Live music, now there's a healthy part of the music industry. Case in point: UK-based promoter Mean Fiddler Music Group is going to expand into the U.S. under the new Festival Republic moniker. Said MFMG managing director Melvin Benn, "If we wanted to, we could still operate Reading and Leeds, plus Glastonbury and Latitude under the Mean Fiddler banners. The reality is that we are not going to use it. Festival Republic is the new company that I'm running and I want it to move away from the legacy of what was the Mean Fiddler, and to build something that was about the team of people that have created the best festivals in the world."

Mean Fiddler will also expand its recently acquired British venues and brands. This week the MAMA Group acquired Mean Fiddler Holdings from MFMG, owned by LiveNation, for £6 million (US $12 million).

New York can't get enough live music. Bowery Presents will ratchet up its competition against LiveNation and A.E.G. Live when it opens up the 3,000-seat Terminal 5 in Midtown Manhattan in October. Terminal 5 will be Bowery Presents' largest venue and is about the same size as LiveNation's Roseland Ballroom and Hammerstein Ballroom, and 1,000 seats or so larger than A.E.G.'s Nokia Theater in Times Square. MSG Entertainment, owned by Cablevision, owns the similarly sized WaMu Theater at Madison Square Garden, for which Bowery Presents books concerts. Terminal 5 used to be the dance hall Exit.

For additional reading on Bowery Presents and the heated competition in New York City, here's a good New York Times article by Ben Sisario from June of this year.