FORTHEFULLVERSIONPLEASE GOTOIQ-MAG.NETTOSUBSCRIBE
COWBOY CHARTER
Country music report 2025
RAGA & ROLL
India market report
SOUND CHECK
Developments in live audio tech
ALL NATIONS UNDER A GROOVE
The boom in diaspora touring
REGAL RENAISSANCE
USHER’S TRIUMPHANT RETURN HERMAN SCHUEREMANS
The findings from the 11th annual report on
IQ135
Chris Bray outlines progress made since the ASM Legends merger
Touring
Eamonn Forde reports on the emerging market for specialist diaspora events
Derek Robertson examines the everchanging world of live sound engineering
Gordon Masson and Hanna Ellington don Stetsons to explore the burgeoning genre of contemporary country music
The Architects: Herman Schueremans
We take a look back at the foundations laid by the legendary promoter to construct Belgium’s live music business
Hanna Ellington talks to the people tasked with keeping Usher’s Past Present Future tour on the road
Raga & Roll
Adam Woods examines the flourishing live music market in India
COMMENTS & COLUMNS
What’s Next for Sustainable Live Music?
Oltea Zambori encourages us to embrace sustainability at our events
How Shakira Made History in Mexico
OCESA’s Jorge Cambronero enthuses about the Colombian superstar’s wildly popular LatAm dates
City Focus: Berlin
Shining a spotlight on the German capital
Members’ Noticeboard ILMC members’ photographs
From the Archives
Who will be the top five touring acts in 2025?
Thousands of professionals read IQ every day. Make sure you get the whole picture…
Cover photo: Usher at The O2 arena, London, on the first night of his epic ten-date residency © Gareth Cattermole
Thousands of professionals read IQ every day. Make sure you get the whole picture… SUBSCRIBE HERE
Celebrating the pioneers of the modern live music business
Herman Schueremans
Thousands of professionals read IQ every day. Make sure you get the whole picture… SUBSCRIBE HERE
ROYAL RENAISSANCE: THE RETURN OF R&B’S KING
After a decade away from the road, Usher is gearing up to take over Europe with his residency-style Past Present Future outing. Hanna Ellington catches up with those working behind the scenes to support this visionary trek that signals the King of R&B’s reign is far from over.
The Mack is back.
Following two acclaimed Las Vegas residencies and a revered Super Bowl halftime show, Usher has returned in full force with Past Present Future – his first widespread tour in a decade.
The North American leg saw a total sell-out across 62 shows, with the four-city, 20date European leg on track to achieve the same results. Around 1.1m tickets have been sold between both stints.
Drawing from key elements of his decades-spanning career – like conjuring the lavishness of Vegas and the intimacy of club stages – the soulful superstar is riding the wave of his recent resurgence, redefining what touring can mean for artists of his calibre.
Love In This Club
Usher Raymond IV has cemented his legacy as a generational, multi-talented artist since his first single, Call Me a Mack, in 1993. After churning out eight LPs, countless chart-topping singles, and five headlining tours, Mr. Entertainment took his talents to Las Vegas in late 2020 to launch his first-ever residency.
This first stretch started as a 12-show stint at the Colosseum at Caesars Palace (4,100). Twelve quickly became 20 sold-out nights between 2021–22, shifting 84,000 tickets and earning $18.8m. No time was wasted for his second residency at Park MGM’s Dolby Live (5,200), an 80-show endeavour that raked in $95.9m and sold 394,000 tickets.
Altogether, his two critically acclaimed residencies grossed nearly $115m and sold 479,000 tickets across 100 dates – his highest-ever gross from touring.
“It began as one vision and evolved, performance by performance, into the kind of show people around the world couldn’t stop talking about,” says WME partner and agent John Marx, who’s
Thousands of professionals read IQ every day. Make sure you get the whole picture… SUBSCRIBE HERE
All photos © Gareth Cattermole
FROM THE ARCHIVES
Who will be the top five headline acts in 2025?
Back in the prehistoric year of 2015 – before Covid-19, TikTok, and national blackouts – we asked IQ readers who they thought would be topping bills in a decade’s time. Now, ten years on, we look back at those predictions, and some of them are scarily accurate.
Do you think the same will remain true in 2035? Paul McCartney and Neil Young definitely have another ten years in them, right?
CLAES OLSEN, ØYA FESTIVAL
Due to the ongoing debate around keeping alive old dinosaurs or the need for a new Rolling Stones, I believe (and hope) that the future headliners [in] 2025 are totally unknown at present. So I have taken the liberty of guessing the details of the forthcoming headliners.
1. Established February 2019 in LA
2. Established June 2020 in Kansas
3. Established January 2021 in Oslo
4. Established March 2023 in North London
5. Established April 2024 in Liverpool
I hope that some of today’s younger artists will keep on going and take second on the bill, together with some cool heritage acts.
ARTUR ROJEK, OFF FESTIVAL
Hard to imagine, as time goes by so fast, but let’s try… Florence & the Machine, Tame Impala, Jack White, James Blake, and someone I don’t know.
CHRISTIAN DOLL, C2 CONCERTS
I think we will see the same headliners in ten years that we’re looking at now – and for the next ten years: Metallica, Foo Fighters, and Toten Hosen, as well as AC/DC or Iron Maiden! There has been no really big new band or artist in the last few years – sad but true!
CRAIG BENNETT, ID&C
The Beatles as a hologram. Or Oasis – still just a rumour, though, fueled by what’s left of Twitter, by an increasingly irrelevant and somewhat frail Liam Gallagher.
NICK HOBBS, CHARMENKO
Traditional festivals might be on the way out, and there won’t be any headline acts in 2025, they’ll just be a vapid, constantly shifting bunch of 15-minutes-of-fame seekers. Of course, even in this bleak vision, there will be niche retro events where AC/DC fans get together in their Zimmer frames to watch some miracle of longevity, but that’s not the future, that’s the past…
Thousands of professionals read IQ every day. Make sure you get the whole picture… SUBSCRIBE HERE
