The Music Week Awards, which shines a spotlight on the best in the music industry, would recognise a hugely successful period for us as a company, which has seen us enjoy a massive growth in our concert bookings in 2015 followed by a strong start to 2016.
Our managing partner George Akins said: “We are one of the fastest growing live companies in the UK, priding ourselves on being independent, artist focussed, flexible, creative and team players. Over the last 10 years we’ve progressively developed the live concert business from a handful of shows to many major tours – with a milestone coming with three sold out shows from Ed Sheeran at Wembley Stadium.
“Our award winning portfolio of music venues continue to provide a strong platform for that growth, whilst also expanding in their own right. We’ve also grown our festivals business too, with a strong focus on new music and creative programming.”
We have gotten off to a flying start in 2016 with the announcement of three major UK tours, which are already breaking records with more than 20,000 tickets sold on a single day.
Brian Wilson’s Pet Sounds 50th Anniversary Tour has seen very strong demand, with the majority of the UK shows already sold out and a third date at the prestigious London Palladium added to meet phenomenal demand.
We are also promoting The Human League across 16 UK dates this year which is proving to be one of the band’s fastest selling tours.
We have massively grown our festivals business, having staged Splendour Festival in Nottingham since 2008 which has showcased a number of high profile acts and just announced Jess Glynne, The Human League, and UB40 for the 2016 line-up. We also supported Ed Sheeran early on in his career with sets at Dot to Dot Festival.
There were 750 gigs across our venue portfolio in 2015, up 13% on the previous year, with a huge number of sell outs at Bodega, Rescue Rooms and Rock City in Nottingham and Oslo in London. With total ticket sales for festivals and gigs reaching 800,000 and more than 600,000 club night admissions, we saw more than 1.5 million people come through its doors last year.
‘It’s been a banner year for the British music industry’, said Music Week publisher Dave Roberts, ‘And that’s reflected in the quality of the nominations. We’re looking forward to celebrating the best and the brightest’.
This year’s Music Week Awards ceremony will take place on April 28 in London. Other nominees for Live Music Promoter of the year are AEG Live, Communion, Killimanjaro Live, SJM Concerts and Live Nation.