Makes you wonder what will change it tbf. Or if this just another place where the pandemic has screwed up the economics that underpinned things for so long.
True - I don't think KOL sold out a UK tour last year of BST Hyde Park and multiple arena shows while Fender's arena tour raced out the door and he pretty much sold out his 4 night stadium run scheduled for summer. So it's a changing of the guard in thar respect.
Journo's are quite lost when reporting about live music business; every year they write the same article and sell the same narratives.
Dirty little secret: most years will be like this from now onwards; and it started already a couple of seasons ago.
Margins for organizers (that allow investing in more bands and more popular ones) have decreased. On the other hand, artist fees are up. That makes booking big bands much harder.
I'm not sharing any exclusive info, some of you here already connected the dots, but it's tiresome to read random stuff in newspapers. "Tough year"; well, not only this one, baby.