Indie Festivals Contribute £222m to Economy

  

• Audience Research Shows Festival Goers Undeterred by Recession
• AIF Festivals generate £222m for UK economy
• The Ticket Trust enjoyed successful first season exchanging £55,770 of tickets
• Social Media drastically increased as a festival information source

10^th November 2011, London:- The huge value and contribution of UK festivals to the British economy has been quantified in an overreaching survey of over 2,400 festival goers undertaken by the Association of Independent Festivals (AIF).The 31 AIF member festivals alone, which include Bestival, Womad and End of the Road Festival, attracted around 480,000 people this summer. Spending an average £461 per person on festival costs (travel, accommodation, food and drink and entertainment), they contributed a staggering £222 million into the UK economy and £17m to local businesses. With over 400 festivals having taken place in the UK this summer, the total amount of revenue generated across the whole festival landscape is projected to hugely exceed that.In fact the £461 average spend per capita is part of an overall trend of increased spending as festivals weather the recessional storm with a durability that other entertainment forms can only envy. Compared with the overall audience spend of £408 in 2008 or £438.24 last year, the festival market looks to grow whilst other sectors such as nightclubs contract. In a direct comparison of festival vs other entertainment spending, festivals have only been moderately hit by the downturn as 54.9% of the polled audience claimed to have their festival-spend hit by the recession as opposed to 71.9% who reduced spending on other forms of entertainment.Interest in ethical ticket exchange has increased since last year up to 68% from65% in 2010. In response to the issue of rising ticket prices through secondary ticketing sites and touts AIF launched The Ticket Trust, an ethical ticket exchange site, on the 11^th July this year. The Ticket Trust has enjoyed a successful first season trading 365 tickets to Bestival, End of the Road Festival, Creamfield, Belladrum Tartan Heart Festival and Secret Garden Party amounting to £55, 770 worth of tickets being resold with no mark up fees.Social media has officially overtaken word of mouth as a major source of festival information and climbed dramatically since 2008. 57.7% claim social media to be a major source from 34% in 2008 although still not beating out the festival’s official website whom the majority of 68.7% claim is a source of information.  52.9% currently use word of mouth and 43.7% of those surveyed use communal festival websites.Claire O’Neill, co-founder of A Greener Festival and AIF general manager said "In the face of what has been a challenging few years for many, we are very happy to see these positive trends for the continued steady growth of the Independent Festival market. Year on year from our audience surveys the impact to the UK economy and cultural significance of these events is confirmed. By no means is delivering a successful festival an easy task, and the amazing accomplishments of our members and their teams is outstanding." Interesting FactoidsShambala has well over 100 different types of workshops to get involved in at the event. Some of the gems from this year included:

• Laughter yoga - The more we laugh, the happier we become. The happier we become the more we laugh.
• Pocket breasts - knit your own perfectly formed breasts! Handy to carry around for spontaneous breastfeeding demonstrations, a game of breast baseball or just a bit of comfort.
• Tspoonami - It's not a spoon solo or spoon quintet. It's not even a spoon orchestra. Come and get involved: It's the Tspoonami!

At End of the Road Festival 2011, we spent 3,640 man hours, 1,728 metres of bambu/hessian screening, 300 hay bales and 48,000 LED lights (fairy lights) on the decorations of the festival site and creating that special atmosphere/vibe, we also gave a good home to over 1,000 books in our library and increased the size of our disco dance floor in the woods.  Now that's how to prepare for a good party!At this years Womad the world record was broken for the most people to play air guitar simultaneously. Over 2000 people took part and stole the record from the Australians which made it a double victory -  all in  in aid of charity.  Regular crew member Guy "the bandit" Thompson went on to become UK air guitar champion and represent the UK at the world air guitar finals in Norway, where he came a credible 10th.  After the record breaking success, a number of discarded guitars were handed in at Los property and auctioned for charity.The 2011 London Green Fair - a free festival in the heart of London - seems to be attracting some major (political) party animals. This year saw John Prescott, Ken Livingstone, Lembit Opik and Jenny Jones all enjoying themselves. And they were just the ones we noticed....The London Green Fair utilized the skills of over 150 volunteers. We reckon over250 days were put in for free, which x 8 hours per day x £6.08 minimum wage per hour = £12,160. Which is the equivalent of one week's salary for a CEO of an investment bank!This year Nozstock The Hidden Valley hosted a festival debut of the edge-of-your-seat spectacle known as "Super sock-wrestling". Hundreds of happy and surprisingly flexible party-goers young and old went about enthusiastically and artfully disrobing each other's feet amongst bales of hay. Carefully adjudicated of course.Also our beautiful Lady of the Lake, reclined upon a raft, sang mesmerizing opera to bewitched punters before promptly falling overboard at the end of her aria. Totally submerged, she reappeared eventually at the reedy surface with something of the Ophelia about her. That's dedication people.This year Summer Sundae Weekender paid homage to Francis ‘Tanky’ Smith, Leicester’s first private detective, creator of local landmark ‘Top Hat Terrace’, and possible inspiration for Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Homes. Tributes included a sand sculpture with evolving disguises, a top hat making workshop, and a talk on Tanky by local author John Harrison.Over 50% of the Summer Sundae audience arrive by sustainable transport, with many cyclists making use of our free bike park. And as if our festivalgoers weren’t getting enough exercise, this year we also added a stage entirely powered by bikes – if the audience stopped pedaling, the entertainment stopped coming!Summer Sundae Weekender is very proud to have been given the Greener Festival Award every year since the kite mark was introduced. In 2010 over 100 kilos of plastic bottles were recycled by our amazing team of volunteers led by the Complete Wasters. Some of them then made a return as flowers to decorate our kidzone this year.The Summer Sundae Festival Choir returned to the EFestivals Comedy Tent this year after last year’s great success. Led by conductor and professional vocalist Hannah Brine, up to 50 local amateur singers rehearsed over the weekend and performed a handful of well-known pop songs on the Sunday.Comments from AIF festival goers: “A few years ago it used to be more about the music so we'd go to ones with big headliners (e.g. V / Glasto) but now its more about the atmosphere and all the other amazing stuff festivals can offer - see the Secret Garden!!” Male, St Ives“It's all about the music and anything else is a bonus.” Ramsbottom Bury  Lancs, Male“Basically if possible I’d spend every day in denim shorts, socks, wellies, vest, hat, sunglasses, drink in one hand, fist pumping the other, surrounded by all my fav friends and DJs, in the middle of a field full of cream! Happy days!” Female from Sunderland. Creamfields“My summer would not be complete without a festival, unfortunately next year, as a result of the recession I’ll be going from 4/5 festivals to 1 - gutted“ Female from Reading. Bestival“An escape from advertising and corporatism in many cases [I like about festivals].  Sleeping in a tent and partying at a festival reduces all people down to an equal level”Male from Belfast. Glasgowbury“I've had more fun, pleasure and sheer joy at Nozstock than anywhere else ever. Festivals are a little slice of freedom” Male from Somerse. Nozstock The Hidden Valley  About AIFThe Association of Independent Festivals is a not for profit body set up in 2008 to represent independent music festivals in the UK and Ireland.Conceived by Bestival promoter Rob da Bank and Graphite’s Ben Turner, the association’s founder members included Bestival, Cornbury Festival, Creamfields, Evolution Festival, Field Day/Underage, Secret Garden Party, Summer Sundae Weekender and WOMAD.With 31 members ranging from Bromley’s Leefest to the 55,000 capacity Bestival in the Isle of Wight, AIF enables the promoters of some of the UK & Ireland’s most innovative and successful festivals to speak with one voice when addressing the wider music business and government.AIF aims to establish best practice for festivals in a variety of areas such as security, the environment and beyond, providing a knowledge base for festival promoters, as well as creating collective purchasing and marketing opportunities for its members.AIF operates as an autonomous division of the Association of Independent Music.