200 Major European Festivals Are Owned by Just Four Corporations—and That's Just the Tip of the Iceberg
An interview with independent music / culture networks Reset! and Live DMA, whose newly published maps demonstrate a worrisome level of ownership concentration in the live music sector.
Corporate consolidation is a tricky thing. On a general level, people are aware it’s happening, and sense that the shops and services they interact with on a day-to-day level are increasingly owned by faceless conglomerates. Consumers didn’t ask for this, and when asked, they don’t really like it—most would happily give a thumbs up to slogans like “buy local” and “support independent business.” But they’re also busy, and they’re grappling with the rising cost of seemingly everything, and in that scenario, as long as a business’ ties to its corporate overlords are kept in the background (or obscured altogether), those same consumers will often continue to patronize said businesses without asking too many questions about who’s benefitting or where the money is going.
This dynamic colors nearly every industry on the planet, from food and clothing to publishing and the media, and in recent years, it’s also come to define a growing portion of the live music business. It’s not that people are completely unaware of this; although corporate consolidation wasn’t necessarily the driving factor behind the last year’s protests and boycotts targeting festivals (e.g. Sónar, Field Day) and other music-related entities (e.g Boiler Room), they did shine a rather bright light on how a multinational corporation—in this case, private equity giant KKR (via its ownership of UK festival conglomerate Superstruct)—has forced its way into the music sector. Even so, the complete picture of what’s happening remains largely hidden from the general public. KKR is ultimately just one major player among many, and though many music industry professionals (along with a handful of people with a specific interest in this topic) have noticed the steady uptick of mergers and acquisitions involving companies like Live Nation and AEG, finding detailed information about exactly who owns what has often proven to be both difficult and labor-intensive.
Earlier this month, however, an important new tool emerged, as two independent European music / culture networks, Reset!1 and Live DMA2, joined forces to publish a new pair of maps, which have suddenly made a sizable chunk of ownership information far more accessible. The actual maps—one on focused on festivals, the other on venues—were assembled by Matthieu Barreira, an independent French researcher who’s spent years tracking ownership concentration in the music industry.3 And beyond the maps, Reset! and Live DMA also published both an accompanying statement and a policy paper, with the latter proposing specific steps that the European Union could take to address market concentration in the live music sector.
When these materials were first released, a number of media outlets quickly seized on the story, putting a particular focus on the takeaway that more than 150 festivals in the EU were owned by just four corporations: Live Nation, Superstruct, AEG and CTS Eventim. First Floor also immediately latched on to that data point when the maps were first mentioned in the newsletter, but as I dug further into all of the published information, it became clear that this project deserved more attention than just a cursory news blurb.
With that in mind, I reached out about the prospect of a more detailed conversation, and managed to line up an interview with not just Barreira, but also Laurent Bigarella from Reset! and Erica Romero from Live DMA. Over the course of a long call last week, we obviously discussed the maps—not just their contents, but how and why they were created in the first place—but we also dug further into the information presented, which shows that a small number of very powerful corporations not only own large swaths of the festival and venue landscape in Europe, but have notably increased their holdings during the past few years alone. What’s more, many of these companies are also involved in other sectors that have nothing to do with music, and even within the music realm, their activities are not limited to simply festival and venue ownership. (It’s telling that Barreira—who, it must be said, spoke on his own behalf and not as an official representative of either Reset! or Live DMA—described the current situation as an “octopus.”)
As you might expect, the maps reveal plenty of cause for concern—at least for anyone who sees corporate consolidation and ownership concentration as a bad thing—but the conversation itself wasn’t all doom and gloom. The initial response to the maps has apparently been quite positive, even among certain members of the political class, and though Barreira, Bigarella and Romero all concede that there’s much more work to be done, they’ve also made some concrete suggestions about what they think the next steps ought to look like.
(Please note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.)
Shawn Reynaldo: What inspired you to begin this project in the first place?
Matthieu Barreira: I was actually inspired by a map from a French newspaper called Le Monde Diplomatique, who wanted to highlight the concentration problem in the French media. They first published it in 2016, and when I was doing my master’s degree a few years later, I had the idea to do a similar study of the music sector.
Once you started digging, what did you find? It must have been interesting, because you’re still working on the project all of these years later.
MB: It’s quite like an octopus. I began by looking at Live Nation, just because it was the biggest player and the most obvious place to start, but the first thing I realized is that there are so many subsidiaries and so many links between these companies. I was also initially focused on France, but later expanded to the entire European Union. Once you start to examine things, you quickly realize that the major players are multinationals. Many of them are present not just in France, but across Europe and all over the world.
Can you tell me a bit more about the research process? As a general rule, festivals don’t want to loudly proclaim that they’re owned by a multinational corporation, so how did you go about collecting the information and piecing together the octopus you mentioned?
MB: Sometimes it’s quite easy, and the information is right there on the festival’s website. Other times it’s quite tricky. But the maps are entirely based on public information, and I just had to gather it up. You can actually find a lot of information in the general terms and conditions on festival websites, but I also read a lot of official documents, not necessarily from the subsidiaries, but from the parent companies—financial statements, annual reports, corporate bylaws, press releases, business registries, board meeting minutes. A lot of this stuff is on the internet, because companies are required by law to publish it. There are also reports from competition authorities in Europe, the United States and other countries around the world, and they can provide some really detailed information. For example, they’ll go into the history of a company like Live Nation, and break down its relationship with this or that subsidiary, how much of it they own, what they specialize in, etc.
Given the frequency of corporate mergers and ownership changes in the live music industry, is it hard to keep all of the information you’ve collected up to date? I imagine there must have been so many times where you thought the maps were done, and then saw that a new deal went through somewhere and more changes were needed.
MB: It is difficult. In fact, on the same day that we had a press conference to present the maps to the public, I received a notification that Live Nation had just bought some company in Italy. So on the very day the map went out, it was already out of date. It’s important to remember that any map is just a picture of the situation at one moment. We could probably update it every single day.
Why is it important to make festival and venue ownership more transparent than it is now?
Erica Romero, Live DMA: If you think about the live music sector as a whole, it’s important to showcase where the value is being kept at the end of the day. Live DMA also represents independent and smaller actors, such as small festivals and venues, and we want to make sure that they are still profitable. The value needs to be distributed down the entire chain, and not only kept at the top of the market.
Laurent Bigarella, Reset!: In the times we’re living in, there is a need for more transparency across the board—what we buy, what we consume, where we go, what we do. When people go to an event or attend a show, they sometimes don’t know anything about the structure behind it. We see this map project as a way of taking information that is already available publicly, and presenting it in a way that is understandable for audiences, so people can then make their own decisions.
Is the general public the target audience for these maps? Are they meant for the average concert or festivalgoer, or is it designed for people in the music industry?
MB: Speaking for myself, the primary purpose was to inform the public and reach the people who are attending these festivals and venues. If you think about the food sector, the media sector or other commercial sectors, more and more people want to know where their food comes from, where their clothes come from and who owns this or that media outlet. When it comes to music, however, people in the industry are aware of the situation and talk among themselves about it, but aside from a few articles, there is very little data that’s easily available to the public. There’s no tool where everything is neatly summed up in a single document.
ER: Audiences are important, but so are professionals and policymakers. These maps are tools that make visible who owns the different stages and festivals, and that helps to situate this evidence within wider debates about competition and culture policy. That’s important for us, as we hope to influence policy and create pressure on certain points. For instance, one measure that we think has potential is something they already have in the UK, where some arena concerts—it’s voluntary—have a £1 ticket levy, and that money is then put into a fund and redistributed back to grassroots venues. If we want to have these kinds of initiatives in the EU, even if they’re sector-led, these maps are a good way to start conversations and raise awareness.
Looking at the materials and the press coverage so far, the biggest takeaway, or at least the one that’s grabbed the most attention, is the finding that 150 festivals in Europe are owned by just four companies: Live Nation, Superstruct, AEG and CTS Eventim.
LB: The 150 number is actually for the European Union only. If you include the United Kingdom, it increases to 200.
I want to get into the numbers a bit more, but first, let’s talk about these four companies. The average music consumer is a lot more likely to have heard of Live Nation and Superstruct, and people might know AEG because of its ties to things like Goldenvoice and the Coachella festival, but CTS Eventim is not a name that appears much in the broader music media. I’m guessing that a lot of people who will read this conversation we’re having have never even heard of this company, yet they apparently own more than 50 festivals in the EU. Who are they?
MB: CTS Eventim is a German company owned by a billionaire named Klaus-Peter Schulenberg. They are more present in the ticketing industry, and also in artist promotion via FKP Scorpio, which is a European company with subsidiaries in a lot of different countries. Aside from artist promotion, they will also do production for concerts, festivals and other events. This does make CTS Eventim different from KKR (which owns Superstruct), because the company is specialized in the music sector. Schulenberg himself is active in other sectors, but CTS Eventim is not. Maybe that’s why companies like AEG and KKR get mentioned in the press and talked about a lot more—they’re involved in activities outside of music that are a lot more likely to upset the political and professional sectors.
During the course of your research, did you look further into exactly what other kinds of industries and businesses these companies are involved in?
MB: I did. There are ties to the oil industry, real estate, communications and other things, and what’s interesting is that these billionaires don’t come from the music sector. They made their fortunes in other industries, and while I didn’t go that deeply into specific companies’ non-music portfolios, I can say that almost all of them have activities that not only have no relation to the music sector, but in my opinion, embody the opposite values of the music sector. In some cases, that applies to most of their business activities.
You mentioned before that these four companies own 200 festivals in Europe alone. On its own, 200 sounds like a big number, but do you have an idea of how many total festivals exist across the continent?
MB: Thousands.
LB: At some point we had around 2500 music festivals in France alone, so in all of Europe, of course there are more. That’s obviously a lot compared to 200, but it’s important to remember that what we’ve provided with the maps is not the full picture. If we want to go further with the discussion and the research, we’ll need more time and more resources, and that’s why we’re also asking policymakers to support this kind of monitoring, so we can have a better representation of the global picture.
MB: It’s also important to note that the 200 festivals on the map include many of the biggest ones in the market. These four companies are very powerful, and financially speaking, control a huge share of the market. Another thing is that CTS Eventim (via FKP Scorpio) and Live Nation (via all of its subsidiaries) are present in way more festivals than just the ones that appear on the map. When they have exclusive promotion deals with certain artists, for instance, that affects where those artists can play, and ripples out across the entire sector. They don’t necessarily have to own or operate a festival in order to have an influence on it.
The published documentation that accompanies the maps also cites figures highlighting the level of ownership growth that’s taken place between 2022 and 2025. AEG, for example, doubled its festival roster, and Superstruct’s festival count has gone from 34 to 63 in that same time period. Is that growth rate perhaps more illustrative of what’s happening in the sector?
LB: It’s definitely a concern, and was part of the reason we commissioned this work on the map. We were already feeling like the ownership concentration was increasing, but it was based on seeing a random press release here, a small article somewhere else and so on. But we didn’t have a full global picture. This map is a step in that direction, and gives us a one-page document that not only illustrates the problem, but is also something we can take to policymakers. Right now we’re in the middle of policy discussions with the Culture Compass for Europe about a new program called AgoraEU. It’s meant to support culture, and is focused on cultural diversity, artistic freedom, freedom of expression, etc., but since we’re already seeing this growing concentration in the live music sector, we thought it should also be part of the conversation, and providing more evidence and data with these maps can hopefully help to make that happen.
MB: I also want to point out that increasing concentration is not a problem that’s limited to the music sector. It’s happening all across culture, especially in publishing and the media.
LB: He’s right about that, and there’s already been a lot of discussion about how ownership concentration is affecting journalism and the news media in France. We have presidential elections coming next year, and we’re seeing how the soft power that these very large entities can buy is becoming a threat to democracy. Talking about that is necessary, and we want the same sort of conversations about ownership concentration to be happening more often in music.
ER: Live DMA has also been in conversations with IMPALA—which is another independent music organization in Europe—about Universal’s acquisition of Downtown Music. For the recorded music sector, ownership concentration is already very much a big issue. Diversity is at stake, and though there are small differences between different facets of the music and culture sectors, the underlying trend is largely the same.
We haven’t spoken much about the venue ownership map, which also hasn’t gotten as much attention in the press since the two maps were first published. Could you outline some of the key findings from that portion of the research?
MB: The map represents almost 100 venues owned by nine companies, most of which are present all over the world, or at least throughout the EU. Those companies are all publicly listed on the stock exchange, they’re all experiencing strong growth (according to their own communications) and they generate some of the highest revenues in the entire music sector. Live Nation is the biggest player, and either owns or operates half of the 100 venues on the map. Another quarter are operated by GL Events, which is a French company, and they’re currently negotiating a deal with Fimalac, a different French company that operates the majority of the biggest venues in France. The last quarter is split between Vivendi, Legends Global, AEG, DEAG and CTS Eventim. So this map provides more of a look at the big picture, while the festival map zooms in to a more specific part of the market.
At the same time, the approach these companies are taking to venues is similar to what’s happening with festivals, in the sense that they’re focused on the top of the value chain. They’re focused on controlling the biggest venues with the largest capacities, like stadiums and arenas. But beyond that, the biggest players are not limiting their activities to just venues; they have a presence across the entire value chain of the music sector, and are involved in ticketing, artist promotion, publishing, management, booking, etc.
Why are these companies so interested in arenas and stadiums, which are obviously the most expensive venues to acquire and operate?
MB: Probably because they can attract the biggest artists and bring the most people.
ER: There’s also something of an arena boom happening right now, both in terms of audience behavior and what is being targeted by companies. Headliners are increasingly prioritizing arena shows over festivals, and arena tours are expanding into the summer season, which they didn’t used to do. This in turn affects festival programming, especially at small- and medium-sized ones. There are multiple reasons why this is happening, but for the artists that have the infrastructure and the means to organize their own arena shows, it’s more profitable, which makes owning those kinds of venues more desirable for these companies we’ve been talking about.
MB: If you own or operate an arena, another advantage is that you can also do non-music events. Sporting events are one example, and both Live Nation and AEG are already involved in the sports sector.
Within music circles, and especially within independent music circles, most of the talk about venues in recent years has focused on the fact that small- and medium-sized spaces are closing at an alarming rate, pretty much everywhere. Given that, why should we be concerned that these corporations are buying up stadiums and arenas?
ER: In the live music sector, there’s a very large difference between the top and bottom of the value chain. Small- and medium-sized venues are like incubators. It’s where artists learn and practice, and once they build up a level of popularity at the grassroots level, that’s when these companies swoop in and seize on their value. The problem is that in many cases, we don’t then see that value circulating back down to the grassroots. There’s a lot to improve in terms of how this ecosystem, which is actually quite interdependent, can make sure that its different levels are supporting one another.
MB: To give a more specific example, in Lyon we have a venue called La Halle Tony Garnier, which has a capacity of up to 17,000. It’s owned by the city, so it has a special model, but it’s public. And this venue used to welcome headliners in Lyon, but then in 2023 a new arena opened just outside the city. It’s called LDLC Arena, it’s co-programmed by Live Nation and the capacity is around 16,000. Ever since it opened, all of the headliners have started going there, and the ticket prices for their shows are also higher. Meanwhile, if you look at the website for La Halle Tony Garnier, its programming just doesn’t have the same caliber of artists anymore.
Listening to you all talk about ownership concentration today, one issue that’s come up again and again is the degree to which these companies are also involved in other aspects of the music business, whether that’s ticketing, artist promotion or something else. As much as the issue of festival and venue ownership is a concern, there also seems to be a growing level of vertical integration happening. Is that perhaps an even bigger threat to the music ecosystem?
MB: I personally think this is the most important issue, and that’s why the maps allude to the fact that these companies are involved in other things besides the ownership of festivals and venues. They’re present all throughout the value chain. That’s very problematic, and something that concerns the entire sector, including, as Erica mentioned, the recorded music sector.
Doing this work and publishing these maps involves publicly naming some very powerful people and some very large corporations. Did that worry you? Was there any concern about potential legal action, for instance, or possibly being shut out of certain professional networks?
LB: Definitely, and it’s something we’ve had in mind since the very beginning. We had initially planned to release everything last December, but after some collective discussions with Live DMA and Reset!, we decided to postpone the public presentation until February in order to make sure that all the data, all the information and everything we were sharing, including the policy paper and the statements, was perfectly true and fact-based. We also created a new document listing all of the sources that Matthieu used, and worked closely with some lawyers to make sure that everything we were sharing met the necessary standards. As much as we consider this topic to be important and something we wanted to highlight in the public discourse, we also wanted to make sure that we’d taken every precaution.
ER: Live DMA represents 3000 music places in 17 different countries, so we also wanted to make sure that the information represented the diversity of situations that exist across the different music ecosystems. The ones in smaller markets, like Finland or Estonia, for instance, don’t behave the same way that they do in Spain and Italy. In some places, the relationships between the major players and smaller operators are actually quite good, in the sense that they collaborate effectively. At the same time, in other places, there are large concerns about how the majors are behaving. So for us, our main concern was making sure that everything was completely objective. Publishing these maps is a transparency action, but we didn’t want to point fingers just for the sake of doing it, or unnecessarily hinder our members’ existing relationships.
That makes sense, because the maps themselves just present information, and even the accompanying statements are relatively light on editorializing. There’s nothing that says, “Evil corporations are taking over the live music sector.” It seems like that was intentional.
LB: It was. Like Erica said, our goal wasn’t to point fingers. We just wanted to put information on the table, so we kept the maps factual and descriptive. Hopefully that will open up discussions with not just policymakers, but also with and within the live music sector.
Now that the maps have been published, has there been any negative pushback from any of the festivals, venues and corporations listed?
LB: Not so far. The reaction has actually been quite positive, which has been nice.
Both Reset! And Live DMA receive funding from the European Union, which isn’t necessarily a neutral organization. Did that affiliation in any way affect the creation of these maps or the information that was presented? How independent were you allowed to be?
LB: This whole project has been a totally autonomous initiative from Live DMA and Reset!. The topic of ownership concentration is something we’ve been discussing together for a long time, and it’s something that we thought was important to tackle in the public discourse and raise awareness about. There was no order from the European Commission or the European Union for us to do this. We are, however, working at the European level, and that’s why the authors of the policy paper we published connected this issue with the discussions I mentioned before with the Culture Compass and the AgoraEU program. But on the whole, the topic of ownership concentration is quite disconnected from the EU’s public discourse and its cultural policies. Through its programs and fundings, it does support culture, but it’s more focused on promoting cultural diversity, freedom of expression and artistic freedom. What we’re talking about with ownership concentration might be seen by some as incompatible with that, but that’s why we wanted to bring it into the public debate.
The music sector tends to be very capitalist, and is often relatively light on government regulation, particularly when it comes to things like mergers and acquisitions. Is there anything that can be done to reverse or slow down the growing ownership concentration in the sector?
LB: There’s more detail in the policy paper, but one of the most pressing needs is regular monitoring. Maybe that could be done by a public body, because the information is in the general interest, and also because everything is moving so fast. New purchases are happening almost every day, so updates need to be made on a consistent basis. Just doing that would help policymakers adapt their decisions to real-time information of what’s happening in the market.
In an ideal scenario, who needs to take action to affect change with this situation? Does it need to happen at a government regulation level? Does it need to be at a consumer level via boycotts or pressure campaigns? Does the media simply need to do more coverage?
LB: We need to create relevant alliances. We do see the role of policymakers as very important, and that’s why we’ve come up with some recommendations in the policy paper. We need them to recognize this as an issue, but we also need festivalgoers and people attending live music events to put their money where their mouth is. If they consider this to be a threat, then they should act accordingly. And of course, music professionals need to take action. We need more solidarity between independent players, festivals and live music venues to create more networks and more cooperation. Otherwise, if all of us keep going on our own, the future might be tricky to navigate.
It’s nice to think that policymakers could take an interest in this issue, but I’m guessing that if you talk to the average MEP (Member of European Parliament), they’re going to be worried about tariffs and the cost of living. They’re worried about fascism. They’re worried about migration. From what you’ve seen, is ownership concentration in the live music sector something that’s even on their radar?
LB:Just a few days before we released the maps, an MEP named Emma Rafowicz released a strong statement about ownership concentration in the live music sector. She was also with us at our presentation in Brussels earlier this month, and is someone who’s very vocal on this topic. During the past few weeks, we’ve seen some momentum start to build, both among audiences and even on other continents. We have some allies in Canada, a network of independent festivals called Le REFRAIN. They recently participated in an episode of Enquête, a newsmagazine television show on Radio Canada, that was focused on Live Nation and the ownership concentration happening in that country. That premiered the day after our presentation, and a written feature was published as well. So people are taking notice, and we’re going to continue to support policymakers by providing them with maps, studies and other information so they can better navigate the situation and hopefully make the best decisions to foster a healthy and virtuous music ecosystem.
First Floor is published and overseen by Shawn Reynaldo, a freelance writer, editor, presenter and project manager. Find him on LinkedIn and Instagram—and make sure to follow First Floor on Instagram as well—or you can just drop Shawn an email to get in touch about projects, collaborations or other potential opportunities.
Reset! is a network of independent culture and media organizations from across Europe. Funded in part by the European Union, it currently includes 130 members from more than 30 countries, and that membership consists of venues, festivals, community radios, cinemas, bookshops, artistic hubs, booking agencies, local authorities and resource organizations.
Live DMA is a European network of national live music associations, with members representing live music venues, clubs and festivals in their respective countries. Co-funded by the European Union, it supports a community of more than 3000 live music places across 17 countries.
Prior to this latest project, Barreira collaborated with the Syndicat des Musiques Actuelles—a French trade association that represents more than 600 festivals, event producers, labels, radio stations and other (mostly non-profit) actors—to create a map of the 10 largest private operators in the contemporary music value chain in France, which debuted in 2022 and was updated in 2025.