Statement Regarding Kings Place

UPDATE (6/6/25): We have now been informed by Kings Place that the Defence in Space conference will no longer be taking place at the venue.

On Monday, 26 May, an open letter was made public, urging Kings Place, the London venue, to cancel the Defence in Space Conference (DiSC) 2025, which is scheduled to take place at the venue on 28–29 October this year. The request for this event to be cancelled was not solely due to it being a conference for the defence and space industries happening at a venue that has become vital as a hub for music of all stripes, providing a platform for many diverse artists, but because this event’s lead sponsor is Lockheed Martin.

Lockheed Martin are an aerospace and defence company which supplies the Israel Air Force with F-35 and F-16 fighter jets, among other equipment. Amnesty International and multiple other sources have detailed that their F-35 fighter jets were used in an Israeli attack on Al-Mawasi in July 2024 that killed 90 Palestinians and wounded another 300. To add a quote from Lockheed Martin’s website: “Lockheed Martin is proud of the significant role it has fulfilled in the security of the State of Israel.”

It's clear that a venue which this year has been hosting a series called Earth Unwrapped – a series that carries an aim of “bringing artists together to explore our wounded planet and how collectively we can seek healing” – is facing an identity crisis if it is also receiving sponsorship money by a company which is profiting from the war in Gaza.

Hundreds of people, including many prominent artists across a range of disciplines, have signed the open letter since it was made public. Gazelle Twin, Ímar and Elliot Galvin are two artists who have cancelled shows since finding out about the situation. Kings Place itself has also lost staff members as a result of their staging of the conference, which also took place in 2024 with the same sponsor.

Kings Place have since released a statement detailing how the Kings Place Music Foundation, which programmes their music, and Green & Fortune, which is the commercial arm that has facilitated DiSC, are distinct entities, and that due to the terms of their contracts, they are in no position to cancel DiSC. They state that they are working on policies and frameworks which will put in place a procedure in case concerns ever arise in the future. We have since contacted Kings Place for clarification on these policies, including whether they will prevent the conference from happening again in 2026 and whether Lockheed Martin would still be a suitable lead sponsor.

Neither the open letter nor we are asking you to boycott Kings Place. It should be up to the artists themselves to decide whether they wish to play at the venue, and it should be up to you to decide whether you want to attend an event there. However, we believe that by expressing our concerns, it will highlight to Kings Place and any other venue the importance of being ethical, even when the live music sector is struggling.

You can sign the open letter here.

For more updates on the campaign, visit https://www.instagram.com/webelieveinartnotarms

Russ Slater Johnson (editor, Songlines) and Mike Flynn (editor, Jazzwise)