Christopher Barrett

Kambe Events, the company behind the 15,000-capacity Shambala festival, has announced that the event’s co-founders are stepping away from ownership and ceding the business to the team members who have helped build it. The transition will see the independent festival, which celebrated its 25th anniversary last year, owned by an Employee Ownership Trust. At a time […]

The Events Industry Forum (EIF) has announced it is open to being the subject of a governance review. EIF and EIF Ltd, which publishes the Purple Guide, are inviting proposals for an independent organisation or individual to undertake a comprehensive governance review of both organisations in order to ensure they are appropriately structured for the […]

WOMAD will, for the first time, entirely power its main stage with batteries using 100% green energy. The independent festival was one of the first events to work with Ecotricity and Grid Faeries to battery power a stage with renewable energy. In 2024, Grid Faeries and Ecotricity’s 1 MW clean energy battery was used to […]

Live Nation Entertainment has reported an operating loss of $371 million in Q1, impacted by a $450m ‘legal accrual’. The concert giant posted revenues of $3.79 billion during the quarter, 12% up on the same period last year and close to its Q1 record set in 2024. Despite the huge revenue result, Ticketmaster’s owner posted […]

Amid concerns the UK Government will significantly delay its long-promised laws to ban ticket touting, artists and industry figures are campaigning for legislation to be included in the King’s Speech. With the speech scheduled for 13 May, the FanFair Alliance has launched a campaign urging prime minister Keir Starmer to keep the promise he made […]

Apple Corps has announced The Beatles at 3 Savile Row, a seven-floor ‘fan exoperience’ in the venue where the band staged their final public performance. 3 Savile Row in London was one of the first homes to The Beatles’ management company, Apple Corps Ltd, where the band recorded the album Let It Be, and the […]

Representatives from across the events industry have aired frustration that the UK Government has failed to include promised legislation in the King’s Speech to stamp out ticket re-sale profiteering. The Labour Government did use the speech to introduce a draft Ticket Tout Ban Bill to cap resale platforms’ service fees and make it illegal to […]

A House of Commons committee has called for a full market investigation after becoming alarmed by the “climate of fear” around dominant firms in the UK’s live music industry. Live Nation’s market prominence in the UK could be set for further scrutiny, with the Business and Trade Committee now calling for the UK’s Competition and […]

London Warehouse Events (LWE) has partnered with placemaking group PROJEKT to open a 7,000-capacity temporary London venue. Located at Thames Wharf, Ironworks is set to open with a limited run of events in October. It will comprise of more than 80,000 sq ft of external riverside space alongside 78,000 sq ft of internal warehouse space. […]

Harry Styles’ record run of 12 shows at Wembley Stadium (cap. 90,000) will inject £1.1 billion into the UK economy as London prepares for a record summer of live music. The Mayor of London’s office is predicting summer shows will attracts 7.5 million visitors and bring in around £2.7bn in revenue to the capital. Live […]