21 Event and bankruptcy

[Deaf Nobby Burton]

6 minutes ago, eFestivals said:

the govt is meant to be announcing a plan for venues this week, which should give a good idea of what's happening.

Then again, it's from this govt.  

Quite, I just think if they’ve decided to give a big package of support, surely at the point it runs out or they take it away they’ll be more inclined to look at a way forward for opening. This just seems like, ‘look here’s some money to shut up for a while, and we’ll see where we are next year’.

[eFestivals]

6 minutes ago, Deaf Nobby Burton said:

Quite, I just think if they’ve decided to give a big package of support, surely at the point it runs out or they take it away they’ll be more inclined to look at a way forward for opening. This just seems like, ‘look here’s some money to shut up for a while, and we’ll see where we are next year’.

Furlough runs out in October tho (and costs from next month), so it's not enough to cover for that. Money to venues doesn't give a wage to the tens (hundreds?) of thousands of self-employed/small contractors, etc.

The self-employed could be expected to claim dole I suppose, but the small contractors also need to survive.

[Deaf Nobby Burton]

14 minutes ago, eFestivals said:

Furlough runs out in October tho (and costs from next month), so it's not enough to cover for that. Money to venues doesn't give a wage to the tens (hundreds?) of thousands of self-employed/small contractors, etc.

The self-employed could be expected to claim dole I suppose, but the small contractors also need to survive.

True, that’s where we’ll no doubt hear about people retraining for other jobs 😏

[zahidf]

Festivals going ahead this year

https://www.nme.com/features/what-will-2020s-pandemic-proof-music-festival-season-look-like-2702224

[eFestivals]

13 hours ago, zahidf said:

Festivals going ahead this year

https://www.nme.com/features/what-will-2020s-pandemic-proof-music-festival-season-look-like-2702224

just cos they haven't cancelled yet doesn't mean they're going ahead.  

That article includes Sound City in Liverpool, yet they've just (today) cancelled their newer Ipswich event.

There is one UK one that is claiming (since yesterday) to definitely be going ahead - tho very slimmed down.

https://alfrescofestival.co.uk/boutique-alfresco-2020/

Personally I'm expecting it to get stopped one way or another, although it might just get away with it depending what the govt publish this week for their live music 'plan'.

Edited July 8, 2020 by eFestivals

[vintagelaureate]

Given the current situation, I'd be shocked if Sound City in Liverpool gets the go ahead - indoor/restricted space venues, I just don't see it. If it does, it will surely mean general gigs later in the year are green lit too.

[Purple aki squat]

On 7/7/2020 at 6:48 PM, zahidf said:

Festivals going ahead this year

https://www.nme.com/features/what-will-2020s-pandemic-proof-music-festival-season-look-like-2702224

Can’t see sound city happening. Reduced crowd with distancing? Unless Goodson park is available there’s no obvious choice of venue.

Wouldn’t fancy Serbia at the minute either.

[squirrelarmy]

12 minutes ago, Purple aki squat said:

Wouldn’t fancy Serbia at the minute either

Serbia seemed like one of the poorer countries in the Balkans especially compared to Croatia and Hungary. I don’t think I’d be comfortable going to a festival there. 

[aj6658]

Kinda want to circle back to this - are there any concerns that money maybe an issue for next year? The reason why is I feel like Glastonbury is pulling all the tops to bring in cash. Either from selling the online show, the worthy pastures camping and trying to get an Autumn event going. 

 

Currently we dont know the pricing of tickets for next year but im willing to be its gonna be a pricey increase. It was quoted around £265 for 2020 but I suspect we could breach £300. That would bring just shy of £5m extra which would go a long way to help. Personally fine with that as it goes to good causes and I want them to pull out all the stops but know others are struggling. 

[Crazyfool01]

2 minutes ago, aj6658 said:

Kinda want to circle back to this - are there any concerns that money maybe an issue for next year? The reason why is I feel like Glastonbury is pulling all the tops to bring in cash. Either from selling the online show, the worthy pastures camping and trying to get an Autumn event going. 

 

Currently we dont know the pricing of tickets for next year but im willing to be its gonna be a pricey increase. It was quoted around £265 for 2020 but I suspect we could breach £300. That would bring just shy of £5m extra which would go a long way to help. Personally fine with that as it goes to good causes and I want them to pull out all the stops but know others are struggling. 

Theres always a small increase and it will likely be an increase that we would have had over 2 years .... absolutely no fears for the future of the festival whatsoever though especially with headiner news starting to emerge ... Its on !!!!!!

[kalifire]

I think it'll go up to £275 next year with a voluntary donation option during balance payments.

[fred quimby]

25 minutes ago, aj6658 said:

Kinda want to circle back to this - are there any concerns that money maybe an issue for next year? The reason why is I feel like Glastonbury is pulling all the tops to bring in cash. Either from selling the online show, the worthy pastures camping and trying to get an Autumn event going. 

 

Currently we dont know the pricing of tickets for next year but im willing to be its gonna be a pricey increase. It was quoted around £265 for 2020 but I suspect we could breach £300. That would bring just shy of £5m extra which would go a long way to help. Personally fine with that as it goes to good causes and I want them to pull out all the stops but know others are struggling. 

Think they will be ok. Didn't they say that because they cancelled this years early enough they would be fine. The Autumn one was a Michael thing I reckon he is always on about doing more now he is older

 

[aj6658]

13 minutes ago, kalifire said:

I think it'll go up to £275 next year with a voluntary donation option during balance payments.

Think that's a good option. Im happy to put up more money if it helps fund a stellar "50th anniversary" and help all the good causes. Really hope they pull out some extra special surprises 

[incident]

Glastonbury will be fine. They had the advantage going in that they'd spent the previous 10 years (since the scare in 2008) building up a pretty hefty cushion - over 12 million quid in the bank as of 31st March 2020, which won't include any ticket deposits as they're held in escrow. That bank balance will have obviously taken a hit since then, and will now be much lower than they'd like, but it'll still be easily enough to see them through to the next festival and beyond.

I can't see any chance they ask for a "voluntary donation", unless it's an option to make a direct payment to the Joint Charities. As previously discussed on this thread - they've got a lot of options to raise near guaranteed cash if they need to that they've so far chosen not to exploit. Ticket prices will probably go up, but they were going to anyway, and indeed are going up across the entire industry as people try to recoup losses.

Now if this had all happened ~10 years earlier before they started putting money aside in case of emergency, then yeah they'd have been screwed.

[Leyrulion]

1 hour ago, aj6658 said:

Kinda want to circle back to this - are there any concerns that money maybe an issue for next year? The reason why is I feel like Glastonbury is pulling all the tops to bring in cash. Either from selling the online show, the worthy pastures camping and trying to get an Autumn event going. 

 

Currently we dont know the pricing of tickets for next year but im willing to be its gonna be a pricey increase. It was quoted around £265 for 2020 but I suspect we could breach £300. That would bring just shy of £5m extra which would go a long way to help. Personally fine with that as it goes to good causes and I want them to pull out all the stops but know others are struggling. 

£280 would be about the average increase recently. 

 

My only worry is worthy view seems to not be selling well given how much they're flogging it at every opportunity.

[Memory Man]

The camping for this year was announced fairly late when a lot of people had probably already decided on their holidays and lets face it, its a lot of money for glamping with no associated entertainment in particular. I ruled it out instantly on being poor value for money. It looks good but too rich for my blood when you can get an airbnb for the same money

[topmarksbri]

2 hours ago, aj6658 said:

The reason why is I feel like Glastonbury is pulling all the tops to bring in cash. Either from selling the online show, the worthy pastures camping and trying to get an Autumn event going. 

Me and my partner were talking about this the other day - notable increase in what they're selling on the online shop for quite a bit. 

[aj6658]

39 minutes ago, Leyrulion said:

£280 would be about the average increase recently. 

 

My only worry is worthy view seems to not be selling well given how much they're flogging it at every opportunity.

Thats the thing. Dont think it would have cost alot to set up but I dont see it being a big money maker. The online event was a bust and wonder if they will lose money due to refunds. 

[aj6658]

I should note I dont think the festival will go bankrupt but I do fear that 2022 celebration maybe held back due to financial constraints 

[Ommadawn]

Glastonbury Festivals are not short on money. They (or See Tickets) still have the tickets sales from 2020 in the bank, they've been awarded £900,000 from the Arts Council and have had minimal outgoings for 2021 (probably the same as for a fallow year). Plus they had a reasonable amount built up as a contingency fund from previous years (although some of that would have been used up preparing for the 2020 festival of course).

[maelzoid]

I don't see an issue.

If cashflow was an issue, they could easily bring forward the balance payment date. After all, we were all geared up to pay for it in April 2020.

 

[incident]

1 minute ago, maelzoid said:

I don't see an issue.

If cashflow was an issue, they could easily bring forward the balance payment date. After all, we were all geared up to pay for it in April 2020.

That wouldn't help any, as like the deposits those funds still wouldn't be released to GFL until the event takes place.

But yeah, there's so many things that they could do to bring in money that (so far) they've chosen not to as they're seemingly taking a soft touch approach.

I don't actually see the camping thing as being all that relevant to this conversation - for something like that the costs will be so minimal and prices are high enough that even if they're running at 25% capacity they should still be making money off it. My suspicion is that it's intended more of a way of getting the Joint Charities involved than specifically raising money for GFL.