On October 18, Emily Eavis, organiser of Glastonbury, the world's largest open-air music festival, announced a price increase of about 19.29% in the price of tickets for her annual event due to the soaring cost of hosting the grand festival.
Glastonbury has faced significant operational difficulties during the pandemic, after failing to host the festival for two consecutive years in 2020 and 2021, and a small event in September 2021 was similarly put on hold.
Finally, in 2022, the Glastonbury Festival arrives in the summer, featuring superstars such as American singer Billie Eilish, Kendrick Lamar and Paul McCartney, one of the Beatles members.
According to the official announcement, the 2023 Glastonbury Festival is scheduled to take place on June 21 next year, and it is expected that the 2023 package tickets will go on sale on November 3 (Thursday) and general admission tickets will go on sale on November 6 (Sunday).
In addition, the Glastonbury Festival website revealed that general admission tickets will cost £340 per spectator ($335 + £5 'booking fee'), or $385.57, with a £50 deposit. This price is almost 20% higher than the 2022 festival tickets (£285).
Unsurprisingly, fans and industry figures from all walks of life were quick to take to social media to express their views on the matter, starting a heated discussion about soaring ticket prices.
At the heart of the discussion is, is the festival's ticket price increase worth it?
Once the festival embarks on the road of commercialization, it means that it needs to have market profitability, and the festival cannot make a loss for a long time. Therefore, most people can understand the increase in ticket prices. After all, prices are determined by value and fluctuate around value – the cost of hosting a festival is constantly increasing, and the cost of artist appearances, setting up a stage, renting venues, etc. are all a lot of money. And the crux of the matter is whether it's worth it.
As we all know, the Coachella Music Festival, hosted by Goldenvoice, a subsidiary of the well-known performance company AEG, is the largest and most influential music event in the world. Whether it's Madonna, Taylor Swift, Rihanna, the Muse, Radiohead, etc. will be proud to be on the stage of Coachella. This year's festival also invited more than 100 well-known music artists, including Wang Jiaer, with the phrase "This is Jackson Wang from China!" "Pushed the show to the number one on the Twitter World Trend List.
The Coachella Festival three-day pass costs $549, which translates to 1,230 RMB per day, and the organizer will come with a round-trip bus ticket and a ticket to the festival's metaverse, as well as beautiful art installations by 11 architects and designers from around the world. With a strong lineup, exquisite live installations and cool and top-notch acousto-optoelectronic equipment, the audience is willing to pay for it.
In fact, the rising cost also gives the organizers of the festival a headache, the scale of the festival continues to expand, and more stakeholders are involved, under the epidemic, in addition to preliminary preparation, venue costs, etc., it is also necessary to consider the epidemic prevention facilities and additional isolation costs of the artist team, in case of a sudden epidemic that causes the event to be canceled, this money has become a sunk cost.
In recent years, due to uncertainties, the upfront investment cost of music festival organizers will become greater. If the festival needs to be postponed or the stage construction has been completed and it needs to be cancelled temporarily, the organizer will definitely suffer losses.
With the development of the music festival market, there has also been a certain premium in the supply chain. Zhang Chongshuo, vice president of Modern Sky and head of Modern Sky's live music business group, said, "The most basic venue rent, which used to be very low or even free, now reaches hundreds of thousands or even millions of yuan in many places. ”
In addition to the rise in venue fees, the performance stage is also constantly upgraded, and the emergence of "rotating stage and dynamic audience seats" in stage construction has improved the audience experience. Let the performance scene move with the seat, the mood moves with the scene, and the configuration requirements for the lighting and audio equipment used are also constantly increasing. The price of tickets does not change overnight, but is constantly adjusted according to venue rent, number of stages, stage equipment, safety facilities and performance lineup.
According to the survey, the cost of producing a music festival is too high (a small music festival with less than 10,000 people costs about 2 million yuan in a single day; For large-scale music festivals with more than 10,000 people, the cost of a single day is about 5 million yuan), coupled with the rising artist fees, venue rent, stage sound and optoelectronic costs, only 20% of the music festivals that can truly achieve profitability on the market account for 20%.
In the stage construction venue, stage beauty, lighting, live sound reinforcement effects and other upgrades, the audience experience can also be greatly improved, the overall ticket price slightly increased music fans are also willing to accept, but if the ticket price rises, the quality of the performance is not as good as in previous years, which is unacceptable to most fans.
How to continuously satisfy consumers in content design, production and experience, and make different styles is the biggest test facing music festival organizers.
In a long post of his own, Avis addressed the issue, saying:
"I would like to make a message about the 2023 Glastonbury Festival ticket prices announced today. We've done our best to reduce the increase in ticket prices, but the cost of hosting this major event has risen significantly, while we are still facing the huge financial impact of the coronavirus pandemic that prevented the festival from hosting for two years. And, as ever, thousands of people will have the opportunity to become volunteers or staff members. In these extremely challenging times, we want to bring the world's best show to everyone and provide our charities with the funds they need more than ever. As always, we would like to thank everyone for their continued support of the festival. ”
What do you think about the cost of festivals and tours? Due to the sharp increase in the cost of holding music festivals, the ticket price of Glastonbury Festival has risen to 340 pounds (about 2765 yuan), do you think it is expensive?