In October last year, organisers of Glastonbury festival were faced with a wave of media backlash when they announced that they would be raising the ticket price to £335 – an increase of £55 from the previous year. However, although it was Glastonbury’s increase that made the headlines, it was by no means the only festival to raise the financial entry bar. From Reading and Leeds at £320 (up from around £260) to Download at £310 (previously £250), the price of festivals has risen sharply since the pandemic. Adding on the cost of travel, food, drinks and camping gear, most people will have to be budgeting to spend in the region of £500 – £700 for a five-night experience. All this begs the question, can festivals continue to be this expensive?
In terms of whether festivals such as Glastonbury can afford to be this expensive, the answer is yes. Despite the price hike, ticket sales certainly haven’t taken a hit – anyone who attempted to snap up a ticket for 2023 will know all too well that the festival is more than popular.
But whilst it may be the case that tickets for Glastonbury will sell regardless of the hefty price tag, it cannot be denied that this comes with repercussions. By raising the price, festival organisers are inevitably going to price out the working-class. For festivals such as Glastonbury, which were originally set up with the idea of music for a fair price in mind, you can see how the festival is uncomfortably close to becoming the antithesis of what it set out to be. It is, perhaps, a fine line that organisers must tread between keeping a festival for the people and ensuring that the festival is profitable enough to make it through to the next – particularly during a cost-of-living crisis.
But are festivals value for money?
The answer to this really depends on why you’re going to festivals in the first place. Festivals like Glastonbury don’t sell out instantly, without an announced line-up, for no reason. In fact, a large number of Glastonbury festival goers have little interest in seeing particular artists, as there are endless possibilities away from the main stages to keep you entertained. So if you’re treating your festival experience as a holiday, then £335 for a 5-night trip where each day is packed full of entertainment certainly seems value for money. If you were booking a full-itinerary, 5-night stay to a European destination then I’m sure you’d consider £300 to be a bargain.
That said, not every festival is like Glastonbury. Festivals like Reading and Leeds, although charging similar prices to Glastonbury, are much smaller in terms of what they have to offer. If you take away the music then you’re pretty much left with nothing but campsite wars, silent discos, and extortionately expensive vendors. Admittedly, the pandemic really took its toll on the live music industry, so it’s somewhat understandable that in order to afford the big names, festivals like Reading and Leeds are having to charge bigger prices. And if its big names you’re after, especially where those acts are charging close to £100 to see them live, then you can arguably see £300 worth of live music across 3 days.
However, if you’re more interested in seeing small/medium-sized acts, or if you’re someone who enjoys discovering artists before they become famous, then rather than paying £300 for a ticket, it might be a better, and certainly more cost-effective, way to consider going to a smaller scale urban festivals.
So are city-based, multi-venue day festivals the future?
City-based, multi-venue day festivals have become increasingly popular over the last few years. Ranging in price from around £20 – £60 depending on the size of the artists playing, these festivals offer ticket holders the opportunity to experience live music throughout the course of a day at multiple venues across a city. From bars and pubs to nightclubs and established music venues, you can expect to see a wide variety of different genres in different settings. Sheffield, as a city, is regularly host to a number of such festivals – Get Together, Float Along, and No Bounds being good examples.
Where the live music industry has taken a hit as a result of the pandemic and continuing cuts to the arts, these grass-roots music festivals are proving a lifeline when it comes to keeping venues open, particularly as ticket-holders find themselves discovering new venues which they might otherwise have never ventured to. And in terms of value for money, it’s hard to argue that £25 for a full day of music could be anything other than money well spent.
So can festivals continue to be this expensive?
Although spending £300 on a 5-night festival holiday is arguably justifiable, it cannot be denied that the increasing costs are simply pricing out a large number of people from being able to experience live music in a festival setting. If what you’re wanting from a festival is the opportunity to experience live music in variety, then city-based festivals, costing double rather than triple figures, are certainly the more financially viable way forward. If large-scale, solely music-based festivals continue to charge as they currently are, then I think we can expect to see them in a lot of trouble over the coming years as city-based, multi-venue day festivals expand to offer similar experiences at a much-reduced cost.
