget – the design brief was ‘cinematic’ – so it was an easy decision to focus on one thing and do it well,” he says.

“It was clear early on that the band and management wanted larger than normal IMAG screens, and we wanted the classic projection look rather than LED”

“It was clear early on that the band and management wanted larger than normal IMAG screens, and we wanted the classic projection look rather than LED. On the initial US tour, we specified two Panasonic PT-RZ31K projectors per side on a 24’ Stumpfl screen from PRG rental stock, which was the largest off-the-shelf option available,” he adds. “On returning a year later to larger venues, the management requested a bigger option – at that point, we commissioned a 32’ Stumpfl screen, which was the largest practical option in a fast-fold product. This required an increase to 3x PT-RZ31K per side, which is the brightest arena IMAG projection I’ve heard of in a while.”

As for the cameras, Lawlor decided to do 3G well rather than 4K on the cheap, so specified four Sony HDC-2500 channels and a Ross Carbonite 2 M/E PPU from PRG UK. This was augmented with four Panasonic AW-UE160 and an RP150 control panel, with additional fixed shots from Marshall CV503-WPs.

Screen time
Those IMAG screens are very much larger than normal for arena touring, and so Lawlor and his crew worked closely with both PRG and AV Stumpfl to find a solution that allowed for rear projection in a fast-fold type frame with no central member that would obscure the beam. PRG have also been working with The 1975 since 2016 and, says Stefaan Michels, sales director for PRG UK, “our partnership has grown stronger over the years – we’ve fostered a close relationship with their tour and production management team, and one that extends beyond their time on the road.”

PRG’s brief was scalability, and the integration of new equipment tailored specifically for this production. Michels had to ensure the duplication of rig setups between Europe and the US, as well as customising equipment to meet the tour’s unique requirements. “Implementing A-B-C rig configurations was essential for maximising efficiency and flexibility throughout the tour,” he says, “and we made specific equipment choices based on detailed specifications provided.”

For example, one significant consideration was the need for different sizes of projection screens to suit the dimensions of various venues. For larger arena shows in the US and UK, they incorporated a large USC Hi Res LED wall to deliver high-resolution visuals that could effectively engage the audience across expansive spaces. Additionally, custom-made, large projection screens equipped with additional 31K laser projectors were also used, particularly in venues with specific lighting conditions or sightline challenges.

“We had to come up with a system that kept Matty safe but also ensured that, if the worst happened, it was safe for a rescuer to go out and assist”

Another specific choice was the decision to utilise Ereca Stage Racer 2s, a decision driven by the need to minimise the deployment of copper cabling on a daily basis. “This choice not only reduces setup time but also enhances flexibility, allowing for swift adjustments as tour requirements evolve, as they inevitably do over the course of an extensive tour like this one,” says Michels. “Moving multiple 3G video signals even over medium distances caused problems on the first leg of the tour, as it required coaxial cable to be both modern and in good condition, which is a challenge to maintain on tour when local labour is in use,” adds Lawlor. “This was another factor in the decision to adopt the Stage Racer 2s.”

Hanging about
All in all, this setup provided a modest challenge for head rigger Simon Lawrence – “simply 120 points going to the roof and a relatively small weight of 50 tonnes.” But there was one area of concern – at one point, Healy climbs upon onto the roof of the “house” to perform a song, on top of the front apex. “Like any artist, Matty wants to be as free as possible when performing, and initially, he felt he should have no safety systems at all, but when he is nearly six metres up in the air above the stage, this is not possible,” says Lawrence. “So we had to come up with a system that kept Matty safe but also ensured that, if the worst happened, it was safe for a rescuer to go out and assist.”

Rounding out the suppliers, All Access provided the front of house mix position stage (a B stage set piece) and built a custom lift for this, while TAIT provided a TAIT Mag Deck rolling house stage. “The Mag Deck design incorporates magnetic corner blocks for alignment and a shear keyway to reduce the number of legs needed to support the decking structure,” says Bullet,
TAIT’s business development manager – UK. “This reduced the amount of product that needed to travel on the road and the time needed to load in and load out, ultimately saving on costs.”

On the road again
Moving all this around was the responsibility of Natasha Highcroft, director of Transam Trucking. “We supplied 15 low-ride height production trucks, plus one merchandise truck for the UK, and eight production trucks plus one merchandise truck for the European leg of the tour, all superbly handled by our lead driver, David Isted,” she says. “As with most tours, keeping to the EU legislation on drivers’ hours and statutory weekly rest periods can prove difficult when parking and access is restricted. Fortunately, with an understanding production and accommodating promoters, we were able to facilitate breaks whilst keeping to budget.”

Bussing was provided by Beat The Street; in total, they ran four 16-berth double-deck Setra’s for the crew and two 12-berth Van Hool Super-highdeckers for the band. “Plotting band bus moves can be a bit of a challenge when day drivers are mixed in with overnight drivers, as it becomes difficult to get the drivers their required weekly breaks,” says Garry Lewis, the company’s transport manager. “So, it was agreed to add a second driver to each band bus, which gave us the flexibility to make it work as seamlessly as possible for the band party.”

“Our focus, as a community of creatives, is always to try and limit the negative impact touring has on the environment”

Sustainability has long been an issue dear to the band’s heart, and on this tour, they were determined to do all they could to lessen its carbon footprint and impact on the environment. “The set design put a real focus on the structural elements being reusable or recyclable, and many of the items that make up the set-build will end up back in stock at the supplier end – this is quite unique,” says Oborne. “Our focus, as a community of creatives, is always to try and limit the negative impact touring has on the environment. It’s by no means a perfect solution, but we are pretty committed to chipping away at our impact on the environment.”

Indeed, the modular nature of the set is something of a first. “It’s a renewable scenic technology, and this is the first time this product has been taken out for a live touring show,” says production manager Josh Barnes. “We wanted something that would really give us the aesthetic finish that we were looking for, in terms of being robust and feeling like the walls are actually the walls of a house and not just a flimsy, flat set. But also, be something that could be transported in the most sustainable, cost-effective way possible and be renewed or recycled at the end of the campaign.”

He goes on: “We ended up partnering up with PRG scenic through their Belgium and Las Vegas offices and worked with them on creating the house out of a product called InfiniForm – basically, it’s a 50 x 50 mil aluminium box section that allows you to cut it and add corners, reels, braces, fixings, or whatever you need. Then, once the frames are made, they were clad in aluminium honeycomb, which is a lightweight, hard-wearing wall surface.

“And, at the end of the campaign, they’re just going to be stripped back into component parts and used by the next project. There’s no ongoing storage needed, and there’s no waste in terms of bits and pieces that would just normally get thrown away if it were a custom build.”

This also meant that the band was able to drop their air freight requirements from 40 pallets down to just 17 for the entire show. Coupled with the decision to carry a smaller production around mainland Europe, requiring only eight trucks instead of 16, this allowed the production team to significantly cut the tour’s carbon footprint and make some impressive cost savings.

“One of the things that we’ve really focussed on for this tour is crew welfare, and trying to look after people’s mental health”

Take a break
Looking after the planet is a noble endeavour, but the band are also at pains to look after people – specifically, their people. “One of the things that we’ve really focussed on for this tour is crew welfare, and trying to look after people’s mental health,” says Barnes. This effort started before the tour even hit the road – after rehearsals, several training days were scheduled with an American organisation called Safe Tour, covering topics such as wellness on the road, mental health first aid, pronoun training, and some bystander intervention training. “It was really beneficial to everybody involved in the project to set them up for success on what was, and still is, quite a long run,” he adds.

Crew rest was another priority, something that’s always a struggle given the nature of long days on the road. “Getting the right amount of rest between shows is really important,” says Barnes. To that end, they’ve been careful not to set loading times for arrival or very early in the morning, instead choosing “about an hour after we expect to arrive, to give the crew enough time to actually plan their mornings. We can also adjust show and door times as well, to assist if we need to leave slightly earlier one night or start later the next day.”

The quality of crew rest has been improved, too. “So not just a single day off where you arrive at a hotel, but a day where you can sleep in a bed and not set an alarm,” says Barnes. “Effectively, two days off, or one full day off, every few weeks – that was a real win being able to work that into the schedule.” Hotels are pre-booked, so people can access their rooms direct on arrival at 10am or whenever and are required to have a number of amenities to help the crew unwind; a gym, a sauna, a pool, spaces to relax, and convenient access to nature, parks, or wildlife. “Options beyond just sitting in a bar drinking.”

And this emphasis on physical health extends to the available food, with nutritionally balanced meals available on the buses and through catering, plus plenty of non-alcoholic beverages and 0% beers. Crew members can make individual food choices through an app, and while the band themselves tour with a personal trainer to keep them in shape, things like being able to walk to a venue from the hotel, and that downtime is actually downtime, are prioritised. “These things help in a number of ways – it’s financial, it’s sustainability, and it’s improving welfare,” adds Barnes. “They’re all important aspects to us.”

Much in demand
As one of the most popular acts of the new millennium, the band is in tune with its global fanbase, striving to make its touring activities as sustainable as possible and speaking out on issues on behalf of underrepresented communities. An infamous onstage kiss in Malaysia between Healy and bassist Ross McDonald last July continues to have repercussions, but that hasn’t stopped promoters internationally from booking the act.

“We sold out four O2 Arena shows this time, plus 40,000 tickets on this album campaign in the UK alone”

Unsurprisingly, given the stature and popularity of the band, Still… has been a roaring commercial success, too, with sold-out shows all across the globe. “We sold out four O2 Arena shows this time, plus 40,000 tickets on this album campaign in the UK alone,” says Bates. “Their fanbase continues to grow year on year, and while that does make the tours easier to sell, we like to launch the show with significant marketing for the first announcement,” says Luke Temple of SJM Concerts. Both Arena Birmingham and the two Manchester dates sold out in a weekend; Temple says the plan was always to do two at the latter, “but I’ve no doubt they could have sold out a few more.”

It was a similar story north of the border, in Glasgow. “The band played Glasgow Hydro in January 2023, then headlined TRNSMT Festival in July 2023,” says Dave McGeachan of DF Concerts. “We were thinking we would leave Glasgow off the 2024 tour, but we decided to add a show at the OVO Hydro. Then we had to add a second night due to demand, which also sold out – quite incredible sales within 13 months.”

In Sweden, the band sold out Stockholm’s Tele2 Arena – “their biggest show in our territory yet,” says Natalie Ryan-Williams of Luger. “Over the years, their fanbase has expanded, and with them being the phenomenon they now are, we knew people were going to travel in from all over Sweden – and even some internationally.”

The possibility of multiple shows in Spain was considered, but, says Cindy Castillo of Mad Cool, venue availabilities and logistical constraints prevented it. “The demand was certainly there, indicating the band’s strong draw in this area,” she says.

Two nights were possible at Amsterdam’s AFAS Live – even if they were nearly a month apart – and, says Friendly Fire’s Roel Coppen, “they were the band’s fastest-selling arena headline shows to date. They played Best Kept Secret in 2023, but we had no issues with these new dates – we could cater to different audiences with different shows within 12 months.”

“You can just about see anyone attending a The 1975 show nowadays – they really attract people from all backgrounds and generations”

Even in more developing territories, these shows have really connected to local fans. “The situation in continental Europe is quite different from the UK, especially in Central Europe,” says Anna Vašátková, head of marketing and PR for Rock For People in Czechia. “The band isn’t played on the radio very often and there’s not as much media coverage, so we’ve had to do all the heavy lifting ourselves. We did quite a massive marketing campaign, including outdoor, radio spots, and extensive use of online media.”

Coppen also noted something else on this run – a broadening of their fanbase. “I do see there’s been a steady, growing interest from other demographic groups and also journalists have been getting more excited about the band in recent years,” he says. Ryan-Williams has noticed something similar. “You can just about see anyone attending a The 1975 show nowadays – they really attract people from all backgrounds and generations, which is a beautiful thing to see.”

“The 1975’s appeal spans various age groups and genders, and their music has definitely attracted a diverse audience transcending age and gender boundaries,” adds Castillo. “It resonates with listeners across generations, from teenagers to older adults, probably thanks to its relatable themes and catchy melodies.”

Success is no accident
Beyond the accolades and acclaim, beyond the facts and figures, this tour has been a resound- ing success. And not just for the legions of happy fans. Everyone IQ speaks to has high praise for the way the band and their team have gone about everything and how they treat all those who encounter them. “Over the years, The 1975 has evolved into more than just a client; they have become like a second family to me,” says Michels. “The professionalism, collaboration, and welcoming spirit displayed by everyone involved transcend mere business relationships.”

“It is always our pleasure to work with The 1975, their production, and their management teams,” says Meegan Holmes of 8th Day Sound, a sentiment echoed by Roy Hunt, Christie Lites’ global account manager. “Every individual involved has demonstrated a high level of professionalism, commitment, and passion that has made this journey memorable,” he says. “The synergy between the band and the crew created an atmosphere of mutual respect and cooperation, while management has been nothing short of supportive, ensuring a seamless and enjoyable tour. Overall, it has been a remarkable experience that speaks volumes about the dedication and talent of everyone involved.”

Fittingly though, band manager Oborne attributes the success to all of those who work so hard to make the shows happen – and who help the band shine. “When I think about The 1975 touring, I can’t help but think about how dedicated and committed to the show our crew are,” he says. “The professionalism and dedication are something we simply could not be without. I am very grateful to all those behind the scenes who turn up day in day out and make the entire thing work. It’s quite something to witness.”

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Chappell Roan’s agents and promoters have spoken to IQ about managing the live campaign behind the world’s fastest-rising artist.

The 26-year-old pop star (real name Kayleigh Rose Amstutz) released her debut album, The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess, in September 2023 but its commercial breakthrough didn’t come till almost a year later.

In the UK, the record slid into the charts in April this year at number 68 before a 17-week ascent to No.1 at the start of August. In her native US, it only hit peak position on the Billboard 200 chart last month.

Despite the record’s slow burn, her live team had no doubts that the Missouri-born star would get the recognition she deserved.

“It was only a matter of time before the world caught up with Chappell,” says Wasserman Music’s Adele Slater and Anna Bewers, who represent the artist alongside their US colleagues Jackie Nalpant and Kiely Mosiman.

The combination of Roan’s ‘campy-pop’ theatrical shows and a savvy live strategy helped to bring the ‘sleeper hit’ album to life.

“It was only a matter of time before the world caught up with Chappell”

“She started the year supporting Olivia Rodrigo across the US and really connected with her audience,” the agents continue. “Then she went straight onto Coachella and then with each festival appearance throughout the US, she gained traction, upgrading all her headline US dates.

“At Gov Ball, she emerged from a half-eaten apple in full Statue of Liberty drag as an homage to NYC, and then built up to the biggest audience ever seen on an afternoon slot at Lolla Chicago. The exposure gained from these festival appearances, and the growing loyal, global fan base showed what a force of nature she is.”

These live shows were matched by her performance in the charts, with multiple singles from …Midwest Princess skidding into the top 10.

With the world finally paying attention to Roan, the promoters of her already-underway second headline tour The Midwest Princess Tour were faced with the task of satiating ballooning demand.

“I’ve worked with a lot of overseas artists from the start of their careers but I don’t think I’ve worked on an artist who has blown up like Chappell Roan,” Luke Temple, promoter at SJM Concerts, tells IQ.

“I first heard her music back in 2020. Some of the singles released that year get some of the biggest reactions at the live shows. With her 2023 …Midwest Princess album and multiple singles being in the top 10 for the past four months this year, it shows what an unconventional campaign this has been….very much driven by people being exposed to her songs and falling in love with them. It’s great to see.”

“I’ve worked with a lot of overseas artists from the start of their careers but I don’t think I’ve worked on an artist who has blown up like Chappell Roan”

Having promoted Roan since her very first UK show, Temple is well-versed in adapting to her ever-growing fanbase.

“Our first show on-sale with Chappell was at Colours (300 capacity) in June 2023 and this was quickly upgraded to The Garage (600 Cap),” he remembers. “Fifteen months later we’ve shifted 14,000 tickets [to the Brixton Academy shows] in a heartbeat. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen that sort of increase in demand.”

Temple is referring to the star’s three sold-out nights at the 4,921-capacity Brixton Academy in London – a major upgrade from the single show at the 5,300-capacity Hammersmith Apollo that was initially scheduled.

“Normally when rescheduling dates and moving venues you expect fans to be unhappy but I think from the moment she played in the UK, Chappell has built a strong connection with her fans,” says Temple.

“The fans are on the journey with her and from reading her socials, when these dates rescheduled, they understood why they moved and the shows went smoothly with very limited refunds. However, satisfying the huge demand is clearly going to be a challenge going forward.”

“Chappell’s meteoric rise this summer has been nothing short of exhilarating”

DF Concerts’ Ellen McEleney had a similar experience when booking Roan’s only Scotland show, which ended up at O2 Academy Glasgow.

“Chappell’s meteoric rise this summer has been nothing short of exhilarating,” she tells IQ. “The original Scottish show was due to be in a 600-cap room, but due to the incredible demand, we upgraded it twice. Ultimately we settled on O2 Academy Glasgow (2,500), ensuring more fans could be accommodated. I had tried to see if we had the possibility of adding more dates in Scotland, but scheduling constraints limited us to a single show. It’s safe to say this was the hottest ticket in Scotland for 2024.”

McEleney says that closely monitoring fan reactions and social media trends allowed the DF team to be proactive and secure venue upgrades well in advance to meet the overwhelming demand for her shows.

Even with upgraded concerts across the board, demand for Roan’s highly anticipated shows has far outstripped the supply. As a result, a batch of tickets to her US concerts ended up in the hands of scalpers – but not for long.

The singer and her team cancelled “all the scalper tickets we could” before returning them to the market for fans to purchase.

“Due to the lack of regulations in the US, artists have very little control over ensuring tickets on the primary platform go to actual fans at the prices approved by artists and their team,” her US team at Wasserman Music explained.

“Secondary brokers who purchase for high-demand shows make large profits by exploiting fans on secondary ticketing sites but unfortunately that practice is largely not illegal. Ideally, we would have more control in the first place but until then we do feel cancelling obviously fraudulent purchases and re-selling them to actual fans with the help of a request system is the best path forward.”

“Every show is themed to create an all-embracing and devoted community into Chappell’s world, where everyone is welcome”

As McEleney points out: “A rapid rise like this brings challenges such as managing high demand and addressing issues like secondary market touts, which Chappell herself has always been incredibly vocal about protecting her fans from.”

Indeed, Chappell’s close relationship with her fans has gone from strength to strength as the star has gained traction.

“Witnessing Chappell’s intimate interactions with her fans during meet-and-greets and the excitement surrounding her exclusive merchandise, and of course, seeing 2,500 people performing the H-O-T-T-O-G-O dance, was one of the best moments of my career to date,” adds McEleney. “It’s been a privilege to be a part of her journey and we cannot wait to have her back to Scotland.”

Wasserman Music’s Slater and Bewers concludes: “From the start she has been conscious about making the shows as inclusive as possible, including gender-neutral bathrooms and accessibility for all, we want to ensure all fans feel safe and respected at every show. She creates a platform for local drag queens to open, and every show is themed to create an all-embracing and devoted community into Chappell’s world, where everyone is welcome.”

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DF Concerts boss Geoff Ellis has addressed TRNSMT’s decision to ban single-use vapes and reflected on the Scottish festival’s ongoing efforts to improve the gender balance of its lineups.

In a new interview ahead of this weekend’s 50,000-cap event on Glasgow Green, Ellis says fans will also be prohibited from taking in flags, glass and selfie sticks.

“It’s purely from a sustainability point of view in the same way that we’ve banned plastic on site as well,” he tells the BBC. “We try to do what we can in terms of sustainability and we try to encourage the audience to do the same.”

Single-use vapes are already banned at events such as Glastonbury, with the Scottish government also planning to ban the sale and supply of the electronic devices in the country by 1 April next year due to environmental concerns.

“If you get the message out there to people, people listen,” adds Ellis. “If you tell them not to bring stuff, they tend not to bring them. We’ve got a fairly rigorous searching system at the gate with the stewards anyway.”

“I think all festivals do what they can to improve gender balance and at TRNSMT this year, we’ve actually over 50% of acts that identify as female”

TRNSMT, which runs from 12-14 July, has faced frequent criticism for booking non-diverse lineups in the past and will again feature three all-male headliners this year – Liam Gallagher, Gerry Cinnamon and Calvin Harris.

Other artists will include Garbage, Courteeners. Chase & Status, The Snuts, Rick Astley, Tom Grennan, Declan McKenna, Dylan John Thomas, Blossoms, Sugababes, Natasha Bedingfield, Alison Goldfrapp, Lauren Spencer Smith and The Vaccines. While only seven out of the 24 acts on the main stage feature women, the gender split across the wider bill is close to even.

“All three headline acts are male acts, there’s no denying that,” says Ellis. “But I think all festivals do what they can to improve gender balance and at TRNSMT this year, we’ve actually over 50% of acts that identify as female.

“It’s not the three headliners so there’s still work to be done, and work to be done with developing artists. Gerry Cinnamon played the very first TRNSMT on the King Tut’s stage and now he’s headlining this year.

“We’ve got people like Dylan John Thomas and The Snuts coming through on a very similar path as well. It’s very important to help develop new artists.”

“We are really happy with how the inaugural Stirling Summer Sessions went”

Elsewhere, DF is toasting the successful debut of its Summer Sessions in Stirling, which recently joined Edinburgh and Glasgow as hosts of the annual concert series in Scotland.  Held at the foot of Stirling Castle, Stirling City Park, from 27 June to 2 July, acts included Shania Twain, Tom Jones, James Arthur, Busted and Young Fathers.

Stirling’s Business Improvement District reports its footfall data showed a 51.1% increase in visitors over the duration of the event, with local businesses reporting substantial sales growth.

“We are really happy with how the inaugural Stirling Summer Sessions went,” says Ellis. “Hosting such a huge line-up – including the incredible Shania Twain, who played to over 20,000 enthusiastic fans after her memorable Legends Slot at Glastonbury – was truly a highlight for everyone involved and something very special for the area.

“The setting of Stirling City Park, in the shadow of the historic Stirling Castle, provided the perfect backdrop for a great few days of live music.

“We are incredibly thankful to the fans who attended for their energy and passion, and also extend our gratitude to the people of Stirling and all our stakeholders for their unwavering support and dedication, which were instrumental in making this event a success.”

“The industry is seeing increased demand for sustainable buildings and sustainable venue practices”

Also in Scotland, Aberdeen’s P&J Live has unveiled details of a multi-faceted sustainability campaign set to boost the venue’s environmental credentials as part of its commitment to achieving Net Zero carbon emissions target by 2050.

The 15,000-cap venue recently commissioned sustainability specialist Positive Planet to act as its Net Zero consultants and has started the implementation of a Carbon Reduction Plan to actively reduce the site’s carbon footprint. Several complementary initiatives around its energy strategy, transportation, food supply, waste and marketing will further help the venue’s bid to halve greenhouse gas emissions before 2030.

“From conferences to live entertainment, the industry is seeing increased demand for sustainable buildings and sustainable venue practices, with artists such as Coldplay and Billie Eilish actively pushing towards fully sustainable tours,” says P&J Live MD Rob Wicks.

“With everything that was originally designed into the building and wider site, including a low carbon energy centre to power, heat and cool the venue, an anaerobic digestion plant that generates gas from local food and crop waste, as well as our various certifications and initiatives, I feel we are well placed to cater for what artists, event organisers and delegates need as we improve our combined sustainability performance.

“There is still a lot of work to be done, but by measuring our carbon emissions we have a clear benchmark to work from as we commence our carbon reduction plans. It’s also been most encouraging to see the support from the team internally and we work towards consolidating all our green initiatives into a set of meaningful goals and our own in-house pledge.”

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