The UK festival industry is facing multiple and complex challenges, making people’s patronage more valuable than ever – and few are better placed to outline this than John Rostron, whose resumé includes co-founding Cardiff festival Sŵn and who is now CEO of the Association Of Independent Festivals.
We love festivals.
There are, we think, somewhere between 600 and 900 music festivals in the UK. Festivals with camping. Single day festivals. City based festivals. Multi-venue festivals. They can be genre specific. Language specific. Lifestyle specific. Community building. Just music. Music plus something else (art! literature! theatre! comedy!). Festivals for families. Festivals not for families. Festivals for first timers and festivals for those who’ve years of festival experience. You are, I’m pleased to say, spoilt for choice.
We want that choice, it seems. In days of old, most people didn’t go to festivals in the UK because, well, there really weren’t very many to go to. Those that did might attend just one. In the past three decades, that’s changed entirely. Most festival attendees now head to at least two or three a year. It’s much easier to do that with so many to choose from, as well as being able to pick from green field festivals in the summer and multi-venue events which take place the rest of the year.
In recent years, there’s been other external factors attracting people to festivals. As cost-of-living pinches and choice creates pressure on people time, we are moving away from attending smaller concerts – particularly those in grassroots music venues – and instead spending on festivals, where we can lose ourselves watching several dozen artists over multiple days. The fact that festivals rebuild their sites each year means they’re able to very quickly respond to issues of accessibility and inclusion – something brick-and-mortar spaces can’t do with such speed – and so festival audiences are expanding quickly.
One independent festival has, this year, already sold out of all its accessibility tickets, and is now finding ways to extend its capacity to let in more. Concerns about climate change have made domestic festivals more attractive as holiday choices, too: no flights, for starters, or indeed no long waits or airport queues; much less travel and more time to have fun. Many festivals are – by virtue of their ability to innovate and rebuild each year – lower-carbon choices than staying home, even.
Worryingly, though, festivals are in difficulty. One in six closed after 2019; another 36 cancelled in 2023, and already this year 21 festivals have cancelled, postponed or announced that 2024 will be their last event. Sales, which remain buoyant, are not the issue – rather, a credit crunch and rising supply chain costs that are a longtail consequence of both the COVID pandemic and the impact of Brexit. In time, the supply chain should recover, but it won’t if festivals keep disappearing.
An intervention is needed, or more will go. This year, the Association Of Independent Festivals has launched a campaign, Five Percent For Festivals. It asks the UK Government to temporarily reduce the VAT on ticket sales from 20% to 5%, to give festivals the credit space they need to push through the next couple of years. Do visit the site – and write to your MP on the issue.
In Wales, the outlook has been made brighter thanks to the Senedd giving £500,000 to the Eisteddfod Gendelaethol and Urdd Eisteddfod to help lower income families attend the events. Everyone should be able to enjoy a festival experience, and it’s heartening to see Welsh Government fully understand that festivals are a vital part of our wellbeing.
Info: aiforg.com / fivepercentforfestivals.com
words JOHN ROSTRON
