PHOTOGRAPHED BY Joel Barhamand
Arthur Fogel
Chairman of global music/president of global touring
Live Nation
As tens of thousands of fans arrived at Toronto’s Rogers Stadium on Aug. 24, their bucket hats — worn in homage to the night’s headliner, Oasis — protected them from the sun that hung above in the azure sky. The atmosphere at this, the band’s first North American show of its zeitgeist-shaking reunion tour, was convivial, communal, basically euphoric.
But inside the venue, Arthur Fogel sat in front of a weather radar and watched as a storm approached. The meteorologists gathered around him offered guidance: “It’s moving at this speed. It has lightning in it. If it gets this close to the stadium, everyone inside has to go.”
“So you’re sitting there and you’re stressing,” Fogel says. “Like, ‘Aw, f–k. They’re saying it’s going to come right over the top of the place.’ ”
Navigating dilemmas — at times as uncontrollable as the weather — has been part of Fogel’s repertoire for roughly four decades, as he has helped guide some of the biggest musical superstars in history through major, and majorly lucrative, world tours. —Katie Bain
Read the full profile on Executive of the Year Arthur Fogel here.
Loud And Live
Nelson Albareda
CEO
La Familia Presenta
Aaron Ampudia
Christopher Den Uijl
Co-founders, La Familia Presenta, Baja Beach Fest, Sueños Festival, Coca-Cola Flow Fest, Hulaween Fl, North Coast Music Festival, Dale MIXX, Collectiv Presents
C3 Presents
Charles Attal
Charlie Walker
Presidents
Amy Corbin
Promoter; South region president
of U.S. concerts, Live Nation
Huston Powell
Promoter
With headliners Sabrina Carpenter, Olivia Rodrigo, Doechii and Gracie Abrams, Lollapalooza’s 2025 edition in Chicago sold out at on-sale. “Everything seemed to click this year,” Powell says.
Still, the longtime C3 promoter considers Lollapalooza India’s sold-out third edition — headlined by Green Day, Shawn Mendes, Louis Tomlinson and Glass Animals — to be the Austin-based company’s biggest highlight this year. C3, whose festival properties also include Austin City Limits, Governors Ball and Bonnaroo, promoted the two-day March event in Mumbai alongside Lolla founder Perry Farrell and India-based promoter Book My Show.
Over the last decade-plus, Lollapalooza has expanded to Europe and South America with events from Buenos Aires to Berlin. But India, “which is not a place that’s as heavily trafficked as any of the other markets we’re in, has a lot of challenges with building the site and breaking into the market,” Powell says. Most of the bands on the Lolla India lineup have never played in the country, he explains, and even headliners like Green Day had to make routing adjustments out of Australia to accommodate the booking. “It is expensive to get around. So to some extent, the band’s got to want to do it,” Powell says. “There’s an emotional energy at the show because these fans, you can sense that they’re looking at this as probably the one and only time they’ll ever get to see Green Day.”
But for the nation of nearly 1.5 billion, that may be changing — with Lollapalooza at the forefront. “It’s been an untapped market,” says Powell, who sees it becoming “a more viable touring market five, 10, 15 years down the road.” —Taylor Mims
Carpenter at Chicago’s Lollapalooza on Aug. 3.
Dusana Risovic for Lollapalooza
Evenko
France Margaret Bélanger
President of sports and entertainment, Groupe CH
Nick Farkas
Senior vp of booking, concerts and events
Melissa Giampaolo
Vp of commercialization and festival management
Frontier Touring
Dion Brant
CEO; president/CEO, AEG Presents Asia Pacific
Susan Heymann
COO
CÁrdenas Marketing
Network
Henry Cárdenas
CEO
Carolina Daza
Head of live entertainment
Alexander Cárdenas
Director of touring
Rolling Loud
Tariq Cherif
Co-founder/co-CEO; founder, TC Music
Matt Zingler
Co-founder/co-CEO; founder, Motion Music
Peso Pluma at Los Angeles’ Rolling Loud California on March 15.
John Cotter/@respectivecollective
Live Nation International
Michael Coppel
Chairman, Live Nation Australia and New Zealand
Denis Desmond
Chairman, Live Nation UK and Ireland
John Reid
President of concerts, Europe, Middle East, Africa
Marek Lieberberg
Managing director/CEO, Live Nation Germany
Yongbae Cho
Steven Kim
Joint managing directors, Live Nation Korea
Sixthman
Jeff Cuellar
CEO
MGM Resorts
Paul Davis
Senior vp of booking
Superfly Presents and
Outside Lands Music Festival
Rick Farman
Co-founder
Fenix Entertainment
Marcelo Figoli
Owner/CEO
Live Nation Urban
Shawn Gee
President
Mari Davies
Vp of booking and talent
Tierra Booker
Manager, booking and talent
Concerts West
Paul Gongaware
John Meglen
CO-CEOs
Black Promoters Collective
Gary Guidry
Partner/CEO
Shelby Joyner
Partner/president
Troy Brown
Partner/chief marketing officer
Sulaiman Mausi
Partner/senior vp
Walt Reeder Jr.
Partner/senior vp of talent acquisitions
Live Nation H.I.P.
Kaori Hayashi
President
AEG International
Alex Hill
President/CEO
Adam Wilkes
President/CEO, Europe and Asia-Pacific, AEG Presents
John Langford
COO, AEG Europe
Emma Bownes
Senior vp of venue programming, AEG Europe
Simon Jones
Senior vp of international touring, AEG Presents
Iglesias Entertainment
Jorge Iglesias
Founder/CEO
TEG
Geoff Jones
Chair
Paul Dainty
President/CEO, TEG Dainty
Toby Leighton-Pope
Managing director, TEG Europe
HYBE
Min E. Kang
Leader of concert business division
Femme It Forward
Heather Lowery
President/CEO
Maxine Wallace/The Washington Post/Getty Images
Vans Warped Tour
Kevin Lyman
Founder/producer
Avril Lavigne joined the tour lineup in June.
Courtesy of Vans Warped Tour
Kevin Lyman remembers the strong pushback he got in the 1980s from local politicians when he would attempt to host punk shows in Long Beach, Calif., which then (like now) drew mischievous teens and young adults from all around Southern California with its notorious skate and punk culture. So naturally, over 40 years later, Lyman chose the beachside city as one of three sites to host the 30th-anniversary edition of his Vans Warped Tour — the famed touring punk rock festival he founded — this year.
“We outlasted them all,” Lyman says two months after the two-day Long Beach festival sold out 80,000 tickets with performances from Pennywise, Less Than Jake, The Vandals and the city’s own Sublime.
Today, Warped has the local buy-in it once lacked. In June, Long Beach Mayor Rex Richardson celebrated Warped’s return at an event honoring a new street named Sublime Way. “He goes, ‘I’m so excited to bring you the biggest punk rock show ever to Long Beach,’ ” Lyman recalls. “I was with Joe [Escalante] from The Vandals and a few other band people, and we all looked at each other. I go, ‘Remember when the politicians used to run on how they were going to get rid of punk in Long Beach?’ ”
Alongside Long Beach, Washington, D.C., and Orlando, Fla., were named as host cities for the anniversary events, which according to Warped sold a combined 240,000 tickets — making Warped one of the most successful festival runs of the year. (After summer plays in D.C. and Long Beach, the fest will stage its Orlando shows on Nov. 15 and 16.) And Warped, which took a break between 2019 and 2025, already has tickets on sale for its 2026 editions in D.C. and Long Beach, with Lyman hinting that international dates are also in the works. According to him, roughly 80% of next year’s acts have already been booked.
Read the full profile on Billboard‘s 2025 Visionary, Kevin Lyman, here.
Fans crowd-surfed at the July 26 tour date in Long Beach, Calif.
Quinn Tucker for Vans Warped Tour
AEG Presents
Jay Marciano
Chairman/CEO; COO, AEG
Rich Schaefer
President of global touring
Brent Fedrizzi
President of North American regional offices
Shawn Trell
Executive vp/COO/general counsel
Brooke Michael Kain
Chief digital officer
Marshall Arts
Barrie Marshall
Chairman/managing director
Bizarro Live Entertainment
Alfredo Alonso
Founder/entertainment director
Daniel Merino
Entertainment manager
Messina Touring Group
Louis Messina
CEO
Mike Dugan
President
Haley McCollister
President, Messina Touring Group Nashville
Rome McMahon
Executive vp
THE Bowery Presents
John Moore
Co-founder/co-president
Jim Glancy
Co-president
SJM Concerts
Simon Moran
Managing director
Live Nation
Michael Rapino
President/CEO
Arthur Fogel
Chairman of global music/president of global touring
Omar Al-joulani
President of touring
Jared Braverman
Rick Franks
Lesley Olenik
Hans Schafer
SENIOR VPs OF TOURING
Global Talent Services
Narcis Rebollo
President/CEO
Move Concerts
Phil Rodriguez
CEO; CEO, Move Management/Grand Move Records
Alejandro Pabón
Managing director/promoter; head of operations, Rimas Nation
Insomniac
Pasquale Rotella
Founder/CEO
Semmel Concerts
Dieter Semmelmann
CEO
Dayglo Presents
Peter Shapiro
Founder
Bill Silva Presents And
Bill Silva Management
Bill Silva
CEO
Outback Presents
Michael Smardak
Founder/co-CEO
OCESA
Alejandro Soberón
CEO
Mario Villa Vera
Operations director
FKP Scorpio GROUP
Stephan Thanscheidt
CEO, FKP Scorpio
Rauha Kyyrö
President of touring and artist development
Rense van Kessel
President of touring and artist development, FKP Scorpio Group/Friendly Fire
Goldenvoice
Paul Tollett
President
Melissa Ormond
COO, Goldenvoice; COO of festivals, AEG Presents
Stacy Vee
Jenn Yacoubian
EXECUTIVE VPs
Country Thunder Music Festivals
Troy Vollhoffer
President/CEO, Premier Global Production/Country Thunder Music Festivals
Danny Wimmer Presents
Danny Wimmer
Founder