Europe Entertainment Market Update - Mid-Year 2025
We are in the midst of the Summer Music Festival season. While most Summer Touring bookings have wrapped up, last-minute requests continue to come in for festival appearances. These tend to be in unique locations outside the usual city touring routes, such as the South of France, coastal Italy, the UK countryside, or major events like British Summer Time Festival in Hyde Park, as well as cities such as Seville and Valencia. These requests typically involve a couple of rooms for a celebrity DJ and their manager, as most A-list artists either booked well in advance or fly in and out the same day.
Looking ahead, we are now seeing strong demand for Autumn and Winter Touring. Key European cities remain popular including Barcelona, Copenhagen, Oslo, Stockholm, Hamburg, Paris, Lisbon, Madrid, and Dublin, with additional cities expected to follow. In the United States, major hubs like Los Angeles, New York City, Chicago, and Nashville are also in focus.
First In Service UK is ramping up Independent Contractors (ICs) as they launch their UK operation. More details to come in Q4.
Internova/Global Travel Collection UK has largely completed its integration, bringing Entertainment and Corporate under GTC (Altour, Tzell, Protravel, and associated ICs), while Leisure including Leisure ICs falls under Colletts.
Corporate Entertainment RFPs are set to launch soon. Companies like Netflix remain selective, typically adding new hotels only for office openings or properties adjacent to their offices.
Production Outlook: Activity is expected to increase in 2026, particularly in countries offering filming tax incentives.
Overall, with music touring, increased commission is key to the entertainment agencies, as so many of them are independent contractors. Paying the commission in a timely manner is vital in ensuring continued business from these agencies.
Contact for this market is Wendie Esposito based in London, UK
US Entertainment Market Update - Mid-Year 2025
Industry Highlights:
Paramount & Skydance Merger: Completed in August 2025. Following initial layoffs, Paramount plans to hire 2,000 employees. They will terminate sub-leasing agreements with other studios on the LA lot to begin production on 15+ ready scripts. This shift, driven by California’s new tax incentives, will bring significant production back to LA and reduce activity in other destinations. Updates to the transient RFP are pending as leadership direction evolves.
Comcast/NBCUniversal/Sky: Spinning off several entities into a new company, Versant, expected to finalize in late 2025/2026. Versant will include NBC’s cable networks such as USA Network, CNBC, MSNBC, Oxygen, and E!.
Warner Bros. Discovery: Splitting into two companies: Warner Bros. (retaining HBO, HBO Max, DC Studios) and Discovery Global (retaining TNT, CNN, HGTV, Bleacher Report, and Discovery+).
The Walt Disney Company & ESPN: ESPN has struck a deal with the NFL to acquire NFL Network, NFL RedZone, and NFL Fantasy. In exchange, the NFL will take a 10% equity stake in ESPN.
Music Touring & Production:
Production: Activity has rebounded in 2025 after recent strike-related declines. California’s tax incentives are driving more projects back to LA, while Atlanta sees a significant drop. The UK is gaining momentum with long-term tax incentives, for example the new Spider-Man movie is filming in Glasgow, transforming streets to resemble NYC.
Touring: The entertainment touring market remains strong in 2025, though growth has plateaued following the surge in 2023 and 2024.
Europe: Key cities include Oslo, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Barcelona, Dublin, Lisbon, and Helsinki (both trending upward), and London, Paris, Milan, and Rome (less frequent). Belfast has declined due to fewer headline events compared to 2024.
USA: Popular cities include LA, NYC, San Diego, Las Vegas, Boston, Miami, Houston, Atlanta, Nashville, New Orleans, and San Francisco.
Festivals: Summer festivals often occur in resort destinations or pop-up locations, adding unpredictability to routing.
Key deal breakers remain the same: Flexible cancellation policies, complimentary upgrades, early check-in/late check-out, and increased commissions, especially for UK agencies (12–15%).
Contact for this market is Michelle Streeter based in Newport Beach CA, USA
Europe Entertainment Market Update - Year-End 2024
Touring activity is continuing in Spring 2025, with both short-term and long-term inquiries steadily increasing. Notably, we are now seeing lead times exceeding 12 months, which is rare in the entertainment industry. For the first time this quarter, we received production requests for January and February 2026, signaling a shift toward earlier planning.
Production levels are expected to remain steady throughout 2025, with a noticeable uptick anticipated toward the end of the year and into 2026. Europe is expected to see increased activity, driven by enhanced tax credit incentives across several filming destinations.
Top Cities/Markets Requested from the UK/Europe Entertainment Agencies: Dublin, Belfast, Oslo, Copenhagen, Hamburg, Barcelona, Stockholm, and London. Lisbon and Madrid are being requested more frequently. Some U.S. city tour requests do come through UK agencies, though this remains relatively uncommon, as U.S.-based agencies typically manage those markets directly.
Key Terms & Conditions for the Market: 15% commission, flexible cancellation policies, complimentary upgrades for tour Managers and artists, and complimentary late check-out are frequently requested.
Contact for this market is Wendie Esposito based in London, UK
United States Entertainment Market Update - January 2024
The Writers Guild and Screen Actors Guild strikes concluded in November 2023 after many months of negotiations and halted production. Studios have a major backlog of content to create in 2024. We anticipate film and TV production requests to increase significantly. Hotels in states or countries that offer significant tax incentives for productions, such as Georgia, New Mexico, or most recently announced, the country of India, have a greater opportunity of capturing this business. It is important to note that hotels that offer the greatest flexibility with discounted entertainment rates, cancellation, deposit terms, increased commission (if applicable), and shortened entertainment friendly contracts will separate themselves from their competition.
In addition, press events to promote new releases were not attended by actors in many cases during the strike to show solidarity with the union. Now that the strikes have concluded, we anticipate press junkets and publicity requests to also resume more normal operations in 2024.
Music touring had a banner year in 2023 with big name artists and bands such as Taylor Swift, Beyonce, Madonna, and Coldplay on tour. Since 2023 was the busiest year on record for touring, we anticipate that there might be a slight slowdown in 2024, but not by much. There is still a strong appetite from consumers for live music, even with rising ticket prices. Consumers will even travel to specific destinations to follow their favorite artists on tour. Taylor Swift’s Eras tour made headlines this year highlighting the economic boost her concerts brought into different cities by drawing in so many of her fans. Entertainers make most of their income these days through merchandise sales on tour, which incentivizes them to tour regularly, or possibly extend tours to additional cities.
The entertainment team at Preferred Hotels & Resorts has relationships with key decision makers at the studios, TMCs that support the corporate entertainment & media accounts, as well as travel agencies such as GTC, Altour, and TAG, among others, which have the largest footprint with the music touring space. For any additional questions on how to further penetrate this market, or to discuss if this market segment would be a good fit for your hotel, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Contact for this market is Michelle Streeter based in Newport Beach CA, USA
