Photo: Live4ever Media
Major concert promoter Live Nation has confirmed the Wireless and Hard Rock Calling events will move to the Olympic Park from this year.
Live Nation has signed an exclusive deal with the London Legacy Development Corporation to host live music events at the Olympic Stadium and Olympic Park, with its two premiere summer festivals the first to be confirmed following their withdrawal from Hyde Park after last year’s much publicised issues with the venue’s surrounding communities.
“As the world’s leading provider of music festivals and outdoor events, Live Nation is delighted to have won the inaugural contract for Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park,” Live Nation’s President of Concerts John Reid has said.
“In the coming weeks, we will unveil the headline acts for the first Wireless and Hard Rock festivals to be staged in London’s new flagship venue, which promise to be the UK’s blockbuster events of 2013.”
London mayor Boris Johnson has added: “Our vision for the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park has always been as a destination for world-class sport as well as for major cultural and leisure events, and last summer the world saw what an amazing venue we have created with our iconic stadium, sports facilities and new parklands.”
“The confidence now shown by one of the world’s leading live entertainment promoters to relocate two of its biggest music festivals from the centre of the capital is a ringing endorsement of our legacy plans. Along with the other major international sports events we have already secured, this latest news proves that the park has a very bright future indeed.”
The sustainability of live music events at Hyde Park was questioned throughout 2012 as both residents and the local council looked to curb what they viewed as excessive noise and disruption.
The problems now infamously came to a-head late on in Bruce Springsteen‘s headline performance at Hard Rock Calling last July, when organisers made the decision to cut the gig short minutes before The Boss was set to wrap up a set which had typically run well over an agreed curfew.
Live Nation subsequently announced its departure from Hyde Park in October.