European Concert Companies, where are you?
East Hotel / C2With concerns in the UK and the USA that Live Nation’s market share has become an illegal monopoly, campaigners are urging regulators in those countries to exercise more scrutiny over the corporation’s dominance.
When Pollstar recently named German-based CTS Eventim as the world’s second-largest concert promoter, the difference in scale was monumental, with CTS realising an annual turnover of €3 billion, compared to Live Nation’s equivalent US$25 billion.
Meanwhile, with fellow American conglomerates AEG and Superstruct continuing their expansion plans, bolstering business in Europe appears to be a central growth strategy for North American financiers, with more and more European promoters and festival organisers becoming the targets for American merger and acquisition programmes.
But with global tour deals making life harder for independent European operations, and stadium mega residencies corralling vast sums of consumer entertainment budgets, the options for existing live music industry operations throughout Europe appear limited, unless governments step in to intervene.
So what’s next for the European business? Is more lobbying required to ensure competition authorities are mindful of the American dominance? Or can European professionals work better together to regain some control, and foster an environment where the next generation of entertainment entrepreneurs – and homegrown acts – can prosper?
