No big deal? Live nation's impact on the Belgian live music market

The live music and festival industries are undergoing globalization challenges similar to other creative industries, but the impact of global live music promoters on local markets seems to be flying under the radar of scholarly attention. To open up debate on the impact of global live music promoters on local popular music festival markets, this article seeks to conduct an exploratory study including empirical data on this matter. As Live Nation, the world’s largest and leading global live music promoter, recently celebrated its 10th anniversary in Belgium, the article questions to what extent Live Nation’s more than a decade-old takeover of the reigning competing live music organizations has affected the local festival market structure, its booking policies, ticket prices and the supply of local talent staged. The results show that while Live Nation has undoubtedly provoked changes in the structure of the Belgian festival scene, its powerful share and position has also stimulated rather than threatened local talent, and tempered rather than raised ticket prices. Thus while globalization of the local festival scene has certainly been a ‘big deal’ in terms of market power, it has not necessarily been the worst possible outcome either