It’s time to get familiar with this name: Superstruct Entertainment Iberia. Superstruct for friends and enemies. More than two million people will have attended a Spanish festival owned by this British company in 2024. Sónar, Viña Rock, Resurrection Fest, Monegros Desert Festival, Arenal Sound, O Son do Caminho, Madrid Salvaje, Brunch-In the Park, Morriña Fest, Granada Sound, the Love The 90’s and Love the Twenties parties or the FIB of Benicàssim are some of the more than thirty macro events that this giant of the musical entertainment industry has partially or completely acquired, now the second largest festival promoter of the planet. Additionally, last week it expanded into another line of dance music business by purchasing Boiler Room, the iconic online streaming platform. streaming, created in 2010, which was in the hands of the British ticket company DICE.
In the last three years, the growth of Superstruct in Spain has been unstoppable. In 2022 it acquired The Music Republic and with it, the ten festivals organized by the Valencian company. A year later it extended its tentacles to the Galician promoter Bring The Noise, the Madrid-based ShareMusic and the Catalans Centris, Ex-Centris and Brunch-In. These movements allowed it to add almost twenty more macro events of different musical genres as well as one of the largest producers of reusable cups in the country. In November Superstruct Iberia sealed a new absorption: that of the Andalusian festival and tour production company Riff Producciones. And to the thirty long festivals that it already controls in Spain, we must add half a dozen more events organized by Spanish promoters, but located abroad. This is the case of the international editions of the Sónar festival or the Elrow and Brunch-In parties.
Spain is, by far, the country where Superstruct has invested the most money and effort. The company already brings together more than 80 festivals around the planet, among which the Hungarian Sziget, the German Wacken Open Air and the Nordic Parookaville and Oya stand out. The vast majority of its acquisitions are European, a continent where the American giant Live Nation is competing for festival hegemony, but in no territory does it have as much presence as in Spain. Although for years it has operated discreetly, six months ago Superstruct Iberia opened a LinkedIn profile from which, more than promising the best artists of the moment or the greatest musical enjoyment for the public, it insists on its ability to develop the most fruitful for brands. The image it projects is that of a company specialized in transform festivals into huge advertising showcases. elDiario.es has contacted Superstruct, which in 2022 opened offices in the Madrid neighborhood of Chamberí, but the company has declined to answer our questions.
First, the electronic scene
It was not until 2018 that the name Superstruct began to be heard in Spain. It was at the beginning of July and after the acquisition of a percentage of Advanced Music, the Catalan company that organizes the Sónar festival. The buyer was this then unknown company created under the umbrella of the American investment fund Providence Equity Partners. Superstruct had begun its implementation on the Spanish festival map a year earlier by acquiring part of Elrow Global in April 2017, the Aragonese company that organizes the Monegros Desert Festival and dozens of Elrow parties spread across the planet. Superstruct’s specialty is electronic music macro events and, from there, its tentacles have expanded to large festivals of other musical genres.
It’s not a coincidence. At the helm of Superstruct is the British businessman James Burton, who started in the musical entertainment sector from the Cream club in Liverpool. From that nightclub, founded together with two other partners in 1992, the Creamfields festival would be born six years later. The international expansion of the Creamfields brand would soon reach Spain. In 2004, the first of the six editions of Creamfields Andalucía was held in Almería, a franchise initially managed by the Catalan company Sinnamon, which at that time also promoted the Summercase festival. The growth of Creamfields was so enormous that in 2012 Live Nation acquired the entire business and placed James Burton at the head of the electronic music division of the multinational musical entertainment company.
Barton only lasted five years at Live Nation. In 2017 he jumped from there to lead Superstruct, the division dedicated to musical entertainment of the American investment fund Providence Equity Partners, which was born to become Live Nation’s main competitor. Joining Barton is Dutchman Roderick Schlösser, a former financial advisor to Deutsche Bank. Like any investment fund, Providence has interests in multiple sectors: from the American football league to the Warner record company, to the telecommunications sector. In Spain, Providence is known for having contributed 200 million euros to Real Madrid in exchange for participating in the income from its sponsorship contracts; a case uncovered in the leaks Football leaks on tax engineering practices to evade taxes in the world of football.
What will the Spanish market have?
Superstruct is, of course, not the only foreign company with an interest in the Spanish music market. In June 2018, Primavera Sound sold 29% of its company to The Yucaipa Companies, another American investment fund that, unlike Superstruct, has not shown interest in other Spanish festivals, but has invested in artist booking agencies such as -Ray Touring, Paradigm and Artist Group International. For its part, Live Nation maintains the Mad Cool festival as its flagship, while moving the BBF (formerly Barcelona Beach Festival) to Madrid and Galicia. Precisely in the Galician community, where Live Nation is programming numerous macro concerts, a new macro event was born in 2023: the O Gozo Festival.
The Spanish festival map is becoming less Spanish every year, but the recent acquisition of Riff Producciones by Superstruct Iberia marks a disturbing change. The Andalusian promoter does not stand out especially as an organizer of festivals, but as a producer of tours for great Spanish pop stars. The interest of the British conglomerate cannot be in medium-scale events such as the Cazorla Blues Festival, the Musicians in Nature meeting located in the Sierra de Gredos or the I Like Festival in Córdoba, but in the figures that move the tours of Malú, Melendi and Manuel Carrasco. It is the first time that Superstruct incorporates a promoter into its catalog thinking more about its concerts than its festivals. Only time will tell if it is the last.
In recent years, more discreet business movements have been carried out, but they point once again towards a transfer of state musical entertainment companies into the hands of foreign firms. In October 2018, the German ticket company and concert producer CTS Eventim bought 63.5% of the Catalan promoter Doctor Music, a pioneer of the unimaginable festival vein when it organized the first edition of the Doctor Music Festival back in 1996. More recently, last November, the veteran Catalan company The Project, promoter of a dozen cycles, festivals and hundreds of annual concerts, was absorbed by Warner Music, a multinational that in 2008 had already acquired the Basque promoter Get In and that since 2022 owns the promoter and agency Taste The Floor specialized in urban music.
The buyer bought
In this coming and going of buying and selling, no one is safe and last June there was a movement in the opposite direction: the venture capital fund KKR acquired Superstruct. Kohlberg, Kravis, Roberts & Co. is the second largest financial monster on the planet, only behind Blackstone, with million-dollar operations in sectors such as energy, chemicals, technology, education and the media.
KKR has acquired Superstruct for 1.3 billion euros, a figure that leaves the 120 that Superstruct paid for The Music Republic in pocket change. But as in these financial heights the wind can change direction from one day to the next, in October another financial giant, the English CVC (shareholder in companies as well known in Spain as Naturgy, Tendam (owner of Cortefiel) or Deoleo, in addition to being partner of LaLiga), has joined the party by investing an amount that has not been made public to strengthen Superstruct and thus “accelerate its mission of creating the best live experiences by working closely with entrepreneurs, creative visionaries and business-minded professionals.” Just in case, Providence Equity Partners, the investment fund where Superstruct was born, maintains a buyback option for 250 million euros.
The size of this type of operation on such a large scale has led the European Union to intervene to validate the purchase of Superstruct by KKR once it was verified that it did not violate antitrust regulations. On the global festival board Live Nation remains the most influential company (with nearly 120 festivals), followed increasingly closely by Superstruct (with more than 80 events). Superstruct has not yet bought festivals in the United States, where Live Nation reigns with absolute authority followed by AEG at a distance; of its 26 festivals, 21 are American. However, in Europe the forces between Superstruct and Live Nation are more balanced. The global festival Monopoly game is closer than ever.
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