Isle Of Wight Festival boss John Giddings has voiced his concerns over the future of headliners at UK events, adding that acts like Ed Sheeran are a 'boring' choice.
UPDATE: Ed Sheeran has tweeted Gigwise, explaining that Giddings' complaint may have another cause rather than mere musical differences. "He asked me to do the festival next year a few weeks ago funnily enough and I couldn't do it due to another gig."
Giddings was speaking at the Live UK Summit 2014 panel last week, when he said that the industry wasn't nurturing enough newer acts to rise to the role of headliner, and that the pool of more established legacy acts that could be called on to top the bill was forever diminishing.
"We're not building headliners anymore," he said, reports Virtual Festivals. "Nobody can invest in building a band over five albums. And if boring acts like Ed Sheeran are the future then we're all screwed."
He also noted the many festivals that met trouble and closure in 2014, saying that most new events should expect to lose money in their first few years.
"The council lost £500,000 on that first one and I put on the second year myself and lost another half million," he said. "It was only when someone said, look, this is a holiday place, you need to make it longer, and I realised they were right, that we really started to sell tickets."
This summer's Isle Of Wight Festival was headlined by Biffy Clyro, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Kings Of Leon.
Below: 18 acts that you can expect to headline festivals next summer
