Visit Britain have published an interesting report that reveals that music festivals are hugely popular in this country with an estimated 6.5 million people attending music festivals and concerts in Britain last year, and spending £2.2bn in the process.
With those kind of figures it's no wonder the Godfather of festivals Glastonbury Festival sold out of it's allocation of 120,000 tickets so quickly, and whilst there's still a few festivals falling by the wayside each year, the market seems fairly robust at present.
If anything the Visit Britain figures, compiled by Oxford Economics, offer a conservative total because they only include ticketed events with capacities of 1,500 or more, and the country is also enjoying a burgeoning festival scene of events with capacities under this which means they have not been included.
The figures published by The Guardian (here) also reveal that overseas visitors made up 6% of those music fans but accounted for a fifth of all the money spent at festivals and gigs. The report suggest a boom in recent years of 'festival tourists' fuelled by the demand for live events increasing as the music industry sees declining record sales propel a growth in revenue from touring.
The British Tourist Authority's results have meant the government agency believes there should be a strategy to attract more overseas music fans to UK music events and help boost tourism. Clearly our festivals are starting to attract foreign visitors and have established quite a name for themselves overseas with the festival and live music business supporting thousands of jobs a year, boosting local economies and seeing over £1.3bn spent in the UK on tickets, transport and accommodation, with another £914m going on food, drink and other purchases. The report perhaps suggest that more festival goers want to spend their weekends at local events rather than those further a-field.
Visit Britain chief executive Sandie Dawe told the newspaper, "This will act as a catalyst for us all to ramp up our activity and forge better relationships with festival organisers, promoters, venues and producers."