Council accused of double standards over Israel in summer concerts row

Martin Shipton

Cardiff council has been accused of operating double standards over its association with a music events company that operates a sister firm in Israel.

While being happy to do business with Live Nation, despite calls from pro-Palestine groups to boycott it, Cardiff council is calling for its employees’ pension fund to disinvest from all Israel-related businesses.

Live Nation’s subsidiary Cuffe & Taylor stages the Blackweir Live concerts in Bute Park, while it will also run the council-owned Cardiff Arena that is currently under construction.

A pro-Palestine campaigner who lives in Cardiff contacted Nation.Cymru and said: It’s important to be aware that Blackweir Live has a Live Nation Israel company in its global basket. There have been calls from some artists for Live Nation to stop doing concerts in Israel while the conflict is going on.

“Why when councillors are calling for local government pension funds to divest from businesses that support Israel with arms has Cardiff council provided an exclusive deal to Live Nation that has not gone out to competitive tender?

“Live Nation has to tender for running festivals in other local authorities – .how can residents know that Cardiff is getting the best deal possible when there is no.open tendering process?”

Briefing document

A briefing document from the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI), a founding member of the Palestinian-led BDS [Boycott, Divest, Sanction] movement, calls for pressure on Live Nation Entertainment, including strategic, targeted boycotts, until it takes meaningful steps to account for its deep complicity in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza – especially by dropping its subsidiary Live Nation Israel that openly supports the genocidal Israeli military and artwashes apartheid.

“While we recognise that Live Nation’s venues, festivals and other subsidiaries cannot easily untether themselves from their parent company and have limited control when it comes to Live Nation Entertainment’s decision making, they are irrefutably implicated in its complicity. The same goes for venues and festivals that Live Nation operates, and those for which it is an exclusive or primary programmer. They are particularly well positioned to contribute to challenging this complicity, and have an undeniable ethical responsibility to do so.

Therefore, we demand that all Live Nation owned, operated and associated venues and festivals:

* Publicly pressure Live Nation to drop its complicit Israeli subsidiary;

* Adopt ethical programming and partnership policies and respect PACBI/BDS guidelines, regardless of their parent company’s decisions; and

* Publicly condemn the complicity of Live Nation’s investors.

“We call for pressure on these festivals and venues until they meet all these demands.

“To artists, we ask you to pressure Live Nation’s festivals and venues to meet the above demands. And to fans, festival-goers, and audience members, we urge you to amplify and support our campaign’s demands. We stand with workers at Live Nation’s venues and festivals, and hope you can find meaningful ways to raise our demands internally.

“For over a decade, Live Nation Israel – which formed when Live Nation acquired a majority stake in Israeli company Bluestone Entertainment – has been a driving force behind a number of international artists crossing the nonviolent Palestinian civil society do-no-harm picket line to perform in apartheid Israel. These artists include Imagine Dragons, Christina Aguilera, The Backstreet Boys, Maroon 5, and Bon Jovi—typically performing at venues like Hayarkon Park and Live Park in Rishon LeZion that are built on top of the ruins of ethnically cleansed Indigenous Palestinian villages.

“More recently, Live Nation’s complicit Israeli subsidiary publicly and explicitly aligned itself with the genocidal Israeli military, stating: ‘We stand with … IDF fighters and the security forces’while they carried out the initial stages of Israel’s ongoing live-streamed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. The UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry and the International Association of Genocide Scholars are the latest to recognize Israel’s carnage against Palestinians in Gaza as a genocide.”

‘Private events’

A spokesperson for Cardiff council would only say: “These are private events, they rent the park space from the council, so any questions relating to the events or any other related concerns should be sent to Live Nation to respond.”

A Cardiff council source said: “The double standards are shocking. It does seem that Live Nation has been given preferential treatment because it will be running Cardiff Arena.

“If the council is sincere in its call for pension disinvestment from companies involved in Israel, it makes absolutely no sense to back pension divestment.”