festivals
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Electronic music is in the DNA of Dutch culture. The country has not only bred countless globally renowned DJs and producers, but, naturally, the Dutch music scene is also rich with festivals focused on the genre, including Awakenings, Decibel, DGTK, Dekmantel, ITW, Milkshake, Shelter and many more. These shows host tens of thousands of fans throughout the season and feature techno, house, EDM, hardstyle and other sounds spanning the electronic genre.
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Now, we know the top tracks played at these Dutch festivals in 2022. This list was compiled based on plays and performances from 211 events from February to November, across roughly 800 stages at events throughout the Netherlands. Data was collected by DJ Monitor, a global leader in electronic music monitoring with exclusive access to performance data from festivals, clubs, venues and online streams. DJ Monitor identifies music for Collective Management Organizations, rights users, and technology companies worldwide.
The top track of the year was Farruko‘s unstoppable “Pepas,” followed by “Soundgasm,” the 2022 Afrobeats hit from Nigerian artist Rema. Third in line was J. Balvin and Skrillex‘s ever-hyphy “In Da Ghetto,” followed by the similarly amped “Schudden” from Dutch rapper Def Rhymz. Closing out the top five is the 1997 Eurodance classic “Freed From Desire” by Gala.
These were the top 50 tracks compiled from the data, with tracks with the same list number indicating a tie.
1. Farruko, “Pepas” 2. Rema, “Soundgasm”3. J Balvin & Skrillex, “In Da Getto”4. Def Rhymz, “Schudden”5. Gala, “Freed From Desire”6. Acraze feat. Cherish, “Do It To It”7. La Fuente, “I Want You”8. Kevin Lyttle feat. Spragga Benz, “Turn Me On” 8. Burna Boy, “On the Low10. Bizzey feat. Jozo & Kraantje Pappie, “Traag”11. Sean Paul, “Temperature”12. FMG, “Boot”13. Wiley X Sean Paul x Stefflon Don feat. Idris Elba, “Boasty” 14. Blaiz Fayah & Tribal Kush, “Bad” 14. Tekno “Go” 14. Daddy Yankee, “Gasolina” 17. James Hype & Miggy Dela Rosa, “Ferrari”18. Charly Black, “Gyal You A Party Animal”19. J Balvin & Willy William feat. Beyonce, “Mi Gente”20. Masters At Work feat. Puppah Nas-T & Denise, “Work” 21. Ronnie Flex feat. Frenna, “Energie” 21. Gregor Salto, “Para Voce”23. K-Liber & Dr. Rude, “Viben”24. Eurythmics, “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)”24. Burna Boy, “Kilometre” 24. Poke, “Lekker He” 24. Macklemore & Ryan Lewis feat. Ray Dalton, “Can’t Hold Us” 28. Aya Nakamura feat. Maluma, “Djadja” 29. Adje, “Hele Meneer”30. Usher feat. Lil Jon & Ludacris, “Yeah!”30. Trobi, Ronnie Flex, Chivv & ADF Samski, “Okee Shordy 32. J Balvin, Bad Bunny & Mr Eazi, “Como Un Bebe”32. Kris Kross Amsterdam, Antoon & Sigourney K, “Vluchtstrook”34. Soca Boys, “Follow the Leader” 34. MC Fioti, Future, J Balvin, Stefflon Don & Juan Magan, “Bum Bum Tam Tam”34. Lojay x Sarz x Chris Brown, “Monalisa [Mixed]” 37. ABBA, “Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)”37. Mart Hoogkamer, “Ik Ga Zwemmen” 39. Beyonce feat. Jay-Z, “Crazy In Love” 39. CKay, “Love Nwantiti (Acoustic Version)”39. ValsBezig, “BUK” 42. Bruno Mars, “24K Magic” 42. Tota Lopi, “Catxor Ta Micha so Ku 1 Pe” 44. Flo Rida feat. T-Pain, “Low”44. Panjabi MC, “Mundian To Bach Ke” 46. Shouse, “Love Tonight”46. Idaly & Emms, “Amazin’”46. Avicii, “Levels”49. CKay, “Emiliana”50. Bellini, “Samba De Janeiro” 50. El Alfa x CJ x Chael Produciendo feat. El Cherry Scom, “La Mamá de la Mamá” 50. J Capri x Charly Black, “Whine & Kotch”
After kicking off February with its announcement of a new K-pop music experience in the United States, We Bridge Music Festival & Expo has finalized its lineup with the addition of two artists.
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Monsta X will be the day 1 headliner for the Las Vegas fest’s first night of concerts on April 21. The festival has also added rapper-singer Jessi to its 10-artist bill.
We Bridge marks Monsta X’s Stateside live return since last summer after the U.S. leg of their No Limit world tour wrapped in June. The “Beautiful Liar” boy band was scheduled headliners for both Nickelodeon’s NickFest and KAMP LA 2022 laast year, but the former was canceled over “market conditions,” while MX was not able to appear at the latter event due to festival “visa issues.”
“We are really excited to be part of We Bridge Music Festival and Expo and bring our show to Las Vegas for all the fans,” Monsta X said via press release. “We will be there on April 21 and can’t wait for you all there.”
Meanwhile, We Bridge marks a rare opportunity for Queens-born Jessi to perform for American fans. The viral “Zoom” star most recently toured Europe in October, visiting cities like London, Paris and Barcelona. “Catch me at the Expo meeting fans and performing on April 21 at the festival,” Jessi said in a press release. “Hope to see you all there!”
The two artists join the eight previously announced artists for We Bridge’s inaugural that include fellow headliner ENHYPEN, as well as K-pop boy bands CIX and ONEUS, girl groups Dreamcatcher, fromis_9 and VIVIZ, plus solo stars Kang Daniel and BE’O.
Tickets are on sale now for the We Bridge Music Festival and Expo that’s taking place from April 21-23 at the Michelob ULTRA Arena at Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino and the Mandalay Bay Convention Center. Fans can follow @webridgeexpo on social media, and check out webridgeexpo.com for updates and programming details alongside partners like the Grammy Museum and Meta Prosper.
Day 1 – Friday, April 21ONEUSDreamcatcherCIXKang DanielJessiMonsta X
Day 2 – Saturday, April 22BE’OONEUSVIVIZfromis_9ENHYPEN
Two former Iowa tourism officials were each sentenced to more than a year in prison after pleading guilty to bank fraud charges related to a failed 2018 music festival headlined by Maroon 5 and Kelly Clarkson.
Aaron McCreight, 48, was sentenced to 18 months, and Doug Hargrave, 56, was sentenced to 15 months over charges that they lied to a Cedar Rapids bank in order to finance Newbo Evolve, a three-day music and cultural event held in the city in August 2018.
Prosecutors said the pair – executives at a local promotional group called Go Cedar Rapids — submitted inflated data about the event’s underwhelming ticket sales and projected revenues, and that they lied to the bank that Newbo Evolve was expected to turn a small profit.
In reality, McCreight and Hargrave expected to lose more than $600,000, prosecutors said. The festival eventually lost more than $2 million, and was unable to repay most of the loan to the bank. 97 vendors that provided services to the festival lost a combined $800,000 unpaid fees.
The two men — former executives at a local promotional group called Go Cedar Rapids — each pleaded guilty last January to a single charge of bank fraud.
In addition to the prison time, McCreight and Hargrave were ordered to jointly repay a combined $1.4 million in restitution, and each will be subject to three years of supervised release after their prison terms are complete.
Newbo Evolve was held in Cedar Rapids from Aug. 3-5, 2018, featuring performances by Maroon 5, Kelly Clarkson, The Wallflowers, Robert DeLong and others.
According to court documents, McCreight, Hargrave and Go Cedar Rapids secured $1.5 million in initial funding from a local bank, telling the lender they expected to sell 11,000 tickets to each of the two headliners and 4,000 three-day passes to the entire festival.
But three months after tickets went on sale, McCreight reported internally that tickets were “not selling as originally budgeted.” By June, the group had sold just just 6,500 total tickets and was internally projecting a loss of $644,846 — with deadlines to pay the artists and vendors looming.
“As the Newbo Evolve event dates approached, GoCR did not have enough money to, among other things, pay Kelly Clarkson, pay production costs, and buy the alcohol that was to be sold at the concert venue,” prosecutors wrote. “Without additional funding, Newbo Evolve would have to be cancelled.”
Faced with that pressure, court documents show, McCreight and Hargrave committed bank fraud. Reporting that ticket sales had “spiked” in recent weeks, they falsely told the bank that 15,000 total tickets had been sold and that the event was forecast to turn a profit of $65,653. And the move worked: the bank eventually extended their line of credit to $2,200,000.
“Ultimately, Newbo Evolve lost more than $2 million,” prosecutors wrote in charging documents. “As a result, GoCR was unable to repay much of its loan from the lending bank when the loan was due.”
When he pleaded guilty last year, an attorney for McCreight told Billboard that he was a “good man” who made a “bad decision” under “extreme pressures.”
“His motive was not based in personal greed, but in an attempt to salvage the Newbo Evolve event for the Cedar Rapids community,” said attorney William White. “Had the event sold more tickets and been profitable, it is unlikely any prosecution would have ensued. However, that was not the case, and Mr. McCreight accepts his involvement in the lending bank losing money and is extremely remorseful.”
Attorneys for both McCreight and Hargrave were not immediately available for comment on the prison sentences.
Read the full judgments against McCreight and Hargrave here:
After 2022 marked KCON’s in-person return following two years online, the world’s biggest K-pop festival has set 2023 dates for events in the U.S., Japan and Thailand in the coming months.
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Once again, KCON will hold its flagship event in California with KCON 2023 Los Angeles between Aug. 18-20 at the Crypto.com Arena and LA Convention Center. Barring 2020 and 2021 due to COVID-19, the West Coast iteration of the festival has been held throughout the Crypto.com Arena (formerly known as the Staples Center) and LA Convention Center since 2015, with 2023 marking its 10th time in the city’s famous L.A. Live campus.
Last year, KCON LA reported 90,000 fans attending across its three days of convention, panels, workshops meet-and-greets and concert activities headlined by artists like Stray Kids, ATEEZ, ITZY, The Boyz, Kep1er, TO1 and more.
After visiting Tokyo in October, KCON also revealed that it will return with its KCON 2023 Japan between May 18-20 at the Makuhari Messe convention center in Chiba. The fest last visited the city for its two-day KCON Premiere Chiba event last year where K-pop boy band TO1 performed alongside J-pop acts like JO1 and INI. KCON 2022 Japan was held at Tokyo’s Ariake Arena with TO1, ATEEZ, TOMORROW X TOGETHER, fromis_9, LE SSERAFIM, NewJeans, Monsta X‘s Kihyun and more K-pop and J-pop acts performing.
KCON Los Angeles and Japan join the preciously announced KCON Thailand, taking place next month at the IMPACT Arena and IMPACT Exhibition Center throughout March 18-19 in Bangkok’s northern suburb of Muang Thong Thani. The festival has TO1, ATEEZ, Kep1er, JO1, BamBam, iKON,(G)I-DLE and more K-pop and J-pop acts scheduled to visit.
KCON followed up in a press release that each location would have “signature programming as well as content tailored for each region” and that KCON will be live streamed globally without regional limitations.
Despite increasing competition from new K-pop festival startups like last year’s KAMP and the upcoming We Bridge Music Festival & Expo, as well as more Korean artists appearing on long-running U.S. music fests like Coachella, Lollapalooza and Governor’s Ball, KCON has managed to keep its attendance and audience engagement strong for more than a decade now.
“KCON, which started out with an audience of 10,000 in 2012, has now grown into the world’s biggest K-culture festival,” said Kim Hyun-soo, Head of Live Entertainment Business at CJ ENM, in a statement. “This year, KCON will meet global fans in Thailand, Japan and the U.S., advancing the spread of K-pop and K-culture around the world.”
After a four-year hiatus, long-running Seattle music festival Bumbershoot will return this Labor Day weekend — with help from e-commerce giant Amazon.
As announced Tuesday (Feb. 21) by new Bumbershoot producer New Rising Sun, the festival will return for its 50th edition on Sept. 2-3, 2023, and Amazon has agreed to underwrite presale tickets for this year’s edition to keep it affordable. The e-retailer will sponsor a special early bird $50 single-day ticket and $85 two-day general admission ticket — prices that are 50% lower than when the event was last held in 2019. Amazon has also announced plans to work with arts organization Third Stone to give out 5,000 tickets to area non-profits and community organizations.
First launched in 1971, Bumbershoot faced a double whammy in recent years thanks to declining ticket sales and attendance in the 2010s followed by three years of closure due to the pandemic.
Bumbershoot was previously produced by AEG Presents, which had agreed to produce the festival with Seattle non-profit festival production company One Reel beginning in 2014 to help cover the $1 million in debt One Reel had racked up and restore the event’s financial footing. In 2019, AEG Pacific Northwest vp Rob Thomas announced the company was not renewing its agreement, hinting at financial differences with One Reel. That same year, a barricade collapse at Bumbershoot injured four attendees.
One Reel executives announced plans to stage the festival in 2020, only to be stymied by the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2021, host venue the Seattle Center put out a new request for proposals for the event, with the winning bid going to New Rising Sun, a collective founded by Neumos co-owner Steven Severin, who now serves as Bumbershoot’s co-president & director of music programming; Vital 5 Productions founder Greg Lundgren, who serves as curator; and McCaw Hall general manager Joe Paganelli, who serves as producer.
“We heard from our community and took action — fulfilling our promise of affordability and inclusivity,” Severin said in a statement to Billboard. “When re-imagining our festival for this return, we examined everything through an arts lens and expanded upon what art is and can be. We look forward to sharing our vision this Labor Day weekend.”
“As ticket prices steadily climb for concerts and events around the globe, we’re excited to support reduced and free ticket prices, creating opportunity for more of our community to enjoy the diversity of Seattle’s creative ecosystem, participate in Bumbershoot’s exciting education programs, and immerse themselves in the arts,” added Amazon senior vp/general counsel/secretary David Zapolsky.
Tickets go on sale Friday (Feb. 24) at 10:00 a.m. PT via bumbershoot.com. Fans are encouraged to purchase tickets in advance as they are expected to sell quickly. A performer lineup will be announced at a later date.
The 2023 Roots Picnic is returning to Philadelphia’s Mann Center on June 3-4 with headlining sets by Diddy with The Roots, Lauryn Hill celebrating the 25th anniversary of her Miseducation of Lauryn Hill album, and Lil Uzi Vert.
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The three-day event, presented by The Roots and Live Nation Urban, will launch on June 2 with a stand-up comedy show and concert Dave Chappelle and The Roots at Philly’s Wells Fargo Center.
“Roots Picnic Weekend returns to Philadelphia June 2-4, 2023! We’re partnering with @livenationurban to bring you three days of black culture, music, comedy, and podcasts in one of the most beautiful cities in the world!!!!” organizers announced Monday (Feb. 20) on Instagram.
Other artists making an appearance throughout the annual hip-hop and R&B festival include Ari Lennox, City Girls, Maverick City, DJ Drama, Lucky Daye, Syd, GloRilla, Kindred the Family Soul, a State Property reunion, and a “live mixtape” from Black Thought featuring Busta Rhymes and Eve.
This year’s event will also include a podcast stage featuring Charlamagne Tha God, Off the Record with DJ Akademiks, Don’t Call Me White Girl, Lip Service with Angela Yee, People’s Party with Talib Kweli, and Questlove Supreme.
A fan club presale begins on Tuesday (Feb. 21) at 12 p.m. ET, with a general on-sale to follow on Wednesday at 10 a.m. ET through therootspicnic.com.
See the 2023 Roots Picnic announcement on Instagram below.
Long Beach is the laboratory for a half-dozen sustainability initiatives at this weekend’s annual Cali Vibes music festival at the city’s Marina Green Park.
Headlined by Snoop Dogg, Jack Johnson, Slightly Stoopid, Damian Marley, Ben Harper, Cypress Hill and many more, the popular reggae and West Coast hip-hop festival will be ground zero for new efforts by promoter Goldenvoice to dramatically reduce waste, decrease the event’s carbon footprint and use materials from last year’s festival to create merch and apparel for 2023 fans.
The challenge for Cali Vibes — like all other festivals — is that most festivals are not considered environmentally sustainable due to the amount of attendee travel involved, the energy consumed and the waste generated on-site, says AEG vp of Sustainability Erik Distler.
“It’s important to start with recognizing this work is difficult,” Distler says. “Executing sustainability initiatives for a large temporary event with tens of thousands of people involves engaging a broad stakeholder set” that includes artists, vendors, production companies, city officials and fans.
Distler said Goldevoice realized early on that the best way to maximize the impact of their sustainability efforts was to “embrace the complexity at the onset” of planning the 2023 event and develop a strategy centered around trackable operational improvements and attendee education.
“We’re in the business of bringing people together, evoking emotion, fueling passion and energy — it’s very human,” Distler adds. “We have the opportunity and responsibility to connect with our fans and talk about our sustainability work in a way that’s inspiring and uplifting. It’s about what’s possible if we come together.”
Sustainability has always been one of the undertones of Cali Vibes, “due to the event’s proximity to the ocean and the overall spirit of the festival,” says Nic Adler, vp of Goldenvoice Festivals. “This year, we booked Jack Johnson and his team really got us motivated to look at each corner of the festival and ask ourselves ‘what can we do differently?’”
That includes pushing Goldenvoice and its parent company AEG to offer fans refillable water stations and eliminate the sale of single-use plastic water bottles at the festival. This effort included renegotiating a water sponsorship agreement originally brokered by AEG with Origin, which will now offer canned instead of bottled water at Cali Vibes. Goldenvoice also partnered with vendor r.Cup to replace its single-use beer cups with a reusable plastic cup that is collected on-site, washed at a specialized cleaning facility and reused the following weekend.
Cali Vibes
Elli Lauren
“These cups have a life expectancy of several years,” dramatically reducing the number of single-use cups that end up in the landfill, says Michael Ilves, director of Goldenvoice Festivals, noting that the event’s waste management plan includes bins specifically designed to collect the cups.
“Another change in how we manage waste production is that bins previously labeled as trash or landfill will now be labeled as ‘waste-to-energy,’” Ilves explains. “Long Beach happens to have a waste-to-energy power plant that burns off waste, captures the gases released and powers about 35,000 homes off of that process.”
Helping fund the initiative is a first-ever $5 per ticket sustainability fee to pay for initiatives like the r.Cup program and purchase equipment to promote the use of solar energy and reduce the use of diesel generators. Goldenvoice is also working with a vendor to recycle signage, printed material and leftover merchandise from the 2022 festival to create new consumer items for 2023, including apparel, tote bags and posters.
All sustainability initiatives at the festival are being closely tracked by Santa Monica firm Three Squares Inc. — including recording every staff member’s own carbon footprint — to measure Goldenvoice’s progress and analyze opportunities to expand the company’s sustainability efforts to the 32 festival brands it operates globally, including the annual Coachella and Stagecoach festivals. Insights gleaned from the resulting report can help the company significantly improve its environmental impact, Adler explains.
“Popping up in a parking lot for an event that 20,000 people drive to is not sustainable,” Adler says. “That’s why it’s important for us to create a report that allows us to continue the work that we’re doing and be honest about our own carbon footprint. It gives us an opportunity to get together in a room and say ‘Here is last year’s number, this year let’s try to cut it in half.’”
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For the first time in its more than six-decade history, the Viña del Mar International Song Festival will be livestreamed in the United States, exclusively on Billboard.com, Billboard’s YouTube channel and via Twitter @Billboard.
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This year’s fest, returning live after a two-year hiatus due to the global COVID-19 pandemic, features headliners Karol G, Alejandro Fernández, Christina Aguilera, Fito Páez, Tini and Camilo. Each artist headlines one night of the festival, beginning with Karol G on Feb. 19; Tini on Feb. 20; Alejandro Fernández on Feb. 21; Fito Páez on Feb. 22; Christina Aguilera Feb. 23; and ending with Camilo on Feb. 24.
As it has in the past, the six-day festival will take place at Quinta Vergara, a 15,000-capacity amphitheater located in the Chilean city of Viña del Mar, in the central coast region of Valparaíso. Each night features a comedy set, the international song competition contestants, and a performance by up-and-coming acts, which this year are Paloma Mami, Emilia, Rels B, Los Jaivas, Nicki Nicole and Polimá Westwood.
But the main attraction are the headlining superstars.
If you aren’t among those lucky 15,000 who were able to make it to Viña and score a ticket to the fest, never fear. You can catch the headlining performances every night at 7:30 ET (9:30 local Chile time), here on Billboard.com, on Billboard’s YouTube page and on Twitter.
To livestream Karol G’s performance on Sunday, Feb. 19, bookmark this page.
Find the full week’s schedule below.
Sunday, Feb. 19: Karol G
Monday, Feb. 20: Tini Stoessel
Tuesday, Feb. 21: Alejandro Fernández
Wednesday, Feb. 22: Fito Páez
Thursday, Feb. 23: Christina Aguilera
The 73rd edition of the Sanremo Festival ended just a few days ago but its aftermath will last for a long time. Not just for the quantity of funny memes, but also for the impact that the event had on streaming platforms and on the growth of the artists’ profiles on social media. And finally, for spurring a debate topic that concerns not just music but the society we live in: The absence of women among the five finalists. Was that just a matter of appreciation of the songs – like many artists themselves said – or is there something deeper?
Also: Did the six new artists coming from Sanremo Giovani really benefit from the participation in the main competition?
The impact on streaming platforms
The TV show ended, so the competition is now shifting to the digital world. Like after the last editions, streaming platforms are dominated by Sanremo songs, as clearly shown by Spotify’s Top 50 (Italy and Global) and Apple Music’s Top 100 Italy. The most streamed songs on both Spotify and Apple Music are Lazza’s “Cenere” (“Ashes”), Mr. Rain’s “Supereroi” (“Superheroes”), and winner Marco Mengoni’s “Due Vite” (“Two Lives”) – the top three contestants of Sanremo 2023.
The impact of Sanremo on streaming platforms can also be observed on a global scale. Six songs of the top 10 of Spotify’s Top Songs Debut Global are from Sanremo: Besides the three already mentioned, also Madame’s “Il Bene nel Male” (“The Good in the Bad”), Rosa Chemical’s “Made in Italy,” and Tananai’s “Tango.” Is streaming the festival’s true democracy?
Growth on social media
The Italian agency of influencer marketing FLU analyzed the contestants’ impact on social media. In the digital world, the most active audience was the one comprised between the age of 18 and 24. It is another confirmation of the generational turnover that characterized Sanremo in the last years, supported by the growing number of younger artists participating in the contest.
Overall, Sanremo generated more than a billion views for the hashtag #sanremo2023 and millions of views for the videos published by the festival’s official profile. The artists’ profiles also benefited from such a visibility and massively raised their number of followers. Rosa Chemical saw a growth of 158%, Mr. Rain of 98,84% and Colapesce & Dimartino of 55%. In absolute numbers, Marco Mengoni surpassed all the others once again, with 400,000 new followers.
The absence of women among the five finalists
Marco Mengoni immediately said that he wanted to dedicate his victory to “all the women who participated this year and brought wonderful songs on stage.” During a press conference the day after, he added that Italy still has a lot to do when it comes to gender equality. The female artists themselves did not want to accuse anybody and minimized the issue. Still, the last time a woman won Sanremo was with Arisa’s victory in 2014.
Before the beginning of Sanremo, Elodie said in an interview with Vogue Italy: “Male artists don’t get bothered as much. If you’re a male, you do your thing and that’s it. But I have the impression that someone is always there to judge me. That pisses me off. I get the feeling that I’m not good enough. Men get judged less.”
There are many factors to consider, starting from a deeper understanding of the demographics of those who vote from home. But the gender gap is still an issue in the Italian music industry.
Equaly, an Italian community of female professionals of the music industry, analyzed the problem closely. In the last year’s edition of Sanremo, women were 36% of the contestants. This year, that figure fell to 33.7% – 11 female artists out of 28 contestants. No wonder women had fewer chances to make it to the final stage of the contest.
“There are several reasons why the Italian music market is not very inclusive,” said Francesca Barone, co-founder of Equaly. “For sure, a few factors are the way Spotify’s algorithms work, the success of trap music, the pandemic giving women the burden of family care, and also Italy’s traditional mentality, still dominated by patriarchal schemes.”
The new artists at Sanremo
If you are 20 and have the possibility of showcasing your talent in Italy’s prime music event, the final result is maybe not too important. Still, it is worth noting that the six artists coming from the contest Sanremo Giovani occupy the lower positions of the final ranking: with a No. 20 ranking, Colla Zio were the most successful. It is difficult to compete with household names and their fan bases built over the course of decades.
Prior to the event, Billboard Italy asked artistic director and main host Amadeus about this issue. He said that he just wanted to give newer artists the right space: “This world needs to trust the young, both in music and entertainment. People my age often reject their ideas, but they’re wrong. It’s us who need to adapt and enter their world, also because they spontaneously fall in love with the past.”
Sethu, Shari, Colla Zio, gIANMARIA, Olly, and Will paid the price of not being known to the general public before the beginning of the festival. Sanremo’s younger audience has been getting bigger and bigger, but how many of them actually vote?
As Latin music continues to soar across the world in various facets of the industry — from breaking historic records on the global pop charts to setting new ones in music streaming — stateside festivals are also seeing a significant boom of Latin performers.
For instance, Coachella hosted more Latin acts than ever last year, which signaled a new era for the south-of-the-border genre. Anitta, Karol G, Ed Maverick and Grupo Firme were among the almost 20 Latin music performers who graced the global stage. “[Coachella] can no longer be exclusive to any genre, and it looks like they are now understanding the value of our music,” Sergio Lizárraga of Banda MS told Billboard.
Last year also saw the birth of several brand new Latin-focused festivals across the United States. Of the giants were Chicago’s Sueños y Más Flow, which highlights mainly urban music, and Los Angeles’ Bésame Mucho, with a nostalgic ’90s-era roster.
Just as American institutions are visibly beginning to embrace more sonic entertainment coming from Latin America and Spain, those regions continue to host thriving music festivals of their own, thus elevating their own game.
This year sees the return of many iconic brands, such as the Latin rock-centric Vive Latino and the Norteño pride festivity Tecate Pa’l Norte in Mexico. The Lollapalooza franchise, originally from Chicago, also continues to reach various corners of the world with installments in Argentina, Chile and Brazil. London indie fest La Línea also returns to showcase Latin music exclusively.
While this might not be a complete list of some of the most compelling Ibero American and Latin music-centric festival listings around the globe, it should be a great starting point. See our list below, arranged in sequential order.