#and I should it's a super interesting piece

[red-garden]

When will we, as a society, understand that Jin Guangyao’s story is about survival and the things he had to do to make it, rather than one super evil guy just trying to be awful and kill people? We can look past Wei Wuxian torturing and killing nameless Wen soldiers because we’re not attached to them and they’re Wens. That gets to be justified because it’s the bloody revenge of the protagonist on henchman #362. We can look past his desecration of the dead, his raising of fallen soldiers to tear apart their brothers in arms, because they’re the baddies. We look past him deserting Jiang Cheng after his return because he had people to protect and Jiang Cheng is an asshole (affectionate). Don’t misconstrue me- I love Wei Wuxian, and I think that he is a basically good person that was pushed past his breaking point and did some truly awful things as a result. He’s not a bad person. But he’s not better than Meng Yao.

Walk with me, Jin Guangyao antis. Let’s recount every bad thing Jin Guangyao has ever done in chronological order.

1) killed Nie Mingjue’s general

2) got Su She to cast the 100 holes curse on Jin Zixun (possibly to frame Wei Wuxian)

3) advocated for and later worked with Xue Yang

4) killed Nie Mingjue

5) banged his sister before he knew they were siblings, later married her after knowing

6) everything about Jin Guangshan’s death

7) allegedly killed his own son

8) chopping nie Mingjue up into little pieces and keeping his head in a cupboard

9) putting all the juniors in The Zombie Cave to get everyone on Wei Wuxian’s ass and kill a lot of people

10) almost killing Jin Ling

Numero uno first ever Bad Meng Yao Deed was killing Nie Mingjue’s general. You know, the general that constantly belittled him and repeatedly insulted his mom. Not only is this one totally understandable, it was also filial.

Next the 100 holes curse. There’s not solid proof that he wanted to frame WWX for this, it’s more likely this was just a better hidden filial killing in the name of his mother’s honor that ended up negatively impacting WWX.

Xue Yang is a little freak, but he’s a powerful, smart little freak. He was to protect Xue Yang in the interest of his father, although he does keep working with him after JGS’s death. This one was a power grab, trying to have extra pieces on the board to ensure his position among the Jin.

Nie Mingjue was another filial killing. If there’s one thing Meng Yao is gonna do is always be filial to his mom. Additionally, Nie Mingjue was not a perfect innocent angel either, he supported killing the Wen remnants. This wasn’t Meng Yao killing the last unicorn y’all. AND AND ALSO ALSO Jin Guangshan ordered this!!!!!!!!!! He was obeying his father to maintain his social position!!!!!!! What’s not clicking?

I get really mad over the Qin Su stuff, because marrying her after she was already pregnant was the kindest thing he could do for her. Should he have told her they were siblings and let her make her own choice? Absolutely. But he was trying protect her, and I can’t fault him for that. (Call back the nonconsensual golden core transfer)

The only thing I won’t defend is how he killed JGS. JGS was world’s worst guy, but no one deserves to be raped under any conditions. The sex workers he hired didn’t deserve to die, they didn’t deserve any of that. One thing I will say is that he didn’t plan for Sisi to be there. She had been transferred, he didn’t expect her, and after the fact he fed and clothed and kept her comfortable for the rest of her life. Keeping her under house arrest was how he protected his social position. Psychologically speaking I understand why he killed JGS like this however. While jiggy loved his mom, it’s clear he didn’t love sex workers more broadly, and saw his mom as an exception among them. He didn’t see the sex workers he killed as people, only saving Sisi because she was another supposed exception. For JGS, this was a taste of his own medicine type beat. JGS is a rapist, who raped Qin Su’s mom and jiggy’s mom when she was 15. I completely understand why he chose to kill JGS this way, but that doesn’t make it okay.

Jin Rusong’s death is completely alleged. While it ended up being politically advantageous to jiggy to squash the smaller sects that plotted against him, we have no idea if he killed his son. While he does say he does, he also says he killed Qin Su, who killed herself. While he may feel responsible for both their deaths, that doesn’t mean he killed them. I should point out the one claiming he killed his son was Sect Leader Yao, you know, the mob mentality character.

Chopping Nie Mingjue up is just common sense. Harder for a fierce corpse to kill you if it’s just a head. Harder to identify a body if it’s just a leg. “This is desecrating the dead” AND WHAT WAS WEI WUXIAN DOING, RIDDLE ME THAT BATMAN

For the juniors, this one was just poorly thought out tbh. He needed the Jianghu to get WWX’s ass because he was going to uproot him from his comfortable life. So he harmlessly leaves all the kids in a cave, gets everyone out there, gets their energy sealed, and lets people point fingers at WWX when the zombies start coming. He knows this likely would result in the deaths of many cultivators- many cultivators who need I remind you, make up the bourgeois, talk nasty about his mom, and who supported killing the Wen Remnants. This was like the ocean gate of wuxia, but y’all aren’t ready for that. He was protecting the life he worked so hard for, plain and simple 

Okay there are two things I won’t defend. While I don’t think he would’ve taking JL’s life, I can’t imagine how traumatic that was for Jin Ling. BUT AGAIN, I understand why he did it. He was grasping at straws, clinging to anything he thought might keep him alive, and he did a desperate, shitty thing. If you want to believe he never loved Jin Ling because of this moment, be my guest, but if there’s one thing jiggy can do is love.

All in all, he did a lot of desperate, shitty things to claw his way to a better life, and a lot of desperate shitty things to keep it. If you think he shouldn’t have cared so much about being part of the Jianghu, CONGRATULATIONS, YOU MISSED THE POINT !!🎉🎊 Poverty is violence, and he grew up in it. It was his mother’s wish, what she broke herself doing, to give him a better life. He was a good son, not going to squander what his mother gave him, trying to protect his very precarious position in a society that hated him for the fact of being born wrong. He’s not a moral paragon, but no one in mdzs is. They’re all people that react in deeply human ways to deeply unfair situations. They lash out, commit violence, do things they regret. Jiggy did a lot of terrible things, but the point is that he shouldn’t have had to.

[dreamings-free]

IQ Magazine November 30th 2023

Usually, when an act completes a world tour, they come off the road for an extended period to rest, record new material, and then typically two or three years later the wheels are set in motion for an album release, promo, and tour dates. Louis Tomlinson did not get that memo.

His first solo tour ran late due to the pandemic restrictions, meaning that by the time it concluded in September 2022, his second album, Faith in the Future, was scheduled to drop and tickets for the associated tour were ready to go on sale.

“This tour went on sale last October or November – basically a year in advance,” explains agent Holly Rowland, who represents Tomlinson alongside Alex Hardee, internationally, while Wasserman Music colleagues Marty Diamond and Ash Mowry-Lewis do likewise for North America.

Despite that quick turnaround between tours, Rowland reports that ticket sales for the current tour are going very well indeed. “The first leg went through Scandinavia before doing the Baltics and Eastern Europe – Romania, Bulgaria, and Greece – places that most people, especially arena-level acts, don’t really go. And the second leg, which is more mainland Europe, started on 2 October.”

The tour is big. Very big for just a second outing in his own name. Between May and July this year, Tomlinson played 39 dates in the US and Canada across a mix of amphitheatres, arenas, pavilions, and stadiums. In August, he returned to Europe, where he is currently is in the midst of another 39 dates in arenas across the continent and the UK, which will take him to 18 November. Then, in early 2024, the Faith in the Future tour goes to Australia for two outdoor dates in Melbourne and Brisbane, before he takes the show to the country’s biggest indoor venue, the Qudos Bank Arena in Sydney.

“The tour before obviously was a Covid tour where the dates had to be chopped and changed. The positive aspect of that was that we were able to upgrade venues where that made sense”

And, as IQ went to press, Tomlinson released dates for a return to Latin America in May 2024 for a mix of indoor and outdoor shows, including stadia, across Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Panama, Paraguay, Puerto Rico, and Uruguay.

“We’re going to Australia and part of Asia early next year,” states artist manager Matt Vines of London-based Seven 7 Management. “We then go into Latin America in May and June. And then we’ll handpick a selection of festivals next summer, before we draw the line on the campaign at the end of the summer.”

Rowland comments, “The tour before obviously was a Covid tour where the dates had to be chopped and changed. The positive aspect of that was that we were able to upgrade venues where that made sense. But it was really nice to start from scratch on this tour to make sure the routing was all going in the right direction.” She reports, “We’ve done nearly 16,000 tickets in Amsterdam, and 14,000 in Paris, which I think just underlines his credibility as an artist and his growing reputation among fans.”

Back to You Playing a major role in shifting that ticketing inventory is a network of promoters also enjoying Tomlinson’s rising star.

“On this tour, it’s mainly Live Nation – we use a lot of the One Direction promoter,” explains Rowland. “But for Greece, we used Honeycomb Live, Charmenko did Romania, 8 Days A Week promoted the three shows in the Baltics, All Things Live did Finland, Fource are doing Prague, it’s Gadget in Switzerland, Atelier in Luxembourg, and when we get to the UK, it’s SJM, and MCD in Ireland.”

With a total of 39 European dates, Rowland split the outing into separate legs, scheduling a break after Scandinavia, the Balkans, Baltics and Athens, Greece and another after mainland Europe ending in Zurich, Switzerland.

“Louis has a real desire to perform to fans in markets that are often overlooked”

“It’s a perfect ratio, if I do say so myself,” she laughs. “It was right to split it up – 39 dates is a long, long tour, especially with the American tour throughout the summer being 11 weeks! We made sure to schedule days off, for everyone to recharge their batteries.”

In Spain, Nacho Córdoba at Live Nation promoted Tomlinson’s shows in Bilbao, Madrid, and Barcelona and reports sell-outs at each of the arenas involved.

“When Louis was last here, it was three days before the pandemic shut everything down in Spain. In fact, I think he played the final show before the market closed because of Covid,” says Córdoba.

“Last year, Louis organised his Away From Home festival in Fuengirola, and that also sold out, so we know he has a big following in Spain, and we also know that Spanish fans are super loyal. So, on this tour we sold out 7,000 tickets at Bilbao Arena Miribilla, 13,600 tickets at WiZink in Madrid, and 11,200 at Palau St Jordi in Barcelona.”

Already looking forward to Tomlinson “and his fantastic team” returning on the next tour, Córdoba believes it will be important to see what happens with the next album – and Tomlinson’s expectations – before making any plans.

“The most important thing is to keep the fans happy and keep the momentum building with Louis,” he states. “I am a big fan of the arenas, because the atmosphere at his shows was incredible. So, rather than look at going bigger, it might be a case of looking at other arenas in other markets. Whatever he does, we cannot wait to have Louis back in Spain.”

“He’s kept the ticket prices reasonable – and he never wants to do any gold circle or VIP tickets. I think that’s why he’s so close to his fans, because it’s not about maximising profits”

Stefan Wyss at Gadget abc Entertainment in Switzerland promoted Tomlinson when he visited Zurich’s Hallenstadion on 23 October and explains that he previously played the city’s Halle 622 venue on the first tour.

Recalling that debut solo outing, Wyss tells IQ, “At first, we announced a mid-size theatre club show, 1,800-capacity, but it sold out instantly. Then we moved it to Halle 62, which is 3,500-cap, and that also sold out immediately, so it was a really big success.

“They’ve invested a lot in the production of this current tour, and it’s doing really strong numbers, so that’s why we decided to go to the arena this time around, where we set a mid-size capacity of 7,000, which is good for a small market like Switzerland, especially because he’s coming back just one year later and playing a much bigger show.”

Wyss adds, “He’s kept the ticket prices reasonable – and he never wants to do any gold circle or VIP tickets. I think that’s why he’s so close to his fans, because it’s not about maximising profits. Another reason for his success is that in addition to attracting a mainstream audience, he’s also getting the music lovers because he’s just a very good songwriter and has brilliant songs.”

Wyss also notes that with many young fans typically arriving the day before the concert, the responsibility to look after them is extended.

“We set up toilets, we have security overnight, we give water away. It’s part of the organisation that we will take care of the fans.”

Fresh from announcing 12 dates across Argentina, Brazil (x 3), Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Peru, Paraguay, Panama, Puerto Rico, and Uruguay, promoter Fabiano Lima De Queiroz at Move Concerts reports that Tomlinson will visit a mix of arenas, as well as stadiums in Santiago, São Paolo, and Buenos Aires during his May tour.

“Louis really looks after his fans. On the last tour they did a deal with Greggs [bakery chain] to give free food to the people waiting in line, as some of them camped out for days in advance”

“Our first tour with Louis was supposed to be in 2020 and we’d booked half arenas everywhere – 5,000-6,000 capacities,” he informs IQ. “Louis was one of those acts who connected very well with the fans during the pandemic, so when we shifted the dates, first to 2021, and then to 2022, we ended up selling out and having to upgrade in certain metropolitan markets.

“In Santiago, for instance, we’d sold out two full arenas of 13,000 cap, but then the government declared that for mass gatherings the numbers needed to be limited to 10,000 people.”

Rather than let fans down, Move added a third date, which again ended up selling out. “I remember being on a night plane from Miami, while Matt Vines was flying in from Dallas, and we were both using the aircraft wi-fi to negotiate via text for that third show,” says Queiroz. “It was an interesting way to confirm putting the third date on sale, just three days before the actual show!”

He adds, “We’re taking a big bet on this tour when it comes to the number of cities and the capacities of the venues, but we’re hoping for the best, and we’ve gone out strong. We feel that the artist is in a good moment and that the latest album has just created more interest, so we’re looking forward to when he arrives in May.”

Further north, Ocesa will promote three dates in Mexico, including a stadium show at the F1 circuit, Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez, deepening Tomlinson’s footprint in that crucial North American market.

Meanwhile, in Tomlinson’s homeland, Jack Dowling at SJM is promoting seven UK dates in November at arenas in Sheffield, Manchester, Glasgow, Brighton, Cardiff, London, and Birmingham, which will round out the European leg of the tour.

“We have a responsibility to look after [the fans]. Coming to a show should be a safe space, it’s where they find joy, and we have a responsibility to protect that”

“SJM has done every show Louis has been involved with, including all the One Direction arena and stadium shows,” notes Dowling, adding that on the first tour, the London show was originally pencilled in as a Roundhouse, then two Roundhouse shows, before finally being upgraded to Wembley Arena.

“This time, The O2 arena show in London will be sold out, while all the others have passed the expectations of where we wanted to be on this tour. In fact, when the UK dates were announced, it ranked as the fourth most engaged tour on social media in SJM’s history – his fans are just nuts.”

But Dowling also reports that the fanbase for Tomlinson is expanding. “The demographics are pulling not just from pop but also from indie rock now.”

Dowling adds, “Louis really looks after his fans. On the last tour they did a deal with Greggs [bakery chain] to give free food to the people waiting in line, as some of them camped out for days in advance.”

Out of my System Ensuring his fans are looked after properly is the number one priority in Tomlinson’s live career.

Noting that Tomlinson’s audience comprises mainly young women and girls, Rowland reveals that, at the artist’s insistence, a safety team has been added to the tour to ensure everyone that attends his shows is looked after. “They manage all the safety within the shows for the fans,” she explains. “They came in for the Wembley show last year and have been with us ever since – they’ve been beneficial to the running of the tour.

“When he played in South America, some of his fans were camping outside for a month. So we have a responsibility to look after them. Coming to a show should be a safe space, it’s where they find joy, and we have a responsibility to protect that.”

Manager Vines comments, “One issue that we came up against almost all last year was crushing and fans passing out. We adopted a system where we could communicate with fans, who could hold up a mobile phone with a flashing red-and-white sign if they were in trouble but then we’d see them all popping up.

“I don’t know whether some of that was a hangover of the pandemic where fans just weren’t used to being in venues. But we experienced a number of situations where hydration and temperatures in venues became an issue. I know Billie Eilish went through similar issues.”

“I get detailed incident reports after each show… So far on this tour, we haven’t had any issues with crushing or hydration, which is fantastic”

With Tomlinson determined to meet a duty of care toward his fans, Vines says that the team now sends a “considerable advance package” to promoters ahead of their tour dates. “Our safety team goes into venues in the morning and basically ensures that a number of different things are in place – making sure that water is given to the fans, where the water comes from, and at what points in the show it happens.”

And on the crushing phenomena, he reports, “We’ve worked out how many fans it’s safe to have without a secondary barrier. So we instruct promoters to have certain barriers in place to relieve that pressure and avoid crushing.”

He adds, “I get detailed incident reports after each show, which lets myself and my management team know exactly what happened, and so far on this tour, we haven’t had any issues with crushing or hydration, which is fantastic.”

Production manager Craig Sherwood is impressed by the way the tour has pivoted to protect the ‘Louies.’ “The welfare officers are vital for the young girls who are aged from, I guess, 14 upwards. They can get dehydrated and malnourished pretty quickly if they are camping out for days, so it’s important that we look out for their wellbeing,” says Sherwood.

Citing the extremes that the Louies will put themselves through in an effort to secure themselves prime positions at the front of the stage, Sherwood recalls, “The first show on our US tour was in February, and it was freezing, but we found out that girls had been camping out on the pavement for five days. It’s crazy, as we know these young girls are coming from all over the world to see Louis.”

However, Tomlinson’s connection with those fans is evident in the level of merchandise sales at each show. “It’s a huge part of our business,” says Vines. “In America, we averaged about $36 a head, and it’s not much shy of that in Europe – we’ve set a few national records in terms of spend per head. But we spend a lot of time on merch plans, and we do venue-specific drops and give it a lot of care and attention, as it’s a really important element of Louis’ business.”

“We don’t do dynamic pricing, we don’t do platinum ticketing, we don’t do paid VIPs, we don’t increase ticket prices on aisle seats – all those tricks that everyone does that most fans don’t know about: we don’t do any of those”

We Made It Making sure that the Faith in the Future tour delivers Tomlinson to his growing legion of fans, PM Sherwood’s long association with artist manager Vines made him the obvious choice when the artist first began his solo career.

“I remember doing a lot of promo dates around the UK and US before we started touring properly,” says Sherwood of his work with Tomlinson. “In fact, one of the first shows I remember doing with Louis was in Madrid when he played in a stadium, and I could see it was a taste of things to come.”

The partnership between Sherwood and Vines is crucial. “In terms of the show growing, our biggest challenge is keeping costs down, because we’re extremely cautious on ticket pricing,” says Vines. “We don’t do dynamic pricing, we don’t do platinum ticketing, we don’t do paid VIPs, we don’t increase ticket prices on aisle seats – all those tricks that everyone does that most fans don’t know about: we don’t do any of those.

“So, when it comes to the production side of things, we need to be incredibly careful. But I’ve been working with Craig for a decade, and he knows the importance of trying to keep costs as low as possible. For instance, we’ll run the show virtually a number of times so Louis can watch it with the show designer, Tom Taylor, make comments and tweak things. Then we’ll go into pre-production. But we try to do as much in virtual reality as possible before we take it into the physical world.”

Sherwood states, “Basically, we started out with two or three trucks, but now we’re up to nine, and things seem to be getting bigger day by day.”

Thankfully, Sherwood has amassed a vastly experienced crew over the years, allowing them to handle even the most unexpected scenarios. “I’ve been touring since the dawn of time, but the core crew I work with now have been together since about 2010, and I trust them implicitly, so I leave it up to them who they hire, as long as they think I’m going to like them, and they’ll get along with everyone. So far, it has worked well,” Sherwood reports.

And that veteran crew has dealt with some terrifying weather extremes on the current tour, including a show at Red Rocks in Colorado where the audience were subjected to a freak storm with golf ball-sized hail stones injuring dozens of people.

“We need to tweak the rigging on a daily basis, as we move to different venues”

Elsewhere, the crew has had to act quickly when the threat of high winds in Nashville caused problems on that outdoor run. “We didn’t want the video screens blowing about above the heads of the band, so it must have been amusing for the audience to see us taking them down,” Sherwood reports.

Indoors in Europe, the environment has been more controllable. The production itself involves an A-stage set 180 degrees across the barricades, although Sherwood says that on occasion a catwalk is also used by the performers.

“It’s a great lighting show and fantastic for audio, as we have a phenomenal front-of-house sound engineer – John Delf from Edge Studios – who makes life very easy for the rest of us,” says Sherwood. He also namechecks Barrie Pitt (monitor engineer), Oli Crump (audio system designer), Tom Taylor (lighting designer), Sam Kenyon (lighting technical director), and Torin Arnold (stage manager), while he praises Solo-Tech for supplying the sound, and Colour Sound Experiment (CSE) for taking charge of lighting, video, and rigging equipment.

Indeed, CSE has ten personnel out with the Faith in the Future tour. “We have eight screens on the road – six on stage plus two IMAGS that we use wherever appropriate,” the company’s Haydn Cruickshank tells IQ.

“We need to tweak the rigging on a daily basis, as we move to different venues, but other than that it’s a fairly smooth process thanks to Craig Sherwood. He is old-school and planned and worked on the production very far in advance, which is a great scenario for all involved. Craig is definitely one of our favourite production managers to work with.”

“Post-pandemic, the number of long-haul flights still aren’t as frequent as they were. As a result, the production is being reverse-engineered”

Garry Lewis at bussing contractors Beat The Street is also a fan of PM Sherwood. “Craig split the European tour into different runs. So, from Hamburg to Zurich, we had two super high-decker 12-berth buses for the tour party and two 16-berth double-deckers for the crew,” says Lewis. “After the show in Athens, we still have the two super high-deckers, as Louis loves them – he prefers to spend time on the bus, rather than in hotels – but we also have two 12-berth super high-deckers for the crew, as well as another crew 16-berth double-decker.”

Lewis continues, “We’ve worked with Craig for a good few years, and we have a great relationship with him. He plans everything way in advance, so it means it’s all very straightforward for us with no issues. So, we use single drivers for each bus, except on the longer runs or when our drivers are scheduled for prolonged breaks, and then we’ll fly in extra drivers as needed.”

If I Could Fly With the production travelling to Australia in early 2024, before shifting to Latin America, Andy Lovell at Freight Minds is gearing up to become involved with Tomlinson once again.

“We’ve never failed anywhere to open the doors on time, so we know we’re capable of getting things done, even if we have a late start at mid-day”

“We did the Central and South America dates on the tour last year, and onto Mexico,” says Lovell. “It was very challenging back then as we were still coming back from Covid, and various systems and infrastructure were in pieces. But it all went well in the end, as we kept an eye on things and worked on it every day to make sure we had solutions to everything that was thrown our way.”

Lovell continues, “Things on this tour kick in early next year for us. Historically, Australian services were quite reliable, as we could use any number of airlines. But post-pandemic, the number of long-haul flights still aren’t as frequent as they were. As a result, the production is being reverse-engineered with the budget being worked out before we can see what we can afford to take as freight, and then we try to plan accordingly.

“Similarly, in Central and South America there are still just a fraction of the flights operating, compared to pre-Covid, so that makes it very challenging. If there aren’t the flights to handle the gear, then you have to start looking at chartering aircraft, or alter your schedule, and that can become very expensive, very fast.”

With everyone working on the artist’s behalf to make sure the tour remains on track, being able to call on such experienced production experts is paying off on a daily basis.

Sherwood notes, “There are a few back-to-back shows over long distances that occasionally mean we don’t arrive at the next venue until 11am, rather than 6am. But we’ve never failed anywhere to open the doors on time, so we know we’re capable of getting things done, even if we have a late start at mid-day.”

Such dilemmas are not lost on agent Rowland. “It’s not so much the routing, it’s more like the timings, because Louis does have two support acts, so the show starts at 7 o’clock, and then when we’re done, we need to load out to get to the next show in good time for loading in the next morning and soundchecks, etc.”

Nonetheless, Sherwood admits that he loves the trickier venues and schedules. “Because I’m a dinosaur, I relish anything that makes things difficult or awkward for us on the production side of things,” he says. “I think everyone on the crew looks forward to challenges and finding the solutions to problems.”

“We have this amazing platform where we can put these bands in front of these audiences as a showcase that allows them to build these authentic new audiences”

Common People Having amassed millions of fans through his association with One Direction, Tomlinson very much has a ‘pay it forward’ attitude to music and is building a reputation as a champion for emerging talent, wherever he performs.

“He’s a great advocate for alternative music,” says manager Vines. “Louis realises that he’s in an incredibly privileged position in terms of what he can create in terms of awareness. He loves alternative music and indie music, and he understands how hard it is for that music to be heard. But we have this amazing platform where we can put these bands in front of these audiences as a showcase that allows them to build these authentic new audiences. It’s a huge part of his love of music, wanting to help younger bands.”

Rowland agrees. “He took an act called Andrew Cushin – a very new artist – on the road in America with him as his support, and he’s doing the same for Europe. Louis is a fan and is championing his career.

Indeed, Tomlinson’s A&R skills have knock-on effects for his agent, too. “He asked me to confirm the Australian band Pacific Avenue as support for his Australian tour last year. The music was great and they didn’t have an agent, so now I’m representing them!” says Rowland.

Perfect Now As the European tour speeds toward its conclusion, agent Rowland is enjoying every minute of it. “It’s incredible – they’ve really stepped things up,” she says, fresh from seeing the show in Athens and Paris. “They’ve got 6 hanging LED screens on the stage, and the whole production just looks polished and professional.”

And Rowland is especially excited about next year’s Latin American dates, which will deliver her first stadium shows as an agent. “The return to Latin America is going to be huge – Louis is playing arenas and stadiums in South America and Mexico: 15 shows across 11 countries,” she says.

“He loves his fans, and he loves performing for them, it’s as simple as that. He just loves being on the road and seeing how the songs connect live”

Vines is similarly enthused. Harking back to the Covid situation, when a show would go on sale, sell out, be postponed, and then rescheduled in a bigger venue, Vines says, “For example, in Chile, originally the show was scheduled at a 5,000-cap, half-capacity arena in Santiago. And what we ended up doing was three nights at 10,000-cap in that same venue.”

Vines contends that Tomlinson’s work ethic is outstanding. “He loves his fans, and he loves performing for them, it’s as simple as that,” he says. “He just loves being on the road and seeing how the songs connect live. In fact, the second album was very much written with the tour and live shows in mind – ‘This song could work live,’ ‘This one will open the set,’ ‘This is the one we can do for the encore.’”

Fearless Another element to Tomlinson’s psyche has been his decision to visit places off the usual tour circuit. “Louis has a real desire to perform to fans in markets that are often overlooked,” says Rowland.

Manager Vines explains that while the Covid-delayed first tour allowed them to upgrade venues pretty much everywhere, “On this tour, we’re a bit more competent on venue sizes, but we still speculate a little bit in different territories. In Europe, for example, we’ve gone into the Baltics and a number of different places to test the markets there, while in America, we are looking at A and B markets but also tertiary markets as well – we go to places where people just don’t tour in America, just to see what the reaction is. That was something that very much interested Louis – to play in front of people who don’t normally have gigs in their town. So there’s been a lot of experimentation on this tour in terms of where we go and what room to play.”

“Louis also is extremely fan-focused in everything that he does. He comes at it from a perspective of ‘I want to take the show to them'”

That concept is something that Vines has employed before. “I manage a band called Hurts who were pretty much overlooked by the British radio system and we have spent 15 years building a business outside of the UK. And that was built on going to play at those places where people didn’t normally go. They built to multiple arena level in Russia, for instance.

“If you can build fanbases in lots of different places, you have festivals that you can play every summer, as well as touring those places. It allows you to have more consistency over a number of years, by having more opportunities.”

Such a strategy found a convert in Tomlinson. Vines tells IQ, “Louis also is extremely fan-focused in everything that he does. He comes at it from a perspective of ‘I want to take the show to them,’ meaning he’s always more willing to take the risky option to try something out.”

And the results? “It’s a combination,” concludes Vines. “There have been a couple of places where we now understand why tours don’t go there. But there’s are more places where it’s worked incredibly well. For example, we enjoyed incredibly good sales in Budapest. And overall, it’s allowing us to get a clearer idea, globally, of where the demand is, which will help us when we go into the next tour cycle.”

30/11/23

IQ is the leading global news platform for the live music business. IQ’s news, features, information and analysis are read by 100,000 professionals worldwide each month. IQ publishes a regular magazine, several annual reports, and a daily news digest, IQ Index. The IQ family also includes ILMC, the live music industry’s top international conference, and the International Festival Forum (IFF).

[simptasia]

LOST: Season One

[elvenchain]

Erenville my beloved

[brunneraleo]

I've decided I should post these 1 at a time so I can spread them out more. Also because I'm extremely proud of some of these and think they deserve their own space!! This attack was a revenge against starbearjar of one of their spiderverse-inspired ocs!

[kiisaes]

mha is like an estranged awkward father to me. i try not to make my connection to it obvious but i secretly care a lot about it (sometimes against what i desire) and when ppl talk serious shit about it i get defensive. like yea i understand that it's not the best series writing-wise, it's got a good amount of problems and that its mere connection to me makes me cringefail ... but i'll always find some sort of unexplainable comfort in its arms despite its flaws bc there's still a good amount of it to genuinely enjoy without a constantly ironic state of mind that all media must be critiqued with nowadays and i don't expect anyone to understand this odd relationship but myself

[cryptidcalling]

This is such an incredibly dumb thing to vent abt but. I posted my fully decorated SDV house in my DnD group chat bc a lot of them play Stardew and the only response I got was 2 people complaining about the asymmetrical layout and it hurt my feelings.

[technicolorxsn]

love how there are pretentious video essays that just repeat the book and meander and ramble about house of leaves. it's what zampanó would have wanted. it is not, however, what I want

[sysig]

Fallen Angel, Uplifted Human (Patreon)

[tj-crochets]

I havent been here for the quilting saga, very cool that you're done your squares, what were you going for with this quilt? Like what were ur quilt goals, why did u choose those fabrics? Is it meaningful or all just stuff you like?

This latest quilt is my scrap quilt, which means it's entirely made of fabric scraps from previous quilts I've made. Well, mostly from quilts I've made, plus one bag's worth of scrap fabric from a local quilt shop, plus a few scraps from various peoples' destashes I've been given over the years? So there wasn't really an overarching goal, per se, except to use up fabric scraps because I couldn't bring myself to throw them away but didn't have enough of any one color palette to make a cohesive quilt top. I put zero thought or effort into color distribution except to try to keep different pieces of the same fabric from touching each other, and I had a few very dark fabrics that stand out against my usual "everything is as bright as possible" color choices so I made sure those were distributed evenly across the quilt. As for the quilt pattern itself, it's made of two kinds of 12" blocks. Block A is made of six rows of 2.5" strips. I made them by sewing my 2.5" strips into a very long single piece of fabric and then cutting that into 12.5" by 2.5" rectangles, then sewing those together Block B is basically a 4 patch block, but the upper right and lower left squares are made of smaller 4 patch blocks. So it's two 6.5" squares and eight 3.5" squares per Block B. I chose those sizes because they were small enough to be easy to cut even out of small scraps and scaled well with each other to make a pattern I would not get bored sewing. Every few weeks I'd collect my fabric scraps, iron them, cut them down to those sizes and put them in the scrap quilt drawer until I had enough to make the quilt top I'm working on now

[cha1cedony]

Hoping to finish Chapter 7 within the week because I know next episode will destroy me. But I’m less than 500 words in so wish me luck HAHAHA

[omegamoo]

i have lots of. thoughts about like why the wp as a project has turned out the way it has and lots of those thoughts are really good sweet ones about community and then lots of frustrations too i think

[swildy]

yearly summary of art

[mee1414]

3, 13, 19 for the artist ask game? (Feel free to just pick one too)

3. your favorite piece(s)?

For more recent ones, I really like this and this ! Theyre not all that recent, but I havent be able to draw much since school started haha

13. talk about a wip you like!

Im drawing some flowers (traditionally) for my grandma for her birthday :]

Inking traditionally is really fun for me, it takes forever cause i love doing hatching and cross hatching but it looks cool when i finish and i like how this is coming out so far

Another wip thats probably more relevant is im drawing one of the things Gem built in an episode from like 2 weeks ago. Which i should really try to finish soon its been a while but again school keeps happening

19. where do you find inspiration?

It fully depends on what im actually drawing, but mostly visual artists because i see pretty art and want to draw too, but also music, books, and friends! By depends on what im drawing, i mean usually a lot of what i draw is character art or sometimes scene art. For character art, its just inspired by whatever media and fan media exists of that character, usually ill get inspired by a cool design or interesting plot, and then want to draw that. For scene art, i usually get inspiration from pictures i take myself, pictures i see online, or something one of the youtubers i follow builds in minecraft.

I listen to music a ton, so that also inspires me but that inspires more with oc writing than art

[pleaseget-out]

Why am I so socially awkward???

[nomairuins]

my tags on that went on for so long i had to go back and edit them to fit tag limit and i still had to delete a bunch of them. Its the autism it literally is