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MUST PLAY: Taylor Swift. Photo: MARIO ANZUONI / REUTERS
One of the largest concert organizers in the country received a record payment from the Norwegian Cultural Council, for the summer of the festival it did not happen.
The All Things Live company is one of Norway’s largest concert organizers, and you could see millions of potential tickets go up in corona smoke when Norway closes on March 12, 2020.
Not least, there was a lot of money at stake around the Oslo Summer Time festival in late June, where Taylor Swift was scheduled to perform her first concert on Norwegian soil since 2011, with space for 50,000 people.
In Trondheim, the two Rammstein concerts were underway at the end of July, reportedly with 55,000 tickets sold.
MUST PLAY: Rammstein, here by vocalist Till Lindemann at Ullevål Stadium in Oslo, August 2019. Photo: Frode Hansen
However, an economic lifeline for both artists and organizers has been the Ministry of Culture’s compensation plan for the period from May to August last year.
For that scheme, All Things Live was among the applicants who asked the most: 38.4 million.
And now the Norwegian Cultural Council, which manages the scheme, has compensated the organizer of the concert with 36.4 million NOK, which, according to the council, is so far the largest sum paid by them for pandemic purposes.
Great applications, harsh reviews
According to the compensation request, All Things Live had budgeted a profit of $ 32.4 million for 2020.
In the same application, they stated that they had sold tickets for two million crowns in 2020.
Several of Norway’s biggest music festivals are still waiting for the Cultural Council to process their applications.
Several of them have requested amounts on par with what All Things Live has received now; the ones that are asking the most are the Stavern Festival (38.5 million), Tons Of Rock (36.1 million) and Palmesus (35.1 million).
This has drawn criticism from industry players who believe the scheme allows for overpayments to the industry’s big fishers.
– Most of this happens by force majeure, which really means that you, as an organizer, have a very low cost. If, for example, you report a loss of income of the order of 25 to 30 million crowns, the actual costs may be 3 to 5 million. Here, the ministry has really given creative room to maneuver on many levels, festival veteran Toffen Gunnufsen told VG in October.
According to Klassekampen, the Stavern Festival will have a profit of 15.8 million, Tons Of Rock a profit of 33.8 million and Palmesus a profit of 20.9 million if they get the grants they ask for.
