Is the UK festival sector getting back on track?

Hopes that the UK festival sector has turned the corner on a tumultuous 2024 are rising, with the rate of cancellations having dropped significantly.

A record 78 festivals announced a postponement, cancellation or complete closure last year – more than double the amount that fell in 2023. The total had surpassed 40 by mid-May 2024, but currently stands at around 15 as of April 2025.

“It’s a lot lower than where we were at this time last year,” Association of Independent Festivals (AIF) boss John Rostron tells IQ. “And of those, nine are actually on fallow years and have said they intend to come back next year so that’s a high percentage. Although that’s still bad, it gives us some comfort because these people are suggesting that – with some changes – they’ll come back. They feel like they’re still saveable.”

While the figures offer reason for encouragement, Rostron points out that in the region of 250 festivals have disappeared since 2019.

“They’ve gone and haven’t been replaced, and that’s a big loss,” he says. “I won’t be happy until I see more growth. I’m excited there are new festivals and startups this year, which we haven’t had since the pandemic. That’s really nice. I want to see more of those new events coming in to continue to bring vibrancy, creativity and the differences that we want to see in the sector.”

“Independent festivals double down on community and the creative offer”

He continues: “If I look more generally at independent festivals, they double down on community and the creative offer. Most of the tickets are sold before they announce who’s playing. People just want to go to Shambala, or Deer Shed, or End of the Road, or Truck, or whatever it is. They’re not really looking at the lineup – that comes after. So if you were going to advise anyone on what to do, that would be the thing to focus on.”

Casualties so far this year include Cambridge Folk Festival, Africa Oyé, Roadhouse Festival, Wilkswood Reggae Festival, Let’s Rock Exeter, Medicine Festival, Yaxley Festival, Monmouth Rising, Global Rhythm Festival, Holt Festival, St Neots Festival and Adderbury Party In The Park.

Last year’s losses included El Dorado, Pennfest, Connect Music Festival, 110 Above Festival, NASS Festival, Leopollooza, Long Division, Bluedot and Barn On The Farm.

“In theory, a lot of the festivals that were going to go have gone,” contends Rostron. “If they couldn’t operate in 20/21/22, then lost money in 23/24, that was the end of the line.

“If you imagine a festival was like a car, before Covid it was driving along down the road full of petrol, with loads of fuel in the backseat so that if they ran out, they didn’t need to stop. Then Covid came and they couldn’t fill up. And then they came out of Covid and there were no petrol stations. There were high costs and there wasn’t the opportunity to get the fuel – in this case, money – back into the businesses. So some of those cars have just stopped on the road and are lost.

“If you set up your festival in 2019, how were you going to get through Covid? If you’d been running for eight or nine years prior to the pandemic you probably had some money and access to a history that enabled you to get loans and Covid recovery grants, because you had something they all knew felt like a solid entity. So those festivals were lucky in some ways that they had a bit more leverage to be able to get through. Some others were just unlucky – they opened their festival at a time when they were running on fumes.”

“You should have a payment plan. If you’re not doing that then you’re stuck in the past”

Meanwhile, the AIF has partnered with UK ticketing platform Skiddle to produce the Skiddle Festival Report, which was released this week and analyses key trends, insights and behaviours from the 2024 season.

The report highlights the growing demand for flexible payment options, with over 1.8 million festival tickets sold via Skiddle in 2024 and a 48% increase in split payment usage. Separately, Billboard reported that around 60% of general admission tickets for this year’s Coachella were bought using the festival’s payment plan.

Rostron says offering flexibility of payment options is a necessity for festivals in this day and age.

“Payment plans used to be in three or four instalments and now they’re probably 10, 11 or even 12,” he says. “It’s absolutely been a huge shift driven initially by the cost-of-living crisis, and it just makes sense. With most things in life: your council tax, your direct debit, your Netflix account, you don’t pay them in one go, you pay them every month. So why would you buy your ticket to a festival all in one go?

“Pay a little bit every month and it just goes out of your account and you don’t notice it – and you get to go to a festival at the end of it. You should have a payment plan. If you’re not doing that then you’re stuck in the past.”

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