Report: Sonisphere, Download Promoters Clash Over Rival Rock Fests
February 9, 2009, 15 years ago
Andre Paine from here is reporting:
The launch of a new global touring festival, Sonisphere, headlined by METALLICA, has provoked a war of words between promoter Stuart Galbraith and his former employer Live Nation UK, which operates the rival Download festival.
Sonisphere was unveiled today by Galbraith, series producer and director and CEO of Kilimanjaro Live, and John Jackson, festival creator and director and Metallica's booking agent at K2 since 1985. AEG, which backs Kilimanjaro, is also supporting the new festival.
The 60,000-capacity camping festival Sonisphere will be staged over two nights at Knebworth, Stevenage in the U.K. LINKIN PARK will headline on Aug. 1 and Metallica will top the bill on Aug. 2. Metallica will also headline Sonisphere festivals at Nijmegan, Holland with support from SLIPKNOT (June 20), Hockenheim, Germany with DIE TOTEN HOSEN (July 4), Barcelona with Slipknot (July 11), Hultsfred, Sweden (July 18) and Pori in Finland (July 25) with Linkin Park. More artists are to be confirmed.
"I always had this idea of creating a truly global festival touring brand, rather than booking my acts piecemeal into pre-existing events," Jackson tells Billboard.biz. "It seemed kind of haphazard and also very difficult some of the time because of the geographical locations."The Sonisphere concept was hatched by the pair at the London O2 arena LED ZEPPELIN reunion in Dec. 2007. "This isn't an Ozzfest - you're not going to see Metallica coming back year after year," says Galbraith. "The event will have its own identity, its own brand. But we are very excited and happy that we've got Metallica to launch the first six. They are bigger than ever in Europe."
Jackson adds that Metallica will likely be involved in further launches for Sonisphere in 2010; he is considering dates in Eastern Europe, Russia, Italy and Germany.
