Belgian concert promoter gets lifetime achievement award

Herman Schueremans, CEO of Live Nation Belgium, will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award at this year’s European Festival Awards in Groningen, the Netherlands, on January 9, reports Event Industry News. The honour, decided by the Festival Awards board, recognises a 40-year career that saw Schueremans put Belgium on Europe’s live music map and create one of the world’s first and most celebrated major festival brands, the 80,000-capacity Rock Werchter. Today, his company produces more than 180 concerts a year as well as other notable, award-winning festivals including TW Classic, Werchter Boutique and I Love Techno (winner of last year’s award for Best Indoor Festival). He began his career as a record company executive and rock journalist, at a time when Belgium seldom featured on the European touring circuit. Schueremans went on to establish an alternative concert scene that began to attract a new generation of live acts including Dire Straits, Talking Heads and Simple Minds. It was the creation of the Torhout/Werchter (renamed Rock Werchter in 1999) Festival in 1973 that opened the floodgates and attracted major international acts to Belgium, turning it into premier touring territory. In the process, Rock Werchter grew to become one of Europe’s top five music festivals, consistently selling out, with a reputation for killer line-ups – the event has been voted Best European Line-Up in the European Festival Awards twice in the past three editions. Last year the award went to Glastonbury’s Michael Eavis.