Live Nation buys Cream Holdings, Owner of Creamfields

It’s no secret that Live Nation has been making big moves into electronic music over the past couple years. Identity Festival was presented as the first nationwide, touring electronic music festival in the United States (the first Arizona show takes place August 19) and Live Nation has since promoted Steve Aoki’s Dead Meat tour and Deadmau5’s Meowingtons Hax tour. And after Live Nation’s purchase of Cream Holdings Limited, America’s biggest concert promoter now owns United Kingdom’s longest standing dance music festival.

Over the course of 13 years, Creamfields has grown into a worldwide phenomena. The first festival was held in Winchester in 1998 with an attendance of 25,000. Since then, the Creamfields festival has grown to a two day festival that takes place in Daresbury just outside Liverpool over Bank Holiday weekend in the UK and has traveled to Buenos Aires, Peru, Abu Dhabi, Lithuania, Mexico, and Santiago among other cities. Although two dates were planned for Vegas and Long Island, both were cancelled. An estimated 350,000 attendees are expected at the UK festival this year.

“With this acquisition, Live Nation further establishes its position in electronic music and expands its concert platform,” Michael Rapino, the company’s chief executive, said in a statement. “We intend to launch new festivals in key markets in North America, Europe and Southeast Asia.”

Cream founder James Barton agreed to join Live Nation as president of the new Live Nation Electronic Music division.