Barclays suspends sponsorship of Live Nation festival following anti-Israel boycotts

Barclays has suspended its sponsorship of all Live Nation festivals in response to a concert boycott by artists protesting against the bank’s alleged links to arms companies that supply Israel.

A spokesman for the bank confirmed: “Barclays has been asked to suspend participation in the remaining Live Nation festivals in 2024 and has agreed.”

The move affects festivals such as Download, Latitude and the Isle of Wight/Barclays event has signed a five-year sponsorship deal with Live Nation in 2023. It is unclear whether the suspension applies to all events until 2028.

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Comedians Joanne McNally, Sophie Duker, Grace Campbell and Alexandra Haddow announced last week that they would boycott the Latitude Festival. Musicians including CMAT, Pillow Queens, Mui Zyu and Georgia Ruth also pulled out of the event.

Festival on the Isle of Wight

BBC presenter Liz Kersaw also condemned the effects of the anti-Israel boycott campaign.

She posted on X/Twitter: “Now our entertainment program is under attack. No sponsor = no festival. Bullying of bands – no festival.”

“This is truly ominous and could be devastating for musicians, music lovers and our culture.”

A Live Nation spokesman said: “After discussions with artists, we have agreed with Barclays that they will withdraw from sponsorship of our festivals.”

Tom Morello, guitarist for Rage Against The Machine, who will play at Download, said: “The fact that the festival has listened to its musicians and severed its ties with Barclays Bank is testament to the power of artists coming together to campaign for human rights.

“I have been working hard behind the scenes to make this happen and I applaud all the artists like Zulu, Scowl and Speed ​​who have taken a stand and helped make this historic withdrawal possible.”

Campaign group Bands Boycott Barclays, which is leading the protests, said 163 acts, four showcases and two venues had already pulled out of the Barclaycard-sponsored Great Escape Festival in Brighton in May.

Following Live Nation’s announcement on Friday, the protest group wrote on Instagram: “This is a victory for the Palestinian-led global BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) movement.

“As musicians, we were appalled that our music festivals were cooperating with Barclays, which is complicit in the genocide in the Gaza Strip through investments, loans and guarantees for arms companies that supply the Israeli military.

“Hundreds of artists have taken action this summer to make it clear that this is morally reprehensible, and we are glad that our voices have been heard.

“Our demand to Barclays is simple: withdraw from genocide or face further boycotts. A boycott of Barclays, Europe’s largest financier of fossil fuels, is the least we can do to bring about change.”

Barclays has been targeted by pro-Palestinian activists in recent months. Earlier this week, protesters smashed windows and threw paint at dozens of the bank’s branches across the UK.

In a statement published online, it said: “We trade in shares of listed companies at the direction or request of our customers, and this may result in us holding shares.”

“While we provide financial services to these companies, we do not make investments for Barclays and Barclays is neither a ‘shareholder’ nor an ‘investor’ in these companies for that purpose.”

In a commentary published in the Guardian on Friday, Barclays chief CS Venkatakrishnan criticised the latest measures as a threat to colleagues and claimed the bank had been subjected to a disinformation campaign in recent months because of its defence funding.

“The core of the accusation is that we finance and invest in defense contractors. Let me be clear about what we do and do not do,” he wrote.

Venkatakrishnan added that a similar disinformation campaign targeted the bank’s “support for cultural institutions”, claiming that writers and artists were being “pressured to withdraw from festivals because they were receiving funding from companies like Barclays”.