COVER FEATURE
Generational changes
Gen Z is widely understood to be a digitally native, socially conscious, group that favours authenticity, sustainability, and purpose-driven experiences, while being less interested in eating meat and drinking alcohol.
The demands, and behaviour, of Gen Z at events has led operators to refresh the offering at even the most established of major events this summer, and there has also been a huge rise in the number of major outdoor live music series made up of single show days that don’ t involve camping.
“ At shows that attract a younger audience things are shifting; we ' re definitely seeing the same number of day ticket buyers wanting to attend, but less wanting to camp,” says Shields.“ People tend to be staying in local hotels more, and nine times out of 10 any sort of glamping offering will sell out. People are happy to pay a premium for a better camping experience but otherwise they just want to stay off site. Partly that must be down to the weather, because there ' s only so many times you can go to a festival and enjoy being in horrific weather in a tent. It appears they still love the festival and want to come back but they just don ' t necessarily want to have the experience of camping. We ' re seeing that with the younger generation, and they ' re spending their time differently on site.
“ At two festivals we ran this summer the biggest queue on site was for the smoothie bar. Additional activities, such as morning exercise classes, are proving really popular because people don ' t want to just come for the music, they are looking for a broader experience, so festival operators are having to diversify the offering.”
Branching out
LS Events co-CEO Steve Reynolds says the summer also proved to be a great one for his burgeoning live events production empire. Recent years have seen the company branch out way beyond its live music and festival roots to become a flourishing multi-service operation involved in some of the world’ s largest
SailGP build in Portsmouth
LIV Golf ' s main stage
Battery-powered Lido
public and sports events, including Operation London Bridge and last year’ s UEFA Champions League Final.
LS Events portfolio continued to expand this summer, and in July alone it worked on a diverse range of events from Barcode Festival and BST Hyde Park to London Pride, 7 / 7 Memorial, Sail GP, Formula E and the LIV Golf Fan Concert.
“ We continued delivering our staple annual events such as BST Hyde Park and Pride in London but added a few new ones,” says Reynolds.“ The LIDO Festival in Victoria Park started the summer and then we added the Barcode Festival in July on behalf of GroceryAid. We also added Sail GP to our growing sporting roster. We finished the summer with This Oxford Street in September; an event to launch the pedestrianisation of Oxford Street in central London.”
The UK grocery industry ' s annual fundraising event, Barcode was staged at Kenwood House this year, where around 6,000 attendees from the grocery industry were presented with a mix of headline acts, networking opportunities, complimentary food and drink, and some 127 brand activations. Reynolds describes the move of venue as being a game changer, and it certainly proved a fundraising success with the refreshed event format resulting in £ 1.4 million being donated to GroceryAid. LS Events handled every aspect of the festival ' s production, including creative site design, staging, branding, and technical delivery.“ The transition of Barcode from an industry exhibition to a full-scale festival was a key step in its evolution, and the core of the project was about creating a truly immersive and contemporary event experience,” says Reynolds.
Owned by AEG Presents UK and European festivals CEO Kim King, LS Events worked on the promoter’ s launch of Lido Festival this summer. Staged across two weekends in June, AEG Presents’ new 35,000-capacity festival was said to be the global promoter’ s most sustainable festival to date. Among the acts to perform were Massive Attack, Charli xcx and London Grammar.
Looking ahead to next year, Reynolds and his LS team are preparing to bring another major new AEG Presents festival to life; Roundhay Festival.
Set to take place in Leeds’ huge Roundhay Park in July next year, the festival is expected to have a capacity close to BST Hyde Park’ s and run over two weekends with a series of headline shows by acts including Lewis Capaldi. At Roundhay Festival, LS Events’ responsibilities will include event and site management, partner production, food traders, finance management, and creative content.
“ 2026 is looking incredibly exciting,” he says.“ It’ s looking to be a record year for us in terms of the number of events we deliver and the number of fans we entertain at our clients ' events.”
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