GUNS N’ ROSES TO LEAD SPANISH ROCK LAUNCH
EIGHT MONTHS after Music Festivals floated on Aim, founder Vince Power has announced the company’s first expansion funded by the IPO – a hard rock festival in Spain, to be headlined by Guns N’ Roses and Marilyn Manson.
Costa de Fuego, named after the firepower of its 40 heavy metal acts, will take place over two days on 20 and 21 July, one week after Music Festivals’ existing indie, pop and electronic event Benicassim. Using the same beachfront site for both, says Power, will significantly reduce the cost of staging the 30,000-capacity event over three stages.
The launch is in line with Power’s ambition to expand Music Festivals to a £100m business within five years – a “substantial” company, as was his former live music firm Mean Fiddler, sold for £38m in 2005. “I certainly have the appetite and the energy for it,” he told The Capitalist. “The more festivals you do, the more buying power you have.”
So Power is always looking – but he dismisses reports John Giddings’ Isle of Wight festival is up for sale, and the HMV Live events hawked by Citigroup are out because they come as a package. Indications are he has the cash, though – Music Festivals’ first full-year results as a public company in April will, apparently, show a profit.
BETTING EXCHANGE
WAYNE ROONEY has a way with words: the would-be England captain has named his new racehorse Switcharooney.
Although Betfair’s entrepreneurial co-founder Andrew Black (below) should perhaps take some of the credit, as the footballer’s horse is being trained at the Manor House stables Black co-owns with Michael Owen.
Rooney and his wife Coleen bought the colt for 60,000 guineas at Newmarket last October, and the plan is to run the horse this summer in the Tattersalls Millions series. That’s a total prize fund of £1.3m if young Switcharooney wins all six races.
MAYORAL ROW
CREDIT SUISSE, PwC and HSBC are already on board; now the Lord Mayor wants the rest of the City to support his Fit for the Future campaign by taking part in his indoor rowing challenge at the Guildhall on 25 April.
Even Olympic gold medallist Sir Steve Redgrave will make an appearance. To register a team of five, see www.lordmayorsappeal.org/events