Article: The age of the big British summer music festival, including Glastonbury, is drawing to a close, according to the leading rock promoter and manager Harvey Goldsmith.
  Goldsmith has produced and worked with most of the western world’s biggest music stars, from the Who, the Rolling Stones and Queen to Madonna, Bob Dylan and Luciano Pavarotti. He says the biggest problem is a serious lack of major new bands to follow on from the old ones.
  “The age of the festival peaked about two years ago,” he said, speaking at the Hay Festival of Literature and Arts in Wales. “There are too many festivals and there are not enough big acts to headline them. That is a big, big problem in our industry. And we are not producing a new generation of these kind of acts – like the Rolling Stones, Muse, even the Arctic Monkeys – that can headline.”
  There were about 900 music festival events in the UK between May and September 2014, he said, and there is no way they can all continue. “There is going to be a growth in events where it isn’t just music but with poetry or books or magic shows. There will be lots of small combination festivals that give something extra – not people standing around in a big field unable to go to the toilet because they might miss the band.”
  Clearly, the way music is delivered has changed, he said. “People don’t seem to want to listen to an album any more. And, most rock bands built their reputation on albums – they might take three albums to become really good at their art, to become great, but young people don’t want that.”
  Goldsmith, 69, also revealed that he is working with Robin de Levita, the Dutch producer of the Who’s 1970s rock musical Tommy, at a new 1,100-seat theatre in Wembley, London, where the first stage adaptation of the teen book and movie series The Hunger Games will be performed in June 2016.
  Talking at Hay, Goldsmith also revealed some of the secrets from his long career in the music industry. He said that Keith Moon put dynamite down a Sydney hotel room toilet to unblock it. And, he said that John Lennon had stage fright just before an appearance at Madison Square Garden in 1974 – he was pulled, vomiting, out of his dressing room and pushed out on stage. “It’s bizarre how common that is among artists. It’s odd how afraid they get but, as soon as the first chord is hit, they’re fine,” he said.
  He also gave the answer to a long-running rock ’n’ roll mystery: why Elvis Presley never performed outside North America. Presley’s long-time manager, Colonel Tom Parker, admitted to him, he said, that the real reason why Goldsmith’s attempts to bring the singer to London had failed was Parker’s own uncertain immigration status.
  “He explained that it was because he was an illegal Dutch immigrant. He didn’t want to risk leaving the US – it was him, not Elvis,” said Goldsmith.
  And, his ultimate rock ’n’ roll performer? “Freddie Mercury had to be our most powerful stage performer, the best live performer we’ve ever had. At Live Aid, he went out and saw that audience and just grabbed it.”
  But, nobody has found the next Queen yet, he said. “We’re not producing a new generation of this kind of act. Coldplay is probably the last one and that was ten years ago.
  “So, with no big acts to headline, there are no big shows. Glastonbury has got to the point where it can’t find any more big acts and that’s the pinnacle of the festivals. They are really over.”