Oslo’s new city council has revealed it plans to invest millions to upgrade an outdoor concert venue in a bid to entice leading international touring artists to Norway. The Norwegian capital’s Bjerke Travbane racetrack welcomed a 60,000-cap show by Rammstein in July 2022, and the authority is setting aside NOK 5.3 million (€449,400) in next month’s revised budget for improvements to the site, with a target completion date of summer 2025. VG reports that politicians were compelled to act after Stockholm’s Friends Arena in neighbouring Sweden was selected to host the three Scandinavian dates on ..read more

Veteran Latin singer Luis Miguel has emerged as one of the year’s biggest touring artists after selling 3.1 million tickets for his first global trek in five years. Produced by Fenix Entertainment, Cárdenas Marketing Network (CMN) and Iglesias Entertainment, the 54-year-old Mexican performed 66 shows to 900,000 fans in 2023 and will play 111 concerts to more than 2.2m people this year. Miguel, who first rose to fame in the 1980s, was ranked at No.4 in Pollstar‘s Worldwide Top 100 Artist Grosses for Q1 2024, grossing $84,367,629 from 593,308 ticket sales to trail only Coldplay, U2 and Madonna ..read more

Venue management veteran Rebecca Kane Burton has been named interim boss of Manchester’s Co-op Live following the resignation of general manager Gary Roden. Kane Burton served a near five-year stint as VP and GM of The O2 in London before stepping down in 2016 to become chief executive of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s West End venue chain LW Theatres until departing in 2021. Prior to The O2, Kane Burton was MD of the 10,400-cap Alexandra Palace, also in London, and previously held a senior role at English Heritage. She was appointed UK & Ireland CEO of venue services company Sodexo Live! in ..read more

AEG-owned ticketing firm AXS is taking over the ticketing operations previously handled by NEC Group’s internal ticketing arm, The Ticket Factory. As part of the deal, AXS will now provide its ticketing services to NEC Group’s venues, the Resorts World Arena (cap. 15,685) and Utilita Arena Birmingham (15,800). In addition, AXS will establish a ticketing hub in Birmingham adjacent to the NEC Campus, and all existing employee roles within The Ticket Factory at the NEC Group will become part of the firm. “We want to make every customer’s experience brilliant, from the moment they think about buy ..read more

A raft of UK festivals have donated tickets to their 2024 editions for a prize draw benefitting War Child and Medical Aid for Palestine. Boomtown Fair, Love Saves The Day, All Points East, Parklife, Boardmasters, Mighty Hoopla and Wide Awake are among 67 festivals participating in the Festivals Unite fundraiser. The suggested donation is £10 for a pair of tickets to one festival, with additional options for multiple entries. More than £11,000 has been donated by 700 people at the time of writing. “We have joined forces with over 60 festivals to use our collective power in order to support and ..read more

Streaming platform Deezer has pledged its “renewed and strengthened support” to French music festivals this summer under its “Live the Music” banner. The Paris-headquartered company will continue to work with events such as We Love Green, Garorock, Eurockéennes, Vieilles Charrues, Rock en Seine, Rose Festival, Delta Festival and Golden Coast to curate “unique and immersive” festival experiences. Promotions include the live version of its “Shaker” feature, which turns a collaborative playlist into a mini-festival with an exclusive dance floor and customised merch, and live music and party seri ..read more

Goldenvoice booker Stacy Vee has discussed country music’s growing influence on the wider music scene ahead of this weekend’s Stagecoach Festival. Launched in 2007, the sold-out Californian gathering returns to Indio’s Empire Polo Club – the home of Coachella – from 26-28 April. The genre has reached new audiences outside its traditional heartland in recent years with the advent of streaming and events such as Europe’s Country to Country, while pop superstars such as Beyoncé and Kylie Minogue have released country-tinged albums, with Lana Del Rey set to follow. “Obviously it’s ushering in so ..read more

The global live scene was the biggest driver as the value of the electronic music industry grew by 17% to $11.8 billion (€11bn) last year, according to the newly published IMS Business Report 2024. Live revenues were up 35% in 2023 – the strongest growth of any sector by a wide margin – as the takings of 15 of the world’s leading music companies, across labels, publishers, DSPs and live, soared by 18%. The report, which is authored by MIDiA Research’s Mark Mulligan, was presented yesterday on the first day of the annual IMS (International Music Summit) Ibiza conference, which is being held at ..read more

Billie Eilish, Green Day and Lorde are among 250+ artists to back a bill that aims to reform the live event ticketing system in the US. The Fans First Act, introduced by senators in December, is designed to help increase transparency in ticket sales, protect customers “from fake or dramatically overpriced tickets,” and hold “bad actors who engage in illegal ticket sale practices” to account. In the latest push for the reform, the Fix the Tix coalition has written a letter urging the Senate Commerce Committee to support the bill. In addition to the aforementioned artists, the letter has been s ..read more

Police in Northern Ireland are warning music fans not to fall for scams when trying to get hold of tickets for concerts, after figures show that fraudsters last year conned people out of close to £300,000 in the province. Data from Action Fraud shows nationally in the UK £6.7 million was lost to this type of crime in the past year, although the figure only includes reported crime, and it’s believed many fans do not report losses to the authorities. In Northern Ireland, the total reported losses came in at £291,344.36 with 299 reports made. Chair of ScamwiseNI Partnership, chief superintendent ..read more