FESTIVAL FOCUS
THOUGHTS FROM THE FESTIVAL GROUNDS We catch up with some of the hard-working companies and individuals powering this summer’s biggest outdoor events and discuss how this year’s latest trends may affect future events.
Words: Stew Hume Photos: Robin Böttcher, Matt Higgs and Martin Audio
The summer of 2023 has been an unusual one for the live events industry. With festivals back in force, we have also seen more stadium tours than ever before. Although an equal share of TPi’s focus has been taken up by the likes of Coldplay, Harry Styles and Sam Fender to name but a few, we’ve been keeping up with our friends during the busy festival season. As such we were keen to bring some of the news from this summer and highlight some notable trends that we’re looking forward to seeing more of in the future. To give an overall summation of this year’s festival season, recent results seem to suggest that revenue for many gigs and festivals across the UK has returned to pre-pandemic levels with various indicators suggesting the public is still choosing to spend money on live events despite some concerns that this might not be the case following COVID-19. Off the back of these positive results, LIVE CEO, Jon Collins reacted to the season. “The UK’s live music sector has burst back to life after the pandemic, with world-class festivals and concerts delighting millions across the UK over the last few months. In London alone, recent figures have revealed that over one million people attended live music events in the capital in the first week of July. While we saw fewer fans purchasing tickets and attending live music events following the pandemic, compounded by the cost-of-
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living crisis, we are now witnessing an upward trajectory in the number of tickets being sold and fans attending events.” NEW TECH Summer 2023 saw notable new additions to festival tech riders. Coachella saw the deployment of PixMob wristbands for headline sets from Bad Bunny and BLACKPINK. “It’s so cool to bring this stadium experience to the festival grounds,” said PixMob Director of Tours and Entertainment, Hila Aviran. “The goal was to make sure everybody feels like they’re part of the Bad Bunny show. When you look around and see colour, you can see the rhythmic movement in the lights around you. We watched the stream the following morning and there were incredible aerial shots of almost 100,000 people leading up to the beat of the music.” According to Aviran, several years ago the thought of deploying this number of PixMob wristbands would not have been financially viable. “Over the past three years and emerging out of the COVID-19 pandemic, our products are super scalable, which allows us to tour with global artists doing 50 to 100 shows on the road,” stated Aviran. “Seven years ago, it was $5 a person and we are no longer in that range.” As with all its shows, sustainability was a major focus for PixMob with festival goers able to recycle their wristbands after the performance. “Sustainability is the future, and in
order to make a future happen, we have to take action,” enthused Aviran. “That means reducing the number of single-use plastics we produce and give out to the world. We’ve recycled an estimated three million units since launching our recycling programme. We’re reusing the wristbands and we have designed a wristband made of compostable materials for Coldplay’s latest tour.” On the other side of the pond and in keeping with modern advances in technology, The Secret Garden Party partnered with Celestial to create the UK’s first drone show with lighting, lasers, and fireworks. The captivating drone display, titled Cosmic Wisdom, was produced by Celestial, and supported the festival’s pursuit of a more sustainable experience by adding cutting-edge and environmentally friendly drone technology to their traditional fireworks. “It’s hard to put into words the excitement felt by the team when working with Celestial to realise this vision. The journey we have been on has been exhilarating and life affirming. This was collaboration at its purest. It is everything we have ever wanted The Secret Garden Party to be able to do and hope to continue to do,” stated The Secret Garden Party Founder, Freddie Fellowes. “For years, we have dreamed of combining the timeless wisdom of Alan Watts with our ethereal light displays, which appear like the stars brought to life,” enthused John Hopkins,