Brit Beat: Metallica Brings Download Festival First Ever Sell-Out; Tap Music Gears Up for Eurovision; Ben Cook’s Return Sparks Controversy

Mark Sutherland
·10 min read
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Things are looking up for Download Festival. The hard rock and metal event will celebrate its 20th anniversary edition this year with its first-ever sell-out. The fest’s promoter, Andy Copping of Live Nation, confirms that all the weekend tickets and Saturday day tickets for this year’s 90,000-capacity festival have been snapped up, with the final remaining day tickets expected to sell out in the next few days.

“We’ve done some big numbers in the past,” says Copping, speaking exclusively to Variety. “But this one has been a complete other level. The festival running for 20 years and hitting that landmark sell-out figure is incredible.”

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In contrast, Copping says sales for 2022’s event – which featured a line-up largely first announced pre-pandemic in October 2019 after two years without a full-scale festival – had been “borderline sluggish” until a late surge in the last few weeks on sale. But he says that an ultimately successful first post-COVID event, combined with a revamped marketing campaign, helped boost demand as soon as the extended four-day festival for 2023, being held June 8-11, was announced.

“We saw this huge uptake in early bird tickets –and when I say huge, I mean huge,” he says. “We ended up doing 35,000 before we’d even announced a band – that’s unheard of. Normally, on a very good year, we’d do 4,000 early birds.”

Sales surged again when a strong bill – including headline slots from Slipknot and Bring Me the Horizon, plus two different sets from Metallica – was unveiled. Copping says the idea to get Metallica to double up was inspired by Danny Wimmer Presents’ festivals in the U.S. – which, in 2021, were headlined by Metallica on two nights of the weekend.

“The beauty of Metallica is they have such a huge catalog of songs,” says Copping. “There is a finite amount of bands that you could do it with, but I’d certainly look at it again in the future, probably when there is something special going on around the festival.”

The 2023 weekend will also feature Bring Me the Horizon’s first headline slot at the festival and, while Download has been criticized in the past for its reliance on vintage headliners, Copping says he’s determined to provide a platform for the next generation.

“I’ve been massively conscious that we’ve got to bring the newer acts through,” he says. “But 2023 is the year for Bring Me – I know they’re working on an amazing show for us, and they’re going to surprise a lot of people.”

Copping also cites the emerging likes of Cassyette, Wargasm, Nova Twins, Hot Milk, Holding Absence, Sleep Token and Spiritbox as newer bands with the potential to move up to headline status, especially with signs of a rock revival.

“Rock has never died,” Copping declares. “Sometimes it’s been more popular than others but, over the years, we’ve seen amazing sales. And, right now, there’s no question we are in a purple period for rock music.”

And, with the fans more devoted than ever, “We want to still be running in another 10 or 20 years’ time,” he adds. “The only way we can do that is making sure we’re evolving, taking risks and pushing boundaries. I’ll probably be long gone, but the legacy of the festival itself should keep running and running.”

+ Also enjoying a full-on revival is British industry interest in Eurovision.

The U.K. is hosting this year’s event – held in Liverpool on May 13 – on behalf of last year’s winners, Ukraine. But the success of last year’s British entry, Sam Ryder’s “Space Man,” which finished second and became a huge hit, means the local music business is once again paying attention to the opportunity the contest offers, after years in the wilderness.

That’s largely thanks to the team at Tap Music, which took over responsibility for the British entry last year and turned around the U.K.’s fortunes after years of “nul points” ignominy.

Tap co-founders Ed Millett and Ben Mawson kept the role for this year, and have selected emerging singer-songwriter Mae Muller’s “I Wrote a Song” to represent the nation against the best Europe has to offer.

“Hopefully we’ve started making people realize the opportunity that was staring everybody in the face,” Millett tells Variety. “Eurovision is bigger than the Super Bowl – and yet, in an era where it’s harder and harder to get traction for an artist, something that big was being excluded.”

The pair admit that they struggled to get labels and managers interested last year but now, following the success of Ryder and the previous year’s winners Måneskin, Millett says the industry is embracing it as a “launchpad” for new artists. And, with “I Wrote a Song” already a Top 30 hit, they’re confident Muller – managed by Modest! Management and signed to Capitol/EMI – could be the next star off the Eurovision production line…

“Wherever we come on the leader board, Mae will do a great job of representing the U.K. and the song is super-strong,” says Mawson, who also notes that last year’s Armenian entry, “Snap” by Rosa Linn, finished 20th on the night, but went on to become a massive streaming hit. “Hopefully it’s a platform for Mae – it’s already her highest charting single. So that’s success in itself and she’ll continue to grow in the music industry.”

Mawson and Millett – whose powerhouse company also manages the likes of Lana Del Rey and Ellie Goulding – have also proved to be Eurovision hits, but are cautious when it comes to potentially taking on a third entry in 2024.

“It’s a lot of fun and we really believe in it as something the music industry should take seriously, but I don’t know about that!” laughs Mawson. “We’ll think about that over the summer…”

+ But, while British artists are once more welcome in Eurovision, the U.S. authorities seem hellbent on putting them off coming to America.

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services recently proposed a 251% increase in fees for work–visa processing for entertainers from countries including Britain – and Jamie Njoku-Goodwin, CEO of trade body U.K. Music, warns that, if the move is approved, it will have serious consequences for British artists wanting to tour America.

“I don’t want to sound overly dramatic, but it will be catastrophic,” he tells Variety. “We’ve already seen artists like Little Simz cancel U.S. tours, partly because of financial pressures. Artists already find the U.S. visa system very expensive and hard to navigate – imagine how bad it’s going to be when these new charges come in.”

The Featured Artists Coalition and the Music Managers Forum have relaunched their #LetTheMusicMove campaign, originally aimed at post-Brexit regulations, to target the U.S. situation, and U.K. Music has appealed to the British government’s Business and Trade Secretary, Kemi Badenoch, to help block the proposals. And while there has been no official response as yet, Njoku-Goodwin says the issue is “on the radar” of Ministers.

“The U.K. is the second largest exporter of music on the planet [after the U.S.],” he says. “Live tours are such an important part of our export mix, and anything that undermines that and puts up barriers is going to be bad for Britain as well as for the U.K. music industry.”

While successful British acts should be able to absorb the increased charges, the trade body is concerned about the impact on emerging artists at a time when the U.K. is struggling to break new stars internationally.

“This may not affect Ed Sheeran much now, but it would have affected him 10 years ago,” notes Njoku-Goodwin, who recently returned from South by Southwest, an event which he says shows the value of British music to international markets.

“The U.S. music industry doesn’t want this,” he says. “And, looking at the demand we’ve seen for British music at SXSW, I don’t think the American public wants this either. Americans love British music. We want Americans coming to the U.K. to perform and Americans should want Brits coming to the U.S. to perform; it’s an important part of our two countries’ relationship and this is going to fatally undermine that.”

+ Meanwhile, Ed Sheeran’s former label boss’ return to the music business has sparked controversy.

Ben Cook was president of Atlantic U.K. until he left the label in 2019 over an incident that took place seven years earlier, when he wore Blackface while dressing up as a member of Run-DMC at a costume party.

Cook was recently announced as the U.K. president of Gamma, a new music, media and technology company founded by former Apple Music global creative director Larry Jackson. The duo gave an extensive interview to U.K. trade magazine Music Week last month, in which Cook described his actions as “unquestionably wrong” and apologized to “the Black community unreservedly.” Jackson defended the decision to hire Cook, saying: “I always found him to be a man of good character.”

The Black Music Coalition – a group of Black professionals working across the U.K. music business – wrote a lengthy open letter to the industry in response that said: “The Black music community in the UK will not be told how to react in the face of recurrent contempt… We know first-hand that the strength of feeling about the incident and how poorly it was handled, ran way deeper. If true progress and reconciliation are now the best intentions here, then the channels of communication to the Black music community must be the first port of call, and not merely part of a strategic play. Regardless of the color of any face which promotes the message that anti-Black racism should be forgiven and forgotten with the wave of an interview, or a new hire; harm to the Black community will no longer be ignored or go unchallenged.”

Sources tell Variety that the BMC wrote to Jackson last July, asking to discuss “concerns” over the appointment. Gamma declined to comment, and a BMC spokesperson declined to confirm that the letter was sent or received; it’s not clear if any talks did take place prior to the Gamma launch announcement.

Thus far, there has also been no response as yet from either Cook or Gamma to the BMC’s recent open letter. The story has dominated U.K. industry conversations in the last couple of weeks and there is near-universal agreement that Cook’s departure from Atlantic – accompanied by an opaque personal statement – was badly handled, while the BMC stance has drawn praise from campaign groups and individuals online.

In private, the industry seems split on whether Cook should be welcomed back in such a high-profile role just yet. Some point out that Cook’s contrition conveniently coincided with his new role, while others argue that he should be allowed a second chance, as long as lessons have been learned.

But while some are willing to forgive, it doesn’t seem likely that the U.K. industry is going to forget anytime soon…

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