Gotobeat, a music promoter driven by technology, is to expand into the festival market next year after making a heavyweight appointment.
The London firm, founded by serial entrepreneur Max Busin to fill grassroots venues with promising artists, has appointed Mike Lightford, former director of music at Boardmasters and NASS Festivals, as head of festivals.
Gotobeat, which recently expanded into arena offerings, has also confirmed details of its first festival programme, taking place at Beckenham Place Park in July 2027. The six-show series will span two weekends, with more than 10 artists performing each day across two stages and capacity for 12,000 attendees per day.
A flagship event within the series is the creation of Unión – a contemporary music festival for the country’s Latin American community. Running from Reggaeton to Latin Pop, Unión will pioneer current Spanish and Latin American artists, including many debut UK performances.
Gotobeat will also announce the headline acts and featured line-ups in the coming months. It says fans can expect a mix of genres to suit everyone spanning from pop to rock and rap to legendary acts.
Lightford has more than 20 years’ experience across live music, A&R and brand marketing. He began his career at the Barfly Group before moving into A&R at Warner Music Group. He subsequently held roles at Ministry of Sound and MAMA Group before transitioning into brand marketing, where he led music strategies for major brands including Coca-Cola, Unilever and Superdry.
From 2018, Lightford worked within Boardmasters and NASS Festivals, where he became a key member of Superstruct’s European booking team. During his tenure, both festivals experienced significant growth, reaching peaks of approximately 30,000 and 55,000 daily attendees respectively, while hosting artists including Sam Fender, RAYE, Stormzy, Liam Gallagher and Jamie XX.
“I’m thrilled to be joining the Gotobeat team at such a pivotal moment for the business,” said Lightford. “Beckenham Place Park is an amazing site, and we have the opportunity to create something really special as we launch the company’s first festival programme.
“We’ve got a fantastic line-up coming together that caters to a wide range of music tastes, and I’m very excited to be a part of it.”
Located just 30 minutes from central London, Beckenham Place Park provides a natural amphitheatre setting with an established history of hosting large-scale live music.
Gotobeat combines on-the-ground promoter expertise with proprietary AI technology to help artists plan and deliver smarter tours. Its custom-built tools analyse fan demand, venue data and touring patterns, helping the team make informed decisions around the right cities, venues and timelines for each artist.
Busin, who was featured in our Founder Friday series recently, said the new festival division “marks an exciting new chapter for Gotobeat”.
“As we continue to grow, expanding into festivals allows us to create even more opportunities and experiences for the artists we work with, while bringing our expertise to an entirely new area of live entertainment,” he said.
“We’re also incredibly excited to welcome Mike to the team. His experience and track record in the festival space make him the ideal person to lead this new division, and we’re looking forward to seeing him help shape its future.
“I’m incredibly proud of the team we’re building at Gotobeat and the ambition and commitment they bring as we continue to grow.”
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