News October 27, 2015

Live Nation to enter Australian festival market?

Former Editor

Promoter juggernaut Live Nation Entertainment is reportedly in talks to purchase a 51% stake in C3 Presents, the independent promoter who own Australia’s Big Day Out and US’ Lollapalooza and Austin City Limits.

The prospective deal, which has allegedly been in the works for ‘months’, would value C3 Presents at US$250 million.

The reports follow TMN’s chat with Live Nation boss Michael Coppell in January this year; Coppell said the promoter is looking to become involved in the festival market.

“I think we’re looking at some stuff but it all depends on how things shake out after this festival season, it will be very interesting to see which brands survive and which don’t,” he told TMN back in January.

Live Nation, which owns Ticketmaster, already has a substantial stake in music festivals, having acquired promoters Cream (Creamfields Music Festival), HARD (Hard Summer) and Insomniac (Electric Daisy Carnival).

In January 2012, C3 Presents struck a deal with Big Day Out co-founder Ken West and bought into the festival. In June this year, following West’s departure and Soundwave promoter AJ Maddah’s 50% buy-in, C3 confirmed there would be no festival in 2015. Interestingly, after Maddah confirmed he had sold his share to C3, he told Tom Tilley of triple j’s Hack he was already working on a 2016 lineup.