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Harvey Goldsmith says lack of major acts to succeed the likes of the Rolling Stones or Muse will spell end for big summer events

The age of the big British summer music festival, including Glastonbury, is drawing to a close, according to the leading rock promoter and manager Harvey Goldsmith.

The man who has produced and worked with most of the western world’s biggest music stars, from the Who, the Rolling Stones and Queen to Madonna, Bob Dylan and Luciano Pavarotti, said the biggest problem was a dire lack of major new bands to succeed the old ones.

The festival circuit has peaked. There's too many of them and there are not enough big acts to headline them “The festival circuit has peaked,” he said, speaking at the Hay literary festival in Powys, Wales. “It really peaked about two years ago. There’s too many of them and there are not enough big acts to headline them. That is a big, big problem in our industry. And we are not producing a new generation of these kind of acts – the likes of the Rolling Stones, Muse, even Arctic Monkeys – that can headline.”

Read Tracy McVeigh's full article at The Guardian online