For the third consecutive year, IQ has collaborated with music business directory and data platform ROSTR to analyse the lineups of 49 leading European festivals.
The ROSTR x IQ Europe’s Festival Summer 2025 report breaks down the trends in gender balance, genre splits, top agencies in terms of bookings, and the acts that benefitted the most.
Wasserman Music once again led the way for the total number of bookings, ahead of CAA, WME and UTA. ATC Live, Primary Talent and ITB completed the largely static top seven, but the top 20 included six new names: Kurious, Contra, Doomstar, EBB, All Artists and Avocado.
With nine bookings each, Chappell Roan (Wasserman) and Olivia Rodrigo (WME) claimed the most headline slots followed by Queens of the Stone Age (WME) on eight and Charli XCX (CAA) with seven.
Luvcat (CAA) was the most-booked artist overall, appearing on 12 festival lineups, edging out Alessi Rose (CAA) and Fontaines D.C. (ATC Live) on 11.
Furthermore, the bills were still overwhelmingly male: across every artist booked on a 2025 lineup, two-thirds (67%) were men compared to 69% in 2024. However, six of the top ten artists by total number of bookings in 2025 were non-male and there were 7% more solo women acts headlining this year, albeit, just three of the top ten artists by total # of headline bookings in 2025 were non-male.
In addition, 90% of humans who played on stage during a 2025 headline slot were men, down slightly from 92% the previous year.
ROSTR – a music industry directory, contacts, data and jobs platform – holds artist rosters, people, and company information for more than 12,000 companies worldwide.
With the annual deep dive just released, ROSTR CEO Mark Williamson will be giving a brief rundown of its key findings at the International Festival Forum (IFF), while treating delegates to an exclusive first-look at new ROSTR analysis of the global agency landscape. The session takes place in The Tap Room, Flat Iron Square, at 1pm on Thursday (11 September).
The full analysis appears in the new IFF special issue of IQ. Read online here.
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The post IQ-ROSTR study uncovers Europe’s festival trends appeared first on IQ Magazine.