Festival lineups are coming in thick and fast as events in the US, Europe, and Australia deliver impressive programmes for 2025.

Texas’s Austin City Limits revealed its stellar lineup yesterday, with headliners Sabrina Carpenter, Hozier, Doja Cat, Luke Combs, The Strokes, John Summit, and Doechii on tap. The nine-stage, two-weekend festival returns to Zilker Park from 3-5 and 10-13 October.

Feid, Cage the Elephant, T-Pain, Empire of the Sun, Djo, Pierce the Veil, Rilo Kiley, Maren Morris, Mk.gee, Zeds Dead, and Sammy Virji will also perform at the Live Nation/C3 Presents-backed festival.

Australia’s Spilt Milk will pick things back up this year, after cancelling its flagship festival for 2024. Kendrick Lamar, Doechii, Sara Landry, Dominic Fike, Schoolboy Q, d4vd, Nessa Barrett, Skin on Skin, Sombr, and a variety of others are set to perform at the touring festival later this year.

The event will visit Ballarat (6 December), Perth (7), Canberra (13), and the Gold Coast (14), and is being met with incredible demand as organisers shared that presale registrations outnumbered available tickets.

“That was genuinely our biggest presale ever,” organisers posted online. It is expected to sell out during tomorrow’s general sale.

Portugal’s Nos Alive has rounded out its headliner pool with Anyma, the electronic artist’s debut in the country. He joins Olivia Rodrigo, Noah Kahan, Justice, Kings of Leon, Nine Inch Nails, Sam Fender, Benson Boone, and a slate of others for the 10-12 July festival, which returns to Passeio Marítimo de Algés for its 17th edition.

“The long weekend is set for what promises to be one of the most powerful chapters”

Germany’s biggest electronic festival, Parookaville, has completed its 10-year anniversary lineup with Boris Brejcha and Dimitri Vegas rounding out its headliners. Set for 18-20 July at Weeze Airport, the 85,000-capacity gathering also added Dr. Peacock, Hypaton, NOTION, Schrotthagen, Avaion, Cyril, Fedde le Grand, and Fast Boy to its variety of performers.

Previously announced acts include Afrojack, Alok, Armin van Buuren, Artbat, Hardwell, I Hate Models, Indira Paganotto, Meute, Robin Schulz, Steve Aoki, and Timmy Trumpet.

The UK’s Boomtown is celebrating a sell-out edition for its forthcoming 6-10 August event. Roughly 66,000 attendees will descend on Matterley Bowl in Hampshire to see names ranging from Sean Paul and Azealia Banks to Sex Pistols ft. Frank Carter, The Wailers, and Fat Dog. Nia Archives, Girls Don’t Sync, Joy Orbison, Overmono and Rudimental are also on tap.

“The long weekend is set for what promises to be one of the most powerful chapters in Boomtown history,” organisers shared.

The Netherlands’ Zuiderpark Live has finalised its lineup for its 5th edition. The Hague open-air concert series, organised by Greenhouse Talent and Stichting Zuiderparktheater, added Yves Berendse and Eefje de Visser to its programme, which also includes Edwin Evers Band, Spinvis, Diggy Dex, Danny Vera and Ruth Jacott.

England’s 2000trees Music Festival added Trash Boat, Cloud Nothings, Split Chain, and Calva Louise to its bill, which is led by Kneecap, Pvris, Taking Back Sunday, Coheed and Cambria, and Alexisonfire. The rock/indie festival returns to Cheltenham’s Upcote Farm from 9-12 July.

Get more stories like this in your inbox by signing up for IQ Index, IQ’s free email digest of essential live music industry news.

Continuing our weekly preview of European festivals, IQ gives readers a glimpse of what’s in-store this week…

In Switzerland, Paléo is gearing up for a banner edition having sold all 200,000 tickets for the 2024 event in just 21 minutes.

The 35,000-capacity festival will run in Nyon from 23-28 July, featuring acts such as Sam Smith, Burna Boy, Booba, Mika, Sean Paul, Major Lazer Soundsystem, Nile Rodgers & Chic, Patti Smith, The Blaze, Paul Kalkbrenner, Aurora and Royal Blood.

Paléo booker Dany Hassenstein spoke to IQ earlier this year about the festival’s longstanding bond with its audience.

Meanwhile, the stage has been set for Electric Castle‘s 10th-anniversary edition, which will welcome over 230,000 visitors to Transylvania’s 15th-century Banffy Castle.

Paléo is gearing up for a banner edition having sold all 200,000 tickets for the 2024 event in just 21 minutes

The Romanian festival will see acts including Massive Attack, Bring Me the Horizon, Chase & Status LIVE, Sean Paul, Paolo Nutini, and Khruangbin perform between 17–21 July.

Czech Republic’s Colours of Ostrava (17–20) also kicks off today, with Sam Smith, James Blake, Tom Morello, Lenny Kravitz, Sean Paul and Khruangbin among the top-billing acts.

The festival launched in Ostrava in 2002 and has become the country’s biggest international music festival.

Belgium’s biggest festival, Tomorrowland, will also take place this weekend with 400,000 guests.

Tickets for the 20th-anniversary edition sold out in less than a day, IQ reported in February.

The electronic music extravaganza is held across two weekends in Boom, Antwerp, from 19-21 and 26-28 July.

Tickets for the 20th-anniversary edition of Tomorrowland sold out in less than a day

Staged under the ‘LIFE’ theme, more than 400 acts including Armin van Buuren, Amelie Lens, Bonobo B2B Dixon, David Guetta, ANNA, Vintage Culture, Tale Of Us, Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike, Solomun B2B Four Tet and Swedish House Mafia will appear across 16 stages.

In neighbouring Germany, Parookaville is ramping up for another sold-out edition with 225,000 attendees. The electronic music event has been sold out every year since launching in 2015.

Armin van Buuren, Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike, Felix Jaehn, Hardwell, Timmy Trumpet and W&W are among 300+ DJs that are set to perform at this year’s instalment, at Weeze Airport between 19–21 July.

And, elsewhere, the gates to Super Bock Super Rock will open tomorrow, offering headline sets from Måneskin, 21 Savage and Stormzy.

Royal Blood, Tom Morello, Black Coffee, Slow J, Mahalia, Fisher, Vulfpeck and Will Butler are also slated to perform on Meco Beach, South Lisbon, from 18-20 July.

Other festivals due to kick off within the next week include Benicassim (ES), Positivus (LV), Ejekt Festival (GR), Lucca Summer Festival (IT) and Zwarte Cross (NL).

Get more stories like this in your inbox by signing up for IQ Index, IQ’s free email digest of essential live music industry news.

German promoter Goodlive has cancelled the 2021 editions of Melt, Splash, Full Force and Heroes, days after CTS Eventim announced that its stable of summer festivals are taking another year off.

Goodlive’s best-known festival Melt was scheduled to take place between 4 and 6 June 2021 at the Ferropolis open-air museum, in Gräfenhainichen, Saxony-Anhalt, featuring acts including Arlo Parks, FKA twigs and Jamie XX.

“After months and months of hard work, so many different ideas and concepts and hundreds of calls with other festivals, politicians and experts, we have to admit to ourselves that the decision is ultimately out of our hands,” reads a statement on Melt’s website.

“Believe us when we say that we have tried everything to meet you guys in Ferropolis this summer, but due to the current political situation, the uncertainty of the pandemic and lack of prospects we simply cannot continue planning the festival for 4–6 June 2021.”

“Due to the current political situation, the uncertainty of the pandemic and lack of prospects [Melt]i cannot continue planning”

Similar statements have appeared on the social media pages of Splash (originally scheduled for the weekends 8 July and 15 July in Ferropolis), Full Force (25–27 June, Ferropolis) and Heroes (18-19 June in Geiselwind and 23 July in Freiburg).

Each of the statements adds that the festival is “doing everything in our power to get together and have a party later this year, even if it might be in a different setting”.

Goodlive’s newest festival, Superbloom, is still scheduled to make its delayed debut outing at Munich’s Olympiapark and Olympiastadion (75,000-cap.) this September, at the time of writing.

Elsewhere in the German festival market, Superstruct-backed events Wacken Open Air and Parookaville have not yet given up on their 2021 editions.

“[Wacken Open Air’s] late date, on the last weekend in July, allows us to observe the further development of the situation”

“We sympathise with our colleagues, for whom this decision was certainly not an easy one,” said Thomas Jensen, co-founder of Wacken, regarding the cancellation of the CTS Eventim festivals.

“Our late date, on the last weekend in July, allows us to observe the further development of the situation – for example with regard to the progress of the vaccination campaign and upcoming decisions by the federal government – and allows us a longer preparation time,” explains Jensen. “We remain hopeful and continue planning.”

The 2021 edition of the German metal festival is scheduled to take place between 29 and 31 July in the village of Wacken, Schleswig-Holstein. The sold-out event will be headlined by Amon Amarth, Slipknot and Judas Priest.

The Parookaville team is considering postponing the electronic music festival from 16–18 July at Weeze airport to a weekend in September, saying they are “examining all possibilities”.

Get more stories like this in your inbox by signing up for IQ Index, IQ’s free email digest of essential live music industry news.

Investments and takeovers are the core business of Matthias Just, CEO of Mayland AG. Before becoming a lawyer Just completed an apprenticeship as a banker, and his CV includes positions in the UK and US at companies including Deloitte and Touche Corporate Finance.

Since the end of 2005, he has been a member of the board of Mayland AG, a Dusseldorf-based company specialising in mergers and acquisitions – including the likes of the takeover of Parookaville by Superstruct, whose portfolio also includes Flow Festival, Sonar, Sziget and Wacken Open Air, and is backed by Providence Equity Partners, which manages more than $45 billion worth of investments.

IQ spoke to Just (pictured) about why the live music industry is increasingly attractive to institutional investors – as well as how external investment companies can offer a compelling alternative to the major multinational concert businesses…

IQ: What is the external perception of the live music industry in the financial sector?
Matthias Just: The live music industry is growing and a stabilisation of turnover and profitability figures can be seen across most companies. Besides this, there are always new festivals that draw attention to themselves through innovative concepts and designs and are able to assert themselves in the market. In general, demand is still very high, despite increasingly high ticket prices.

In recent years, we have noticed that consumers in the leisure and entertainment sector have seldom been price-sensitive and are prepared to pay higher ticket prices in order to spend a weekend at their favourite festival. This willingness to pay is what distinguishes this industry and makes it interesting for strategic investors, as well as financial investors and corporate holdings.

On the other hand, what is the current situation of the financial market in terms of potential investors and investments?
It was inevitable that Brexit, the [US-China] trade dispute and the signs of an imminent recession would not leave investors unscathed. Therefore, we can perceive a slight increase in uncertainty across the market as a whole, which will – should the signs of an economic downturn become clearer in the coming months – lead to a reallocation of investors’ investment focus.

In this sense, this means that companies in a sector that is independent of economic cycles – such as the events market – will be given preference over cyclical investments, which generally tend to be negatively affected in times of recession.

“This willingness to pay is what distinguishes this industry and makes it interesting for strategic investors”

What role does Mayland play in the M&A process?
We see ourselves both as consultants and coordinators. Within an M&A transaction, on which we act both on the buyer and seller side, we coordinate all necessary services in order to achieve a successful conclusion of the transaction. In addition to classic sell- or buy-side M&A advice, our range of services also include succession planning, financial advice, company valuation and strategic business development.

There are many in the concert industry who worry about the involvement of external investment companies. Are they right to be concerned?
These reservations about external investment stem from the public debates about the financial sector due to the financial crisis in 2008. Also, various companies have been forced to cut jobs after an investment company had joined them – and even today, some entrepreneurs still face a loss of control when taking an investment on – but this process is anything but inevitable.

While anyone who sells shares in a company loses some control, the manner in which this transfer of control takes place is an important factor that a seller can influence significantly before the transaction is completed – a crucial point at which we come into game and, together with the current owner and management of a company, determine how this transfer should be structured from the seller’s point of view.

There are many understandable motives for dealing with the topic of participation [from the investment sector] from the entrepreneur’s point of view. However, those who are not familiar with participation systems and legal framework conditions should take on professional support, even in the case of a first initial meeting with a potential buyer.

“Companies in a sector that is independent of economic cycles – such as the events market – will be given preference over cyclical investments”

In one sense, AEG, CTS Eventim and Live Nation are investors, too. Aren’t these companies the better investors than those who have little or no industry knowledge?
In terms of strategic fit, these players in the industry are certainly good candidates – concert companies or festivals can benefit from the networks of these companies and partially improve their operative business. On the other hand, these investors usually require a majority stake (usually more than 50% – ie a qualified majority with which they can enforce all strategic decisions), which means that the seller can lose control of his or her festival, at least in the legal sense.

For smaller companies that are looking for a strategic partner, but do not want to give up control over their business, other strategic investors or financial investors may be the better alternative.

Providence Equity, as a financier of Superstruct, is a prominent player in concert takeovers. Do you expect other big players from the private-equity sector to increasingly be interested in the live music industry in the future?
That’s quite possible. However, Providence Equity’s Superstruct vehicle and its managers [including CEO James Barton, ex-Creamfields/Live Nation] are industry experts who know the festival business very well and usually have experience as festival organisers themselves.

This expertise is particularly important in an industry such as live entertainment, because the structures are special and personal aspects play a meaningful role.

However, in addition to Providence, there are many other investment companies with a strong interest in the festival industry.

Get more stories like this in your inbox by signing up for IQ Index, IQ’s free email digest of essential live music industry news.

London-based Superstruct Entertainment has partnered with Next Events, the independent promoter behind Germany’s largest electronic music festival, Parookaville.

Financial terms of the deal – an “investment and partnership agreement” similar to the one signed with Norway’s Øya Festival last August – were not disclosed, and Next Events’ management team remains in place.

Founded in 2015, Parookaville (85,000-cap.) takes place in Weeze, North Rhine-Westphalia, over three days in July. Its 2019 edition – for which the Weeze Airport site was christened ‘Madness City’ – featured performances from Steve Aoki, Afrojack, Armin van Buuren, Richie Hawtin and Paul van Dyk, and sold out in record time, reporting more than 200,000 visits over the course of the event.

In a joint statement, Bernd Dicks, Georg van Wickeren and Norbert Bergers, co-founders of Next Events, say: “Through our partnership, we will join Superstruct’s network of high-calibre live entertainment brands and businesses, which will create opportunities for us to continue growing Parookaville.

“In just a few years, Next Events has grown Parookaville into one of the leading electronic music festivals on the global stage”

“With our great team, we will remain at the helm for the long term and focus on ensuring that we continue to promote a leading edge experience to our citizens, while staying true to our motto of promoting madness, love and pure happiness.”

James Barton, CEO of Superstruct, adds: “In just a few years, Next Events has grown Parookaville into one of the leading electronic music festivals on the global stage. We are delighted to partner with the team at Next Events and look forward to working together to make Parookaville even more impressive.”

Superstruct Entertainment, backed by private-equity firm Providence Equity Partners, also owns and operates Sziget (Hungary), Flow Festival (Finland), Sónar (Spain) and party promoter Elrow. Its most recent acquisitions are Down the Drain (Northside, Tinderbox) in Denmark and several UK events formerly owned by Global.

Get more stories like this in your inbox by signing up for IQ Index, IQ’s free email digest of essential live music industry news.