Growing number of music festivals are closing globally

CGTN Europe

CGTN Europe discussed this with John Rostron, Chief Executive of the Association of Independent Festivals from one of the most famous festivals Glastonbury.

Transcript

00:00Now, around 200,000 people are spending the weekend on a farm in southwest England

00:06for one of the world's most famous music festivals, of course, Glastonbury.

00:10Well, it gets into gear, and many festivals, though, are struggling to meet their costs.

00:15Yeah, several concerts have been postponed, cancelled, or actually stopped permanently,

00:20with organisers citing financial challenges.

00:23John Rostron is chief executive of the Association of Independent Festivals.

00:28He spoke to us from Glastonbury.

00:31Glastonbury is a festival like no other.

00:34I think its model is quite unique, you know, its size and its scale,

00:37the fact that it raises so much for charity and every artist wants to play it.

00:40So, although it is a festival, it looks like a festival, it feels like a festival,

00:44it's probably not a good indicator of what a normal festival,

00:47the rest of the 590-odd festivals in the UK, look like, or feel like, or operate under.

00:53So, last year, Glastonbury did make a profit,

00:57but there are real problems in the music festival business.

01:02What's going wrong?

01:04Well, running a festival is a risky business anyway.

01:09You build these events, you have to pay for them all up front,

01:13and then you hope that people sort of come.

01:14So, it's quite a, you know, a risky enterprise to undertake.

01:18But since COVID, since Brexit, it's become increasingly hard

01:22because of rising costs from suppliers.

01:26The supplier chain terms have changed enormously,

01:28so you didn't used to have to pay for everything up front, but now you do.

01:31And if you're running an independent festival, most festivals in the UK are independent.

01:35It might cost you a million or two million pounds to put 10,000 people in a field,

01:39and that's a very standard size, and very few people have that kind of money to hand.

01:43So, that makes it really hard to pull your event together through the year

01:47and get your gates open and get over the line.

01:50So, is the industry growing, stagnating, or dying?

01:54The festival sector's had a really tough time of late.

01:57We've lost exactly 250 festivals that we've counted since the pandemic.

02:02The worst year was last year.

02:0378 went last year.

02:0540 have already gone this year.

02:06So, we're seeing a sort of levelling off.

02:09But the problem is that, although we've lost quite a lot,

02:12we're not seeing many new start-up events.

02:14Normally, you'd see lots of new events, new people come to festivals like Glastonbury

02:18and inspired and go home and try and make things.

02:20They're not making them like they used to, and we need that.

02:23We need those new people, those new ideas, that new innovation,

02:26and that's not happening right now.

02:27Because of the climate, the risk of running it,

02:29because of the wider sort of economic pressures.

02:32Where does most of the money come from with any festival?

02:35You'd think it's ticket sales.

02:36Is it that way?

02:38Ticket sales is a key part.

02:41It's part of your revenue, but actually every ticket sale

02:43hopefully means a person's going to be on site.

02:45The other big part of your revenue comes from that person being on site

02:48and spending on food and drink and merchandise and those kind of things.

02:52There's also a little part of your budget will come from sponsorship quite often,

02:56maybe 10%, 15%.

02:57That's increased, sort of increased the need for that.

03:01We speak so much about the impact that COVID had.

03:04Has it impacted festival goers' behavior?

03:07Are people less inclined to go to festivals, big and small?

03:11There's been a real impact from COVID.

03:13A few things that we've seen from audiences.

03:15The real positive one that kind of came out the other side

03:18is the introduction to payment plans.

03:21Audiences came out and they were a bit sort of more nervous

03:23about where they would commit their money.

03:24So we introduced payment plans in festivals and now every festival has payment plans.

03:29The uptake has been huge.

03:30Probably 40% or 50% of tickets are sold on these monthly installments.

03:34Difficult part has been, particularly with Gen Z,

03:36Gen Z, this younger generation, didn't get to go to their first festival during the pandemic,

03:40so they never got that experience.

03:42And for some of them, they've arrived and they're not going to festivals yet

03:46or they're a bit more nervous.

03:47They don't know what they were like because they and their peers and their friends didn't go

03:50and they didn't get that sort of learning.

03:52So we could really do with something to kind of help over the next few years

03:56kickstart younger people getting that first experience, knowing what it's like.

04:00Guess what?

04:00It's really good fun.

04:01And then they would sort of come back and develop into a wider festival audience.

04:04Thanks.

04:04Thanks, guys.

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