Christopher BarrettGotobeat is entering the festival market with the launch of a new festival division headed by Mike Lightford.
Lightford (pictured), the former director of music at Boardmasters and NAAS festivals, has joined Gotobeat as head of festivals. The company said its move into festivals will see it take a ‘data-led’ approach to the festival market.
“As we continue to grow, expanding into festivals allows us to create even more opportunities and experiences for the artists we work with, while bringing our expertise to an entirely new area of live entertainment,” said Gotobeat CEO and founder Max Busin.
A UK-based concert promoter, Gotobeat is set to enter the festival market with a six-show series across two weekends in July next year at London’s Beckenham Place Park. The series is expected to attract more than 35,000 attendees across each weekend, with around a dozen artists performing daily across two stages.
The series is set to include Unión; which Gotobeat describes as a contemporary music festival for the Latin American community that will include genres such as reggaeton and Latin pop. Other genres to be included across the wider series will include pop, rock and rap.
Having kicked off his career at the Barfly Group, Lightford moved into A&R at Warner Music Group before taking on roles at Ministry of Sound and MAMA Group. From 2018, Lightford worked within Boardmasters and NASS Festivals, where he became a key member of Superstruct’s European booking team.
Said Lightford, “I’m thrilled to be joining the Gotobeat team at such a pivotal moment for the business. Beckenham Place Park is an amazing site, and we have the opportunity to create something really special as we launch the company’s first festival programme. We’ve got a fantastic line-up coming together that caters to a wide range of music tastes, and I’m very excited to be a part of it.”