FEATURE:
Summertime Sadness
PHOTO CREDIT: Wendy Wei/Pexels
The Increasing Cost of Attending Music Festivals
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MANY people are looking forward…
IN THIS PHOTO: Lana Del Rey at Glastonbury Festival earlier this year/PHOTO CREDIT: Kate Green/Getty Images
to next year’s Glastonbury Festival. Organisers Emily and Michael Eavis have promised there will be two female headliners in 2024. This year saw another all-male line-up. With the likes of Lana Del Rey already on the bill and more than headline-worthy, excuses around ‘pipeline issues’ – one reason why few women are booked as headliners – did not hold water. The Debbie Harry-fronted Blondie could also have headlined. Reacting to this by ensuring that there are women headlining is long overdue. It is something all festivals need to follow! Quit making poor excuses and recognise the talent that is out there and ready to headline! I hope that all festivals get a fifty-fifty gender balance across their bills. With very few major festivals achieving that this year, things need to change next year. That all said, music festivals are a lifeline at a time when many smaller venues are closing. With COVID cases back on the rise, let’s hope that we are not in a position in the summer where we are isolating and not able to mingle! There are a terrific range of festivals that are available to a variety of tastes. One of the main problems with larger festivals is the cost of tickets. Even a one-day pass can be very steep. News broke recently that highlighted some climbs in festivals passes/tickets next year:
“Ticket prices for Glastonbury Festival next year will rise to £360.
It is a £20 increase from this year's event, which cost £335 plus a £5 booking fee - and a £75 hike from the price in 2022.
Fans will be able to buy ticket and coach travel packages on 2 November, and standard tickets on 5 November.
Festival goers will be charged £355 plus a £5 booking fee for standard tickets, with £75 as a deposit and the balance due by the first week of April.
These standard tickets will not include additional perks like glamping accommodation, paid for separately after tickets are obtained.
Glastonbury co-organiser Emily Eavis made the pricing announcement on social media and said people would need to register in advance on the festival's website.
To purchase a ticket, members of the public must register on the Glastonbury's website by 17:00 GMT on 30 October.
Several major UK festivals have released prices for standard tickets next year - all of which are cheaper than Glastonbury:
Download - £275
Wireless - £259.25 (plus £3.25 booking fee)
Isle of Wight - £190 (plus £19 booking fee)
But Glastonbury is by far the biggest festival in the UK - hosted across the 900-acre site of Worthy Farm in Somerset.
Around 200,000 people attended concerts at this year's event, and a record 21.6 million watched TV coverage on the BBC.
It was headlined by Arctic Monkeys, Guns N' Roses, and Sir Elton John, who all took to Glastonbury's iconic Pyramid Stage.
Other top artists filled the line-up, including rock band Queens of the Stone Age, and rapper Skepta.
Stages also hosted film screenings, speeches by politicians, and circus and theatre performances.
Despite a price increase of £70 between 2019, when tickets were sold for the 2020 concert, and last year, tickets for the 2023 event sold out in 61 minutes”.
PHOTO CREDIT: Wendy Wei/Pexels
Despite the fact festivals are an essential release and community for music fans, I don’t think they are being supported and backed by the Government. Same goes for independent venues. As costs rise and it is getting more expensive to stage festivals, it will means ticket prices need to rise. What is the solution? It is clear that many will be squeezed out. With the cost of living going up and people having to ration and budget hard, it will be quite a sacrifice for people going to large festivals in 2024. Even if demand will mean festivals sell out, I think that this comes at a loss for so many. Once on site, there is the cost of food and drink. Throw in travel to get to an event and it makes for a very expensive experience! With rent prices rising heavily, it is going to be even more difficult for many to go to festivals. It is not the fault of organisers. Last year, this article highlighted the fact that rising festival ticket prices are almost unavoidable. There is no safety net in place at all:
“British music fans expressed dismay this week as Glastonbury announced that the cost of tickets for next year’s event will rise from £265 to £335.
Emily Eavis, co-organiser of the not-for-profit festival, said: “We have tried very hard to minimise the increase in price on the ticket but we’re facing enormous rises in the costs of running this vast show, while still recovering from the huge financial impact of two years without a festival because of Covid.”
It is likely that Glastonbury is the canary in the coalmine, as many festival organisers grapple with increasing financial challenges.
Paul Reed, CEO of the Association of Independent Festivals (AIF), said the concern over transferring the financial burden to the consumer was shared across the sector: “Organisers are very mindful that there is a cost of living crisis. I think festivals by their very nature want to be inclusive of all parts of society, but they run with incredibly tight margins at the best of times – it can be 10% or less in terms of your potential profit margin – and costs are going up by 25%-30%, so ultimately something has to give.”
PHOTO CREDIT: freestocks.org/Pexels
Many of the rising costs stem from the ongoing effects of Brexit and the pandemic. Supply chain issues continue; many events professionals retrained throughout the lockdown periods, meaning the available workforce is far smaller than at the beginning of 2020. With demand increasing as the festival market grows, labour costs have swelled. Even so, many festivals honoured their 2020 prices for ticketholders returning in 2021 and 2022, despite a dramatic rise in inflation in the interim.
New challenges, such as an increase in artist fees to account for higher post-pandemic touring costs, add to the financial strain. Meanwhile, fluctuating fuel prices mean that the cost of operating generators and transporting infrastructure to sites is unpredictable.
“This is something that is unique to festivals because you build the entire thing from scratch,” says Marina Blake, creative director of Brainchild, an independent festival that had to cancel this year due to a combination of increased costs and slow ticket sales. “In the past, there’d be a quote including hire fee and transport costs right at the start. Now, they’ll give you the quote for the equipment but not the transport costs until the week of the event, which means you don’t know what it’s going to cost you, but you know it’s going to be more than you’re expecting.”
The risks, she says, are too much to bear during a time in which consumers’ financial habits are changing constantly: “We’d sold out every year for the last four years; I felt as if our demand was the only thing I could count on. Now, the people who usually buy tickets are going out less and spending less money”.
PHOTO CREDIT: Caio/Pexels
I think the latest news of yet more ticket price rises for U.K. festivals needs to send a message to the Government that they need to be supported and backed. Many artists are having to pull out of festivals because of the rising cost of touring. The Guardian published a feature earlier this year that underlines how many artists are paying more than they are earning for playing at festivals. Even though I do not buy the fact there is a pipeline issue that means fewer women are visible as potential headliners, it is clear that so many potential festival names are simply unavailable to perform:
“Musicians are dropping out of festivals because huge rises in the cost of performing are outstripping their fees. Artists told the Observer they have had to turn down offers to play or cut out elements of their live shows, while others have revealed they have lost as much as £17,000 for a single performance.
Although ticket prices have risen by 15% on average, the Association of Independent Festivals (AIF) warned that the costs of staging a show are up by 30%, and that gap is costing both artists and promoters.
More than 100 UK festivals – one in six – have closed permanently since the start of the Covid pandemic, three in the last week alone, due to staffing shortages and the high costs of energy and equipment such as fencing, toilets and stages.
Maxïmo Park were due to play Chagstock in Devon this month but the organisers cancelled it, blaming escalating costs and lower than expected ticket sales.
“It’s a real shame,” said Paul Smith, Maxïmo Park’s lead singer. “I think a lot of festivals are wondering whether it’s worth putting it on, and a lot of smaller acts are wondering if it’s worth the small fees to get there.” The indie rock band are known for their lively stage shows and were unable to tour with their 2020 album, Nature Always Wins, because of lockdown. This summer they have just a handful of dates planned, including Hartlepool’s Tall Ships festival.
IN THIS PHOTO: Elkka
“We’ve stripped back because of the costs – we didn’t take a lighting engineer on our recent European tour,” Smith said. Brexit rules have also made touring more expensive due to the cost of visas and cabotage rules on tour buses.
The Newcastle singer is also part of Unthank : Smith, a collaboration with folk singer Rachel Unthank. “We put a record out this year,” he said. “We looked at a few logistical things. It would have cost us a lot of money to do festival dates, and our fees would have been minimal. So we didn’t.”
Elkka, the electronic artist whose 2021 club hit Burnt Orange helped get her a Radio 1 residency, played a DJ set at this year’s Glastonbury. “I have to be really, really selective about what I do and whether it’s possible financially,” said the musician, whose real name is Emma Kirby. “I’m a DJ as well, so sometimes I look at something and think that I can’t afford to take a show because it’s too expensive to take my show there. So I DJ instead – but I’m lucky to have that option.”
Even as an emerging solo artist, Elkka needs a tech expert to maintain her synthesisers and drum machinesso they don’t fail during a performance, a live sound engineer and a tour manager. Sometimes she will just accept a loss-making trip. “I’m a queer artist. I like to play in spaces where I’m with my allies, and those parties don’t always have the money to take you there. But I can’t keep doing things at a great loss,” said Kirby”.
IMAGE CREDIT: All Points East
Our economy and position on Brexit means that festivals are struggling to keep costs down. As Time Out showed in their feature that was published before the announcement of price rises in 2024, it does appear that the U.K. is in a unique position. Our festival prices are rising faster than festivals in other parts of the world:
“And not unsuprisingly, it seems that the cost of UK festivals is rising faster than anywhere else. Out of the world’s top ten festivals to see the biggest price surges, seven were based in Britain. Revellers at Reading and Leeds this year have paid 34.4 percent more to attend than last year, making it the second highest increase worldwide after Open’er in Poland (which inflated by 42.1 percent in sterling terms).
London's All Points East didn’t fall far behind, with tickets to see Stormzy et al rising from £68 to £91 from 2022 to 2023 – a 33.8 percent increase. Then came Cornish surfing and music fest Boardmasters, for which attendees have paid 30.3 percent more than last year.
Despite being one of the country’s most spenny weekenders, Glastonbury only came fourth on the list of UK events, with a 19.6 percent increase in ticket prices. Creamfields and Wireless followed with an 18.2 percent and 17 percent increase respectively.
These are the percentage increases of ten UK festivals between summer 2022 and 2023, according to No1 Currency:
Reading and Leeds (34.4 percent)
All Points East (33.8 percent)
Boardmasters (30.3 percent)
Glastonbury (19.6 percent)
Creamfields (18.2 percent)
Wireless (17.0 percent)
Latitude (12.2 percent)
Isle of White (10.3 percent)
Download (2.6 percent)
Parklife (0 percent)”.
If some festivals are not raising prices – or only by a small percentage –, it does appear that our biggest are having to incur massive costs - and, as such, it means an average ticket price is almost beyond the reach of many. That is a shame. Attending festivals like Glastonbury or Boardmasters provided these incredible memories. An essential live music experience, it is disappointing that it is so expensive. I hope that there is more funding for music festivals.
IMAGE CREDIT: Reading Festival
Brexit means that fewer EU musicians are able to play in the U.K. That means that artists from wider afield are being booked. This article highlights a real issue when it comes to artists from the EU being able to come to Britain. This access restriction is causing big damage for music festivals. Something that is not going to be solved next year:
“Figures published today by internationalist campaign group Best for Britain show that, on average, the number of European musicians scheduled to take to the stage at major festivals across the UK this summer has fallen by 40% compared to 2017-19.
The findings mark a slight improvement on 2022 figures where in the first festival season after Brexit and Covid restrictions, European musicians booked to play British festivals had fallen by 53% compared to the years 2017-19. Industry leaders have attributed the improvement to festival organisers and musicians having some experience with new restrictions and paperwork in the second post-Brexit Festival season.
However, this year the number of European musicians playing at Britain’s most iconic festival, Glastonbury, has decreased even further, down 50% this year compared to 42% in 2022.
These new figures have reinforced concerns around the impact that Brexit is having on the diversity of the music scene in the UK. Earlier this year, Best for Britain published research suggesting that the number of UK musicians playing EU festivals had fallen by a third since Brexit.
Industry leaders have confirmed that the government’s Brexit deal continues to make touring much more difficult with new rules on visas and cabotage, and is incompatible with common industry practice where musicians are often asked to fill last-minute vacancies in a festival line-up”.
It is a real problem. The cost of buying a ticket to a major festival. That article I opened with shows what a problem we have. Costs will only rise each year, to the point where people hoping to attend festivals are going to be spending an inordinate amount. I know many will make that sacrifice. They shouldn’t have to! It is an issue reflected across live music. So many big artists are putting their ticket prices up. The cost of seeing your favourite artist on the stage is rising ever higher. Live music should be something everyone is able to access! Festivals especially. Let’s hope there is a solution and price hike freeze soon. Festivals in the sun should not be about stress, sadness and financial strains: they are all about…
HAPPINESS and togetherness.