Primavera Sound 2025

[Quadrophobia]

I think the headline will be far off from what we've discussed here. There is as of now little movement in the festival sphere and we will know more in the coming weeks. Afaik f.e. The Cure will do an extensive arena tour for the new record in 2025. Does not exclude festivals per se, but it might just be too optimistic to count on them for 25.

[scatteredscreens]

10 minutes ago, Quadrophobia said:

I think the headline will be far off from what we've discussed here. There is as of now little movement in the festival sphere and we will know more in the coming weeks. Afaik f.e. The Cure will do an extensive arena tour for the new record in 2025. Does not exclude festivals per se, but it might just be too optimistic to count on them for 25.

 

Where have you heard about the arena tour? I'm speculating fests again to be honest as it allows them to hit a broad range of countries again and not do another long tour compared to 2022/23.

[Fabrizzo]

26 minutes ago, Quadrophobia said:

I think the headline will be far off from what we've discussed here. There is as of now little movement in the festival sphere and we will know more in the coming weeks. Afaik f.e. The Cure will do an extensive arena tour for the new record in 2025. Does not exclude festivals per se, but it might just be too optimistic to count on them for 25.

Depeche Mode also had a tour of arenas only but they made an exception for the PS, it could happen again

[MKBAB]

47 minutes ago, diogozsz said:

I think something similar to this might work out of them

 

NIN | ROSALÍA premiering her new album | FKA twigs

The Cure | Tyler, The Creator | Charli XCX

LCD Soundsystem | Lorde | Jamie xx

 

That would be PERFECT and a DREAM 

[festivalguy97]

4 hours ago, LMDS said:

 

I'm not sure, she must be quite expensive... and I have the feeling that she has 0% appeal outside of her pop fanbase, I mean that there is not many interest in the primavera-core audience in her (not the case of Charli XCX or Lana del Rey for example). I think she would fit better in Mad Cool (they're also eager to spend a bigger budget on artists), but I can be wrong, of course

She seems expensive but doesn’t seem as expensive as Lana. She’s still huge, Espresso is one of the biggest (if not the biggest) song of the year. The same about Please Please. Actually when announced her Euro tour next year I was surprised that she didn’t announce a date in Spain, but only in Italy as for South Europe. Plus it’s a small arena tour, so festivais are probably guaranteed for her, specially Euro festivals. At the moment I don’t think there is a bigger pop star that Primavera can book. Billie Eilish came to my mind before but she has already dates in Barcelona and fully booked during Primavera. 

[festivalguy97]

32 minutes ago, MKBAB said:

 

That would be PERFECT and a DREAM 

Charli XCX and Rosalia would be too soon. Can’t see that happening before 2026. Specially Charli is rumoured to do a Euro Arena tour. 

[festivalguy97]

2 hours ago, xxialac said:

Ha, yes.

 

And an act like Dua Lipa was hardly medium-sized names when she played two years back.

 

They won't book overly commercial like Shakira but they will book a big name.

They will definitely book a big pop like Doja Cat or a big reggaeton name like Bad Bunny. As long as that person has at least one critically acclaimed album. Just a note, but Dua Lipa and Lana del Rey both have very critically acclaimed albums. So it made sense they were booked.

Also if I’m not wrong, I read that Lana del Rey day at Primavera 2024 was the most profitable festival day for Primavera ever. That also gave a boost for full festival tickets when the one day tickets were sold out. So I’m 99% sure that they will bet on this tactic again: 1 Super big name + other names. 

[scatteredscreens]

6 minutes ago, festivalguy97 said:

Charli XCX and Rosalia would be too soon. Can’t see that happening before 2026. Specially Charli is rumoured to do a Euro Arena tour. 

Where's this rumour from?

 

To me it felt nailed on to hit all the fests next year as she only did two European ones.

[MKBAB]

1 minute ago, scatteredscreens said:

Where's this rumour from?

 

To me it felt nailed on to hit all the fests next year as she only did two European ones.

 

She performed live (not DJ set) last June at 3 European festivals (Primavera Sound, Opener and Roskilde). Opener and Roskilde were last-minute replacements for other artists who had to cancel I think.

[scatteredscreens]

7 minutes ago, MKBAB said:

 

She performed live (not DJ set) last June at 3 European festivals (Primavera Sound, Opener and Roskilde). Opener and Roskilde were last-minute replacements for other artists who had to cancel I think.

Yeah exactly. Not a large amount was my point. Seemed more likely she would hit them up next Summer.

[brosch]

1 hour ago, diogozsz said:

I think something similar to this might work out of them

 

NIN | ROSALÍA premiering her new album | FKA twigs

The Cure | Tyler, The Creator | Charli XCX

LCD Soundsystem | Lorde | Jamie xx

 

They‘ve all headlined (or played late slots - twigs, charli) before, I doubt that PS would book so retro. There‘ll be at least 1 or 2 really new names, I think

[Trk]

Reading the R&L topic someone said that Olivia was not doing it because she was going to play in another UK festival (maybe BST or Glasto? where she has been rumoured for a long time).

 

If she plays there I would see her likely for Primavera. She is big and sells well (29 arenas in europe), she is young and she is critically acclaimed (Pitchfork gave her an 8). Would be expensive and I’m not totally sure about the crossover between her audience and Primaveras target audience, but maybe its worth sales wise.

 

Not saying that shes coming for sure, but her name should be considered imho.

[scatteredscreens]

4 minutes ago, Trk said:

Reading the R&L topic someone said that Olivia was not doing it because she was going to play in another UK festival (maybe BST or Glasto? where she has been rumoured for a long time).

 

If she plays there I would see her likely for Primavera. She is big and sells well (29 arenas in europe), she is young and she is critically acclaimed (Pitchfork gave her an 8). Would be expensive and I’m not totally sure about the crossover between her audience and Primaveras target audience, but maybe its worth sales wise.

 

Not saying that shes coming for sure, but her name should be considered imho.

BST/Glasto doesn't really suggest anything for Primavera headliners.

[Trk]

It would imply that she is active in late june. Maybe something like SZA doing Prima, Glasto, BST and Roskilde this summer.

 

It’s not the clearest option, but wouldnt discard it.

[Valbork]

OK, so I will try to be a bit more careful and less idiotic with my comment today after the last one! People are struggling to find a big name female headliner who will sell a lot of tickets. Surely it would still fit the New Normal brief if there were plenty of female acts very high up on the poster but the very expensive big name that almost ensures a sell out is male? So this year's Lana could be someone like Travis Scott or Bad Bunny? Don't bite my head off just trying😛

[festivalguy97]

1 hour ago, Valbork said:

OK, so I will try to be a bit more careful and less idiotic with my comment today after the last one! People are struggling to find a big name female headliner who will sell a lot of tickets. Surely it would still fit the New Normal brief if there were plenty of female acts very high up on the poster but the very expensive big name that almost ensures a sell out is male? So this year's Lana could be someone like Travis Scott or Bad Bunny? Don't bite my head off just trying😛

I mean, it doesn’t need to be a female name, as long as there are many other female names in the top bill. If they do manage the likes of Twigs, Roan and others, Bad Bunny and Travis Scott would make sense. And both Travis Scott and Bad Bunny look very feasible. 

[diogozsz]

I don’t see Bad Bunny doing this ever, honestly. Karol G had 220k people (!) attending her concerts in Madrid this year and Bad Bunny is arguably bigger than she is. It would alienate the primavera audience and would be an absolute bloodbath for tickets.

[scatteredscreens]

1 hour ago, diogozsz said:

I don’t see Bad Bunny doing this ever, honestly. Karol G had 220k people (!) attending her concerts in Madrid this year and Bad Bunny is arguably bigger than she is. It would alienate the primavera audience and would be an absolute bloodbath for tickets.

Yeah Bad Bunny is way too big for this now. Makes no sense why he would take a probably smaller fee when he can do one of his own shows for more money to a bigger crowd.

[Quadrophobia]

17 hours ago, scatteredscreens said:

 

Where have you heard about the arena tour? I'm speculating fests again to be honest as it allows them to hit a broad range of countries again and not do another long tour compared to 2022/23.

The Cure is one of those acts where stuff is more or less openly discussed with the fanbase, they don't do the entire secrecy and Promo cycle thing. Asked for a tour, their management said they were not 100% sure when the album was gonna be released so they optioned dates in the "relatively distant future" (this waas in 2023), which the person reporting this took for independent dates, because you don't option festivals. As I said, it doesn't rule them out, but festivals might not be their focus.

 

16 hours ago, festivalguy97 said:

She seems expensive but doesn’t seem as expensive as Lana. She’s still huge, Espresso is one of the biggest (if not the biggest) song of the year. The same about Please Please. Actually when announced her Euro tour next year I was surprised that she didn’t announce a date in Spain, but only in Italy as for South Europe. Plus it’s a small arena tour, so festivais are probably guaranteed for her, specially Euro festivals. At the moment I don’t think there is a bigger pop star that Primavera can book. Billie Eilish came to my mind before but she has already dates in Barcelona and fully booked during Primavera. 

But why would PS book a textbook radio pop act? Her music is fine, but has nowhere near the cultural significance of a Lana, Charli or even Dua Lipa. Thats what PS is after, not simply big names

[Fabrizzo]

14 minutes ago, Quadrophobia said:

The Cure is one of those acts where stuff is more or less openly discussed with the fanbase, they don't do the entire secrecy and Promo cycle thing. Asked for a tour, their management said they were not 100% sure when the album was gonna be released so they optioned dates in the "relatively distant future" (this waas in 2023), which the person reporting this took for independent dates, because you don't option festivals. As I said, it doesn't rule them out, but festivals might not be their focus.

 

But why would PS book a textbook radio pop act? Her music is fine, but has nowhere near the cultural significance of a Lana, Charli or even Dua Lipa. Thats what PS is after, not simply big names

I didn't want to get into this pop discussion but if I read that Dua Lipa and Charli Xcx are culturally engaged artists some doubts arise...

[Quadrophobia]

5 minutes ago, Fabrizzo said:

I didn't want to get into this pop discussion but if I read that Dua Lipa and Charli Xcx are culturally engaged artists some doubts arise...

  

How come? Its hard to argue that they had enormous influence on the development of their genre. Charli brought hyperpop into the mainstream with Brat and Dua Lipa (who I personally don't care for btw) has succesfully fused the dance revival into arena-sized popsongs with Future Nostalgia. PS booked both of them at exactly the moment where they broke out into absolute stardom and has thus profited greatly from their cultural momentum.

[festivalguy97]

33 minutes ago, Quadrophobia said:

The Cure is one of those acts where stuff is more or less openly discussed with the fanbase, they don't do the entire secrecy and Promo cycle thing. Asked for a tour, their management said they were not 100% sure when the album was gonna be released so they optioned dates in the "relatively distant future" (this waas in 2023), which the person reporting this took for independent dates, because you don't option festivals. As I said, it doesn't rule them out, but festivals might not be their focus.

 

But why would PS book a textbook radio pop act? Her music is fine, but has nowhere near the cultural significance of a Lana, Charli or even Dua Lipa. Thats what PS is after, not simply big names

Come on, it’s not about cultural influence, if a festival like PS wants to compete with other festivals it needs to book artists that can bring money to the festival. Specially after booking Lana and making it one of the most profitable days ever for PS, it was in Spanish newspapers all over the place. I had Spanish friends going to Primavera to see Lana and SZA without even knowing what kind festival PS is, they basically never heard of it.

I’m not saying that PS will become a super pop festival in the future but for sure to compete with Mad Cool and other dozens of new festivals they need to book big stars. Ofc they would never book Timberlake or Shakira, the pop star needs to both somehow critically acclaimed and be part of New Normal influence. Sabrina kind of checks that. She’s not my cup of tea, but if we are speculating about big pop stars that are touring in 2025, who else do we have? Both Dua Lipa and Billie Eilish are ruled out. 
It’s either that or they will try to book a male super star like Bad Bunny or Travis Scott. Last case scenario a more balanced lineup without any major pop stars but with a lot of big artists of the moment like Childish Gambino, Roan and others, however I still have a feeling that they will go for the 2024 model. 

Edited October 1 by festivalguy97

[Fabrizzo]

9 minutes ago, Quadrophobia said:

  

How come? Its hard to argue that they had enormous influence on the development of their genre. Charli brought hyperpop into the mainstream with Brat and Dua Lipa (who I personally don't care for btw) has succesfully fused the dance revival into arena-sized popsongs with Future Nostalgia. PS booked both of them at exactly the moment where they broke out into absolute stardom and has thus profited greatly from their cultural momentum.

I mean, the pop headliner has to be appealing to the audience (like Charli and Dua are) but I don't think their content is very different from Bad Bunny or Doja Cat...

[Quadrophobia]

20 minutes ago, festivalguy97 said:

Come on, it’s not about cultural influence, if a festival like PS wants to compete with other festivals it needs to book artists that can bring money to the festival. Specially after booking Lana and making it one of the most profitable days ever for PS, it was in Spanish newspapers all over the place. I had Spanish friends going to Primavera to see Lana and SZA without even knowing what kind festival PS is, they basically never heard of it.

I’m not saying that PS will become a super pop festival in the future but for sure to compete with Mad Cool and other dozens of new festivals they need to book big stars. Ofc they would never book Timberlake or Shakira, the pop star needs to both somehow critically acclaimed and be part of New Normal influence. Sabrina kind of checks that. She’s not my cup of tea, but if we are speculating about big pop stars that are touring in 2025, who else do we have? Both Dua Lipa and Billie Eilish are ruled out. 
It’s either that or they will try to book a male super star like Bad Bunny or Travis Scott. Last case scenario a more balanced lineup without any major pop stars but with a lot of big artists of the moment like Childish Gambino, Roan and others, however I still have a feeling that they will go for the 2024 model. 

  

Primaveras USP is precisely being different from Mad Cool and co.

 

I think the mistake that is being made here time and again, is taking the former edition as a blueprint, when 2019 was nothing like 2018, 2020/21/22 were nothing like 2019, 2023 was nothing like 2022 and 2024 was nothing like 2023. PS will curate the fest from whats available and what makes sense and if they cannot build a pop-column, they simply won't. There is nobody at PS who is like "oh we didn't check this or that box, so we need to book Sabrina Carpenter". There is a myriad of artist that'll appear on the scene that simply aren't on anyones radar here and PS will be fine without venturing into radio-territory. There is FKA Twigs, Olivia Rodrigo, Phoebe Bridgers nd so many more female pop (adjacent) headline candidates that I don't understand, what the basis of this weird line of argument is, that there has to be a 1:1 lana counterpart, when all evidence of past years says that thats never been the case. It simply makes no sense modelling the 2025 expectations from 2024s line up

Edited October 1 by Quadrophobia

[LMDS]

Updated predictions!
Headliners candidates:
🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
FKA Twigs
🔥🔥🔥🔥
Chappell Roan, Lorde, The Cure
🔥🔥🔥
Nick Cave, Nine Inch Nails
🔥🔥
The XX, Tyler, The Creator, A$AP Rocky, Kali Uchis, Tame Impala, Olivia Rodrigo, Charli XCX 🆕, MARINA 🆕, Rahim Redcar (aka Christine & The Queens) 🆕
🔥
Radiohead, Childish Gambino, Sabrina Carpenter, Nelly Furtado, Portishead, Dua Lipa, Bon Iver
◯ (Unlikely)
R.E.M., Alanis Morissette
🛇 (Ruled Out)
Oasis, Billie Eilish, Iron Maiden, Pixies, Justin Timberlake, Kylie Minogue ⬇️ (new dates announced), Wilco (already playing in June in Barcelona)

Other possible acts:
🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
Jamie XX, Fontaines D.C., Idles, MJ Lenderman, Alan sparhawk, The Jesus Lizard
🔥🔥🔥🔥
Cassandra Jenkins, Kim Petras, Clairo, Caribou, The Hard Quartet, Amaia, Mogwai, Magdalena Bay 🆕, Casero 🆕, Judeline 🆕
🔥🔥🔥
Floating Points, Artemas, Waxahatchee, Rachel Chinouriri, Maruja, Friko, Carolina Durante, Hinds, Geordie Greep, Refused, Father John Misty, English Teacher, Dirty Three, Ralphie Choo 🆕, Mustafa 🆕
🔥🔥
Mura Masa, Yaya Bey, Gouge Away, Newdad, illuminati hotties, Mabe Fratti, Still House Plants, Joana serrat, Fermin Muguruza, Playero, Maria Escarmiento, Ciutat, Amore, Barry B, TV on The Radio, Amore, Lambrini Girls, Haim, Anohni and The Johnsons, Mercury Rev, Zeal & Ardor, Nilufer Yanya, Heartworms 🆕, The Dare 🆕, Rusoswsky 🆕
🔥
Interpol, Beach House, Phoebe Bridgers, Denzel Curry, Slowdive, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Have a Nice Life, Jpegmafia 🆕
◯ (Unlikely)
The Flaming Lips, Soccer Mommy, Cindy Lee ⬇️
🛇 (Ruled out)
Supergrass, The Get Up Kids, Japandroids, Shonen Knife, Franz Ferdinand, Maya Hawke, Beak> ⬇️ , Bright Eyes 🆕 (tour canceled)