Wireless, and Hard Rock Calling to leave Hyde Park

Live Nation, the company who run Wireless Festival and Hard Rock Calling, has quit the tender to hold events in London's Hyde Park.

Newspaper reports (here) states that Live Nation has walked away from the tender process due to issues such as noise restrictions.

Live Nation reveals it is quitting Hyde Park after more than a decade of putting on music events in the park citing 'noise restrictions and logistics', and pulled out of what they call a "flawed" tender process for a new five-year contract for the central London venue. Live Nation have written a formal letter of complaint about the tender and bid process for the new contract.

A statement from Neil Coyte the Head of Communications & Digital at Royal Parks told eFestivals a few weeks ago that, "The Royal Parks is currently tendering for an event company to organise the Hyde Park summer concerts from 2013 through to 2017, with the option of an additional two years. Once a decision has been made we will make an announcement with the successful bidder."

"This will be to run the only two summer music festivals during 2013-17, with the option of an additional two years, which have been organised by Live Nation for the previous 4 years. They are not an additional set of concerts."

In May this year The Royal Parks invited promoters and organisers to submit proposals for a new annual Hyde Park summer music festival. The successful company will work with TRP to develop and run the new festival over two weekends in Hyde Park during the five-year period 2013 to 2017, and the closing date was the end of June.

Since 2001, Live Nation has organised Hyde Park events and it's not known whether the tendering system will be looked into with a view to altering the terms and allowing Live Nation back into the tender process. It's also not known yet who the other tenders for the two weekends are.

Live Nation's letter also is thought to include issues about crowd safety considerations in shutting off Park Lane, unrealistic revenue assumptions, failing to take into account the increasingly complex logistics and costs of running big events in such a central location in London.

There are a couple of other locations Live Nation could use in London to run their two events. Hackney Marshes (the site of Radio1's Big Weekend this summer) is a possibility. Although this would be a fit for Wireless, siting Hard Rock Calling there would be less likely, as Hackney is not the sort of place that a large part of the Hard Rock audience would aspire to.

We understand that one or more shows for The Rolling Stones had been pencilled in along with possible shows for Bon Jovi, The Libertines, and Aerosmith.

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