State Champ Radio Touring
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Women In CTRL, a non-profit advocacy group, announced Thursday (Oct. 23) that more than a dozen British live music organizations have signed a pledge designed to strengthen inclusion targets across the industry.
The Seat at the Table Inclusion Pledge, the first of its kind in the U.K., is centered around a new sector-wide commitment to achieving gender-balanced leadership by 2030.
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Signees of the pledge include ATC Live and Ginger Owl, and companies including AEG and The O2. All 15 LIVE (Live Music Industry Venues & Entertainment) organisations have also signed up, including the Association of Independent Festivals, Featured Artists Coalition and Music Managers Forum.
As supporters of the pledge, industry allies will contribute to case studies, share learning across the sector, and participate in future roundtables and peer learning sessions. Women In CTRL says this collaboration will be key to strengthening accountability across the live music ecosystem.
Signatories will also be required to commit to submitting an annual check-in to show progression across key focus areas, such as strengthening governance and board diversity through reviews or term limits.
In April, Women In CTRL and LIVE released a landmark report titled Seat at the Table: LIVE Edition. Its findings highlighted progress in some areas — including the finding that 61% of the Music Venue Trust board identifies as women or non-binary — while also revealing disparities in wider leadership representation.
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Forty-one percent of board members across LIVE and its 15 member organisations are women or non-binary people, the report stated. LIVE has since released its 2030 inclusion targets, which include 50% women and non-binary representation and 16% women from global majority backgrounds in senior leadership roles.
Elsewhere, the report revealed that women’s representation on U.K. music trade association boards rose from 32% in 2020 to 52% in 2024.
Gaby Cartwright, head of partnerships at LIVE, said in a press release at the time the report was released, “As an industry, it’s clear that we must do more to improve gender representation at the highest levels… Reaching this goal will require collective effort, accountability, and meaningful action — but momentum is building. This report provides crucial insight into the challenges we face, and the concrete steps needed to drive lasting change.”
Nadia Khan, founder of Women In CTRL, added at the time, “We know from experience that what gets measured, gets done. This report is an essential first step; by setting a clear benchmark, we are providing the industry with a roadmap for action, not simply reflection.”To read the full Seat at the Table: LIVE Edition report, visit the Women In CTRL website here.
Trending on Billboard EJAE, the powerhouse vocalist and songwriter behind KPop Demon Hunters’ chart-topping single “Golden,” has signed with WME for worldwide representation across all areas of her music career. A breakout voice from Netflix’s record-smashing animated musical film, EJAE is the singing voice of Rumi, the lead vocalist of the fictional girl group HUNTR/X. […]
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The nonprofit Bye Bye Plastic Foundation, founded by DJ/producer Blond:ish, has announced a landmark partnership with the booking-and-tour-management platform Gigwell, opening access for artists, managers and booking agents to integrate the new Eco-Rider 2.0 sustainability toolkit into their touring plans. The move is part of a larger push to make eco-conscious touring mainstream.
The original Eco-Rider, introduced in 2019, has already been adopted by more than 1,500 DJs and performers worldwide, helping prevent more than 325,000 single-use plastic bottles and 425,000 cups from entering circulation, according to the Bye Bye Plastic Foundation. With the roll-out of Eco-Rider 2.0 via Gigwell’s platform, artists will now be able to opt in to a full-scale sustainability rider during the booking process. By doing so, they will force promoters and venues will be to shift toward greener hospitality, eliminate plastics backstage and front-of-house and embed eco-requirements contractually.
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“When I started using the eco rider, 100 percent of my events were using plastic,” said Blond:ish in a statement. “Now I’m down to 20 percent. And not even just in the DJ booth, but the actual entire event is single-use plastic-free.”
Gigwell’s CEO, Jeremie Habib, said his platform was uniquely poised to scale this change thanks to its integrated tour-booking tools, venue-database routing software and e-signature contract flows that help eliminate paper waste in the artist-agent-venue ecosystem.
The Eco-Rider 2.0 includes a full toolkit of resources, including educational content, networking spaces for artists and tour teams, and backend integration so that sustainability requirements become a seamless part of the booking workflow. Support for the initiative now includes artists such as Sam Feldt, Madame Gandhi, Yulia Niko and Mia Moretti, along with agencies like EMPIRE, Dirtybird and Protocol Agency.
The official launch of Eco-Rider 2.0 will take place at the Amsterdam Dance Event (ADE 2025) on Wednesday (Oct. 22), where Bye Bye Plastic and Gigwell will host a panel to open up dialogue and showcase how the toolkit can scale globally. From that date forward, the toolkit will be available to artists and agencies worldwide.
Learn more at gigwell.com.
Billboard‘s Live Music Summit will be held in Los Angeles on Nov. 3. For tickets and more information, visit https://www.billboardlivemusicsummit.com/2025/home-launch.
06/21/2025
The 90,000-capacity venue hosted the capital’s biggest party as the pop star upgraded to a stadium-sized performance with ease.
06/21/2025
On June 13, the rain was coming down on the farm in Manchester, Tenn., where Bonnaroo is held — and things weren’t looking great for the 2025 edition of the festival.
Hours after sending out an evacuation order to its tens of thousands of attendees, Bonnaroo canceled the rest of its 2025 edition entirely due to a weather forecast that — as the festival said in its announcement — called for “significant and steady precipitation that will produce deteriorating camping and egress conditions in the coming days.”
It was a heartbreaking situation for all involved, from the event’s producers — who in their announcement said they were “beyond gutted” — to the fans who’d trekked to Tennessee to the many artists who were slated to play.
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Among the latter group was Remi Wolf, who had been selected to perform at Bonnaroo’s fabled Superjam — an annual set that brings a fleet of artists together on stage. (Past Superjam leads include Preservation Hall Jazz Band and Skrillex.) Wolf had spent nearly a year preparing for the Saturday night show, formally titled “Remi Wolf’s Insanely Fire 1970s Pool Party Superjam,” recruiting fellow artists including Paramore’s Hayley Williams and Mt. Joy.
With the festival canceled, Wolf and her team were committed to making the show happen elsewhere. So on the night of June 13, Josh Mulder, the director of A&R at talent agency TBA, which represents Wolf, jumped into action, getting on the phone to secure another venue for the concert. After many phone calls, Mulder and the team locked in Nashville’s Brooklyn Bowl, where Wolf performed the following day alongside Williams and a host of other guests, performing songs like Chaka Khan’s “Sweet Thing” and “Tell Me Something Good” with Rufus, Bonnie Raitt’s “I Can’t Make You Love Me” and Hall and Oates’ “Rich Girl.”
Here, Mulder talks about pivoting from the farm to the Bowl.
When did it become clear that the Superjam at Bonnaroo wasn’t going to happen?
Looking at the weather all week going into the festival, we all knew we were in for a wet weekend. All day Friday, we were in close contact with [AC Entertainment’s] Steve Greene and his team on what was happening. He called me while I was at dinner in Nashville on Friday night, saying the show was coming down and explained the situation. I then spent the next hour outside of the restaurant on the phone gathering information and updating our teams to make our next moves.Did you and the team even make it on-site? If so, how was it looking?
Remi and her band made their way through rehearsal in Manchester with the guests on the show on Friday. TBA had people on the ground at the festival on Thursday and Friday, sending constant reports that it was absolutely dumping rain on site, and it wasn’t looking great. We were actively working through an initial wave of weather-related cancellations on Friday afternoon, with the Live Nation team trying to figure out the best course of action for those artists to make the most of their time in Tennessee for the fans.What do you recall about the moment the festival was canceled and how you and the team responded? Was it immediately obvious that a relocation would be possible?
My first call was to Remi’s management team. The word was getting out, and the consensus from us and directly from Remi out of the gate was that we had an obligation to save the Superjam. It was an important moment for Remi, but equally such an important moment for the guests who we have been working with for months. It was a tornado of information being shared as quickly as possible regarding what was happening on site and how the fans were affected as well, which informed how we responded.How did you pivot to Brooklyn Bowl? What calls had to be made, and was it the first venue you sought out?
Immediately on one of those first calls, we started exploring options to relocate the show in Nashville. Through that conversation, we asked about a handful of rooms, and after clicking through a few options, we all came to the conclusion that Brooklyn Bowl was the best space available. Before pushing the go button and officially confirming the venue, we needed to figure out how many of our guests were actually able to join, so we knew if we had a show or not. Hats off to Josh Roth from the Bonnaroo team, as well as Remi’s management. It was a tag team effort to circle the wagons and reconfirm these amazing artists to round out the show with Remi.
Remi Wolf
Patrick Maciel
How did ticketing work? Do you have any sense of how many attendees were people who’d had to leave Bonnaroo?
Right from the start, we were all aligned on making this an affordable option for fans and realized the level of devastation that everyone was feeling, given the news of the festival canceling. We landed on a $35 ticket, which just felt right given the scenario. We announced the show with no guests around 11 p.m. on Friday night, with an on-sale time of Saturday morning at 9 a.m. The show sold out in about one minute, which we anticipated happening but was also a big relief.
From my understanding, there were many fans who were able to make it off the site before the show and ended up coming to Brooklyn Bowl. The crowd was electric and brought that Bonnaroo flair with them to the room. All night long, the conversation was about how amazing it was to see their spirit continue there, which was complete with many pool floaties and more usual ‘roo style.
Did all of the special guests slated for Bonnaroo make it to the Nashville show?
Naturally, given the situation, we were prepared for a few acts to not be able to make it. But we held most of the lineup together with Hayley Williams, Mt. Joy, Gigi Perez, Grace Bowers and Brian Robert Jones. Then we were able to add Grouplove and Medium Build at the last minute, which of course ended up being incredible moments in the show.
What were the highlights of the event for you?
Anyone who knows me knows I am personally such a huge Paramore fan, so I’d have to say Hayley Williams. Seeing Remi and Hayley on stage brought some tears of joy to my eyes. Just such a special moment.
How did you and the team celebrate after it was finished?
There were many hugs and beverages shared in the green room after the show. Spirits were very high, and it was just such a special moment to share with everyone there.
TOMORROW X TOGETHER is getting ready to blow your mind! The K-pop group announced on Friday (June 20) that it is set to embark on its fourth world tour. The trek, titled ACT : TOMORROW, will kick off with two shows at Gocheok Sky Dome in Seoul, South Korea, on Aug. 22 and 23. The […]
A New York hedge fund manager linked to the SFX bankruptcy has been quietly co-managing Avant Gardner and the temporarily closed Brooklyn Mirage nightclub since late last year and leading unsuccessful efforts trying to get it reopened, Billboard has learned.
Andrew Axelrod’s Axar Capital has been a secured creditor of Avant Gardner — the Brooklyn nightclub company that books and manages the Brooklyn Mirage, Kings Hall and the Great Hall — since late 2023, sources close to the company have confirmed.
A year prior, former Avant Gardner CEO Billy Bildstein had negotiated the purchase of the Electric Zoo festival from Axelrod, whose Axar Capital was the senior creditor to media mogul Bob Sillerman’s one-time EDM conglomerate SFX — of which Electric Zoo’s parent company, Made Events, was a part. When SFX went bankrupt in 2015, Axar Capital led a takeover of the company, rebranding it LiveStyle and hiring music executive Randy Phillips to lead a selloff of its assets, which included U.S. promoters like Disco Donnie Presents and Life in Color; Europe’s ID&T, the Dutch promoter behind Tomorrowland; and EDM tech startups like Denver-based electronic music platform Beatport. The last asset to sell, in 2022, was Made Events. Axelrod wanted $15 million for the company and structured the deal so that Avant Gardner could pay Axar Capital using the proceeds from the Electric Zoo festival.
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Avant Gardner successfully ran the Electric Zoo festival in 2022 but was sidelined by multiple fiascos the following year including permit denials, gate crashers, the cancellation of the festival’s opening day and accusations of overselling the closing day by 7,000 fans. Due to the disastrous 2023 run, Avant Gardner has faced multiple lawsuits from both fans and unpaid vendors and was condemned by a one-time ally, New York Mayor Eric Adams, who had previously supported the popular Brooklyn Mirage and sided with Bildstein during his high-profile battle with the State Liquor Authority.
Sources tell Billboard that the demise of the festival, and Avant Gardner’s inability to pay Axar the reported $15 million price tag for Electric Zoo, are what led to Axar becoming a senior creditor to Avant Gardner. Terms of the Electric Zoo sale are not public, but a previous agreement between Axar and publicly traded streaming service LiveOne, which purchased Chicago’s Spring Awakening festival — another SFX asset — shows how Axelrod liked to structure some of those deals.
In that agreement, Axelrod sold Spring Awakening to LiveOne for $2.5 million in convertible loans that Axelrod could turn into equity. The deal allowed LiveOne to take over the festival immediately and pay Axelrod back over two years. There was even an option for Axelrod to accept LiveOne stock instead of cash if shares of the company hit certain price targets, but they never did. A month after the deal closed, COVID-19 hit, and Spring Awakening 2020 was canceled. After LiveOne lost $3.5 million on the 2021 event, Axelrod agreed to accept $2.4 million worth of LiveOne stock. But five months later, the value of LiveOne’s stock had fallen 70%, dropping the value of Axelrod’s LiveOne shares to approximately $700,000.
Avant Gardner is a private company, so it’s unclear how the agreement with Axar was structured. Sources tell Billboard that Axelrod made additional investments into the Brooklyn Mirage, which recently underwent extensive renovations and is now attempting to navigate New York’s Department of Buildings to secure a permit to open.
On May 22, Avant Gardner parted ways with Josh Wyatt, a hospitality executive Axelrod had hired to run the company and guide it through renovations that saw the club close for construction. The Brooklyn Mirage was supposed to open May 1 with a concert by Sara Landry, but building inspectors declined to grant the facility a permit to open. A month and a half later, the club has been forced to cancel and relocate more than a dozen shows as its permit problems persist.
Gary Richards, a promoter, touring artist and former CEO of Livestyle for Axar Capital, is now running Avant Gardner and managing day-to-day operations. Billboard reached out to Richards and Axar but was told that neither planned to comment for this story.
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EXO‘s Kai is going on tour.
That’s right, Aeris: Get excited. The musician’s KAION tour is coming to a city near you, and very soon. Tickets are currently available to the general public on a slew of ticketing sites including Ticketmaster, StubHub, Vivid Seats and so many more, and we’re going to show you how to get them.
The K-pop idol’s touring debut kicked off with a two-night stint at the Olympic Handball Gymnasium in Seoul, South Korea, from May 17-18. The tour name, KAION, is a fusion of KAI + ON, with “AION” meaning eternity in Greek.
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The tour name symbolizes the beginning of eternity for this worldwide tour. Kai will make numerous stops from August to September in the United States in Los Angeles, Texas, Atlanta and New York. EXO’s Baekhyun is also going on tour at the same time as his bandmate, meaning Aeries will be spoiled for options this summer. You can see the full list of dates and stops below.
Where to Buy Tickets to Kai’s 2025 KAION Tour
Courtesy of Ticketmaster
Best Prices
Ticketmaster has some of the best prices we’ve seen so far for Kai’s tour. Standard tickets at some venues start at around $113. Ticketmaster also offers a Fan Guarantee that allows for cancellations, refunds or exchanges within 24 hours of booking, subject to certain exclusions. Current available venues include the Rosemont Theatre in Rosemont, Ill., and The Theater at MSG in New York, NY.
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Best Venue Options
StubHub has a slew of venue options still available for the K-Pop star’s tour. Available venues as of writing include Rosemont Theatre in Rosemont, Ill., Fox Theater Atlanta in Atlanta Ga., Texas Trust CU Theatre in Grand Prairie, Texas and Shrine Auditorium and Expo Hall in Los Angeles, Calif. Tickets for venues overseas on Kai’s tour docket are also currently available on StubHub’s site.
StubHub’s FanProtect Guarantee allows you to shop for all dates and arenas with ease. It ensures valid tickets every time or your money back. If your event is canceled and not rescheduled, you’ll be able to receive a credit worth 120% of the amount you paid for the impacted event or the option of a cash refund. Safe to say, you’re in good hands.
EARN REWARDS
Snag your seats with Vivid Seats now with help from us. Right now, you can use promo code BB30 to snag $30 off of your purchase. This ticketing service offers a 100% Buyer Guarantee that vows your transaction is secure, that your tickets will be delivered before your event and that your tickets are valid. Pricing for Kai’s tickets is a bit pricey, but by using our code, you’ll get them for a steal so good that you’ll wanna brag about it.
promo codes
We can also help you get the best deals for Kai’s tour tickets on Seat Geek. Right now, you can use promo code BILLBOARD10 at checkout to receive $10 off at checkout. Like most of the ticketing services on this list, Seat Geek features a Buyer Guarantee that ensures a breezy ticket purchase experience no matter what. Some venues have tickets right now for as low as $117.
promo code
There’s nothing better than saving your coin. You can grab Kai’s tour tickets through TicketNetwork with the code BILLBOARD300 to save $300 off orders of $1,000, and BILLBOARD150 to save $150 off orders of $500. Don’t have the money to shell out yet? You can also purchase your tickets on the website now and pay later with help from Affirm. TicketNetwork’s website also includes all-in pricing that lets you see exactly what you’ll be paying upfront (fees included). Right now, a slew of US venues have available tickets on the site so you can choose the spot that’s closest to you without going through scalpers.
Courtesy of Gametime
seating options
Gametime has a multitude of great seating options still available at many venues for a range of great prices, the most versatile options we’ve seen so far. Some venues have tickets starting at $130. Gametime’s guarantee includes low prices, event cancellation protection, job loss assurance and on-time ticket delivery so you can purchase your concert tickets without breaking a sweat.
Kai’s KAION Touring Schedule in the United States
August 28 Los Angeles, CA Shrine Auditorium
August 31 Grand Prairie, TX Texas Trust CU Theatre
September 2 Atlanta, GA Fox Theatre
September 4 Rosemont, IL Rosemont Theatre
September 6 New York, NY The Theater at MSG
More About Kai
Kai is a member of the South Korean boy band EXO. He serves as the band’s main dancer, lead rapper and center. The group debuted back in 2012 and experienced major success in both Korea and the United States. Kai first went solo back in 2020 with his mini album titled Kai. Since then, the musician dropped his EP Peaches in 2021 and EP Rover in 2023. Beyond being an excellent dancer and musician, Kai has also used his gorgeous looks to his advantage as a brand ambassador for Gucci.
Kai’s latest album Wait On Me features seven tracks including singles released ahead of the album “Wait On Me” and “Adult Swim.” Every track on the album is dance-worthy with heavy R&B influence. It stands as one of his more experimental albums to date. The album was dropped in April of this year and serves as Kai’s fourth mini-album.
Bad Bunny is set to kick off his all-stadium world tour on Nov. 21 in the Dominican Republic, in support of his sixth studio album, DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS, which topped the Billboard 200 in January. The Live Nation-produced trek will make pit stops in Costa Rica and Mexico in December, before resuming in January […]
NIVA ‘25 — the fourth annual conference for the National Independent Venue Association, slated to take place June 22-25 in Milwaukee — is happening against the backdrop of some of the fiercest ticketing battles heating up around the country. According to NIVA executive director Stephen Parker, this year alone throughout the U.S., there have been nearly 70 bills introduced in almost 30 states pertaining to ticketing, and the conference is set to address the good, bad and the ugly amid the fight.
“Ticketing continues to be the singular focus,” Parker tells Billboard. “Ticketing is turning into the proxy battle in legislatures — federal, state and local — for the future of live performance.”
The conference will include panels such as “Battling Scalping Goes to Washington, D.C.”; “Turn the Tables: Make the Ticket Resale Market Work For You”; “How We Solve a Problem Like Chargebacks”; and ticketing network sessions, all of which will focus on different ticketing issues facing independent venues. The subject of ticketing will also be part of conversations about local and federal regulations and be weaved into various other panels.
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“This conference is an opportunity and a catalyst for us to come together, assess what’s happened this year — our wins and losses in states fighting against predatory resellers,” Parker continues, “and come out of this conference with a plan to make sure that any sort of anti-consumer policy that’s being pushed by predatory resale platforms and brokers, we have a renewed strategy to address it and make sure that the freedom that fans should have from deception and fraud continues to reign supreme.”
Poor ticket buying experiences are impacting fans’ desire to attend more shows and hiking prices so high that many can only afford a limited number of shows each year. And on the venue side, credit card chargebacks have become a major issue.
One of the conference discussions will be “what can we do to make sure that that credit card chargebacks don’t take us down,” Parker says. “Especially given that most of those chargebacks, it seems, are coming from predatory resellers that have sold the tickets and are just trying to maximize their profits that they’re making off the backs of small venues and independent artists.”
While the subject of ticketing will take center stage at the conference — which is being held across the city at different independent venues — the conversations will touch on many other topics. After every conference, NIVA reaches out to its 1,500 members and asks them what subjects they would like to see represented at the following year’s gathering — and the organization, through programming director Jamie Loeb, has managed work more than 100 issues that affect independent venue owners into this year’s program. Among them, NIVA ‘25’s programming will also address declining alcohol sales, the purpose of middle agents, the performing rights and licensing landscape, marketing, and breaking through in the attention economy.
“If I were to say what the theme of this conference [is], it’s ‘How do we break through?’” says Parker.
One of the key methods for breaking through is telling the story of independent venues and the impact they have on local communities, as well as globally. During the conference, NIVA plans to unveil extensive data on the economics of independent venues, which the association hopes will help tell that story.
“I can tell you that it’s a mixed bag,” Parker says of the data. “There’s such promise and optimism and potential growth for the sector, but that growth and optimism is suppressed by the continued threats of predatory resale and monopolies and inflation. We’re going to talk about what we do moving forward in terms of how we address those monopolies.”
Attendees will be able to learn about best practices for dealing with government entities, from city councils to state legislatures, as well as hear about how other countries are moving to save their own cultural spaces.
The association will also use the conference to detail the expansion of its collective bargaining agreements. While NIVA introduced its collective bargaining program nearly 18 months ago, its efforts are continuing to expand.
“At least a quarter of our members have taken advantage of this program, either for discounts for food, discounts for equipment, discounts for sound and lighting. We’re thinking beyond just the physical and going to services and fees and things that every venue has to pay every day,” says Parker. “We will be announcing some exciting new opportunities for our members on that front to try to make the cost of doing business lighter for them.”
NIVA ‘25 kicks off this Sunday with an opening keynote from My Morning Jacket’s Jim James. Other discussions will include producer Jimmy Jam, former Capitol Music Group CEO Michelle Jubelirer and High Road Touring founder Frank Riley. For more information on NIVA ‘25, head here.
