Festivals cancelled because of low ticket sales. Apparently this is the tip of the iceberg, many festivals/shows are being called off. Could say well just reduce your ticket prices, but the costs involved in touring and putting events on have become sky high
Clapton Cancelled
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https://www.nme.com/news/music/all-heritage-live-festivals-with-shows-from-eric-clapton-richard-ashcroft-christina-aguilera-cancelled-due-to-low-ticket-sales-3956837
They’re not the only ones – I think the festival bubble has well and truly burst.
A five-evening tick for Sandringham was £371, parking another £85 on top. That’s just shy of a hundred quid per night to see a very Radio 2 B-list lineup, with all the fun of a massive traffic jam each night.
I once went to a classical thing at Audley End house and swore I would never go again. Mrs F went there with pals to see Bjorn Again last year and it was so shit she attempted to get her money back.
I think local word of mouth killed these Sandringham events. My parents live in the area, and of all their friends who’ve been to them in recent years, they all say virtually the same thing; the concert itself was fine, but it’s too expensive, there are no seats, you can’t take your own food & drink, the food & drink available is too expensive, and the organisation (especially parking – more than one attendee took over 2 hours to leave the site) is a joke…
Also, DJ Andy on the decks wasn’t such a big draw after all.
As a regular holidayer in the Stiffkey area, I can confirm the Kings Lynn/Sandringham interface is a massive balls-ache even if there isn’t a festival on. That roundabout in KL at Hardwick should be nuked from orbit.
You can’t nuke the Hardwick, where would all the bunnies go?!
There are just too many of them aren’t there? From May to about the end of September there are probably at least a handful on somewhere every Saturday and Sunday in the UK. Not just huge names either…why people are still interested in nineties no hopers like the Hoosiers or early noughties slop like the Pigeon Detectives I have no idea, and yet there they are, at some municipal festival in Kidderminster, Newark or Grimsby.
We went to one with friends on Sunday, Electric Heart at Apps Court near Walton On Thames in Surrey, (Supergrass, Happy Mondays, Sleeper and The Coral) partly because Mrs L is a bit of a Britpop fan, partly because I like The Coral, partly because it was about a mile from home. Saw it advertised early on, paid £53 each for the day, only to see tickets fairly quickly reduced to £25, presumably due to slow sales. I was incensed by this and it left a really bad taste. In the end there were a decent amount of people there but it looked by no means sold out. Sleeper and Supergrass phoned it in, Happy Mondays were sort of shambolically entertaining and The Coral were pretty good. But however much these kind of bands probably can’t believe their luck that they can still get a nice summer earner, the bubble must be very close to bursting.
I thought about going to that but apathy prevented me. A shame about Sleeper, they were excellent in Brighton last year but it was a smallish indoor gig (Concorde 2, sold out) with them headlining. Makes me a bit wary of The Levellers outdoor show in September, (Sleeper as support), especially with the potential for bad weather.
We passed on Wickham this year: line up spread too thin and not really value for money tbh.
We had Scouting for Girls, the Vaccines, Two Door Cinema Club and Natasha Bedingfield. Alright for the Noughties I would have thought, but apparently 10,000 people disagreed with me.
My word, that sounds grim.
The park at the end of my road has some big gigs coming up. Nothing to tempt me, but if you want grim then the smaller shows last weekend was where to look. Friday was some kind of orchestra meets Ibiza dance music do, Sunday was ‘Nashville Day’ featuring tribute acts of country singers I have never heard of. But Saturday … when I passed the perimeter of the Sausage and Cider Festival the crowd were being entertained by … a Mumford and Sons tribute act.
To be fair it did sound like everyone trapped inside was having as good a time as they could under the circumstances. Incidentally, I’m happily hitched but should any Afterworders be on the look out for where to pick up women they could do a lot worse than a country music festival. The town centre was a washed with groups of up for it women in stetsons, short denim skirts and cowboy boots.
‘Looking for the festival? Next left and down the hill.’
‘Thanks! You can come with us!!’
‘Yeah! We’ll show a good time!!’
‘I’m sure you would, darling, but I’m a married man.’
I’m coming over to the UK on Saturday. Maybe I should leave the kids with their gran and head Colchester-way? That wouldn’t be at all irresponsible.
I’m hoping the Green Man Festival in August is still happening. I have a ticket and flights booked.
Green Man is perhaps second only to Glastonbury for the speed it sells out.
Alas they will have gone home now. If they were local they demonstrated a surprising lack of familiarity with how to find Colchester Castle.
Final word on Wickham: last year, the food stalls were quite sparse. I don’t go for the food but my wife is gluten intolerant and there just wasn’t much choice for either of us. I don’t want chips with everything thanks.
We got some last minute tickets. They got their money back from the food and drink prices. Not badly organised but the compère pissed me off: ‘That was the LEGENDARY Sleeper, keep it going for the LEGENDARY Coral…’ Sleeper put in an effort but didn’t have the songs. The Coral were pretty good. Mondays were a car crash. Supergrass were great – I saw them a couple of years ago and had a great time – but sadly we had to leave early to get home at a reasonable time. Hampton Court trains only running once an hour didn’t help. I think I’ll stick to smaller shows next summer.
“Clapton Cancelled”
Didn’t that happen in ’76? 😉
Yes, was aware of a potential double meaning
Fairport have just announced that the, admittedly bonsai, Cropredy has just sold out.
I remember Peggy saying that it was essential to cut the number of attendees drastically for financial reasons. It was along the lines of making a profit if you planned for 6000 people and could guarantee a sell out, but not if you planned for 20000 and only 18000 tickets were sold. I don’t why you can’t budget for a guaranteed 6000 but sell 8000 if the demand is there, but I’m sure there must be sound accounting reasons.
Possibly an insurance reason for the number of people?
It’s finally sold out one month before it starts.
I imagine they have to rent the site, including camping? Extra stewards, toilets and clean up.
I would go to Folk by the Oak on Sunday but we’re away unfortunately. This may be a good thing for those who go because of I’m there it’s either pouring down with rain or baking hot.
Here’s me a few years ago.
Folk by the Oak is rather a dignified affair, which I enjoyed last year, not liking this year’s main roster. Loads of family picnics and offended parents when Grace Petrie scattered a wealth of f-bombs at lunchtime.
FBTO has a Pimms tent, which is as much as you need to know.
Yes it’s a family event. When the Levellers played there their traveling fans started a mosh pit and Mark Chadwick said “there are families with children here and you’re frightening them so calm the fuck down”.
I was a bit to the right of the mosh pit and realised there was a problem when a stream of distressed looking families pushed past us. The Levs fans did seem to take it on board though and settled down after being ticked off by Mark.
Looks like there may be some last minute bargains for upcoming Rush concerts, 2 dates in Montreal look around half sold out currently at best, but 4 shows in Toronto are pretty much sold out. Ticket prices are high
I’m staggered they haven’t sold out, especially Canadian shows.
No rush then!
I checked Edmonton and Vancouver also, same story. Only close to a sellout in their hometown. Still time to sell out if they reduce the prices though
I’ve thought for a while, post Covid, that for various reasons live music will inexorably become a more localised thing, and musical artists a more vsemi-pro proposition as time goes on.
Those reasons include economics (including the decline of earning potential within music as a whole plus increasing logistical factors like insurance and macro factors like cost of living), climate change issues (re travel), UK-specific issues post-Brexit (re cost/admin involved in importing/exporting live music), US-specific issues (the place being a hateful madhouse that makes it extremely difficult/expensive for anyone to get in to tour).
I’m off to Bug Jam at Santa Pod next weekend with some pals. A bit of a reunion – last time we were there together was 2001.
All the bands are essentially covers groups but Friday & Saturday night there are some pretty good DJ’s. There’s loads of racing on the track, funfair etc. Paid 87 quid which includes camping for 3 nights.
There aren’t too many festivals here in Ireland. There are a handful of outdoor venues in and around Dublin that do summer series events. Seen Snow Patrol and Elvis Costello this year. We much prefer the one-offs to a 3 day slog.
It will be interesting to see how Cambridge Folk fares, in its new pared down format. Can’t say it looks good on paper, with little of great appeal, but if it is a matter of selling a much reduced number of tickets, it might just grasp them a toehold on the future.
There’s a banner attached to the railings adjacent to a large roundabout in town advertising a local summer festival. Headliners are The Fratellis. I’d rather keep on going round the roundabout for the day.
Cheap jibes aside, I’d love to go to a festival, We’ve never been to any. Friends of ours, serial house-movers, bought a house reasonably close to Cropredy some while ago. ‘Stay with us for the festival one year’. They moved.
The Fratellis are a prime example of one of those bands I was on about earlier in this thread who seem to be playing somewhere every Saturday and Sunday during the summer. Now I do happen to have heard of their most well-known song “Chelsea Dagger…” it’s a kind of singalongy, chanty kind of thing that you’ve probably heard somewhere without even realising it, never mind knowing who it was. The DJ at Electric Heart on Sunday played it, which triggered some idiot dancing and a mass singalong. It beats me, but apparently it is somehow enough to sustain a summer of festival bookings both here and in Europe. There are dozens of these type of bands appearing at local festivals…The Enemy, The View, etc…hardly huge even in their day, they now spend their summer weekends playing to dwindling crowds of 35-45 year olds who probably remember their one (very average) song that 6 Music played 20 years or so ago. It’s no wonder the bubble is bursting.
I noticed that they were selling 2 for 1 tickets for one festival, and Splendour in Nottingham is in it’s final year, and also has discounts. The Sandringham event looked pretty weak, with the only name being Eric Clapton (and even his star must be diminishing now). The more the publicity, the more they are struggling seems to reliably indicate there are troubles selling tickets. The nickel-and-diming of concerts, what with additional booking fees, mad car parking costs, silly drink prices, horrible enormodomes, let alone the meet-and-greets that aren’t, and artists whose voices are changing but still try to sing in the same key as 45 years ago makes a lot of gig-going to be avoided.
I don’t enjoy people who treat a gig as a place to get drunk and spend the evening having a pee or pushing past with over-priced pints, or to have a chat and bants with their mates, either. That’s for before, during the interval, and after. Concert etiquette might have changed as the club crowd started coming to them, and treated them less a performance of the artist, and more a communal celebration where the artist plays tuneso, and you sing along with the hits. I have Steve Hackett and Jon Anderson gigs later this year, and given the age of the audience, other than prostates, at least they should be polite. Theatre shows, too, so not as obnoxious as the open air shakedown, or the enormodome rip-off.
I think the term “communal celebration” and concert etiquette changing may explain a lot actually. It definitely explains why something like, say, the Oasis comeback tour of last year was so huge, and even among the generation who followed and weren’t there at the time. There is definitely a demographic of people who think music is best consumed in a field with your arms in the air or round someone else, with a belly full of lager whilst surrounded by others all bellowing out the chorus of an overplayed tune from 30 odd years ago. I hope this doesn’t come across as snobbishness, but admittedly it could be an age thing…I have two dodgy knees, my wife is only 4 ft 10 and I have more than had enough of being in crowds full of people who see drinking as the reason for being there, have no respect for personal space where some stupid hatted fuckwit can dance/thrash around wildly, careering into us. Perhaps we fiftysomethings and above are being replaced by a generation who actually embrace all this.
Exactly! There was always the complaint that British audiences were too quiet and inhibited, and that they got better the further north you go. As my early gigs were in Brighton, then London, perhaps I was socialised into the quiet and respectful approach – which is ironic, given I could be a noisy little sod when not complying with the greatcoated hoards setting the standard back then. I don’t mind a lively audience, but I hated the ones who threw things at the band or turned it into a Townies’ ruck. Sadly, a few gigs I saw in the punk and ska era were exactly that. I’ve never seen aggro at a metal gig. While we are here, what’s with the throwing the (over-priced, lousy) beer into the air thing about? Costs a fortune, too. And we’re told folk are skint.
I don’t get the beer throwing thing either, it’s just costly, stupid and must be extremely sticky and uncomfortable.
Food and drink is actually a major issue for me at festivals. I can’t stand those events where you’re not allowed to take anything in at all, ending up having to shell out an additional small fortune for some undercooked “street food” or very ordinary burger.
Is it beer or urine? I remember being sprayed by the latter at the Reading Festival once. A partially open plastic bottle soared above my head and deposited some of it’s lovely contents on me
Is it me, or is it the smaller, niche events that are doing better than the pile ‘em high, sell ‘em expensive fandangos, often held in far from applicable sites? I refer, of course, to the established and longstanding folk festivals, who know their audiences and know also, an essential, how elastic a genre that can be. The only issue is age, as the target demographic gets ever older.
STOP PRESS: sorry, not target, as the always extant hope is that the audiences will closer resemble the age of the performers, something, at least as per average age of either, is some way off.
Maverick, in the heart of swinging downtown Suffolk, have just had their best year (out of nineteen), based on a reliable turnaround roster of the best acts you’ve never heard of. They’ve seen off Black Deer for a start.
I mourn the disappearance of Black Deer which was a fabulous festival and had much better artists than Maverick. I will look out for the lineup at Maverick next year as it looks like it is a nice festival.
Much better known would be true, but a lot of unmined gold, certainly the year I went.
Today’s Sunday Times reports that Giles Cooper Entertainment, the promoter of Heritage Live festivals is going to appoint administrators to prevent creditors taking action before the appointment of insolvency practitioners.
They were the promoters of the Clapton gig as well as others with Christina Aguilera and Lionel Richie.
The twin pressures of inflation dramatically increasing running costs while stretched finances have reduced public demand, led them to this precarious position.
In the last couple of days David Lee Roth tour has been canceled and also “Roxette” which was actually only one of them. Both in North America and low ticket sales is the reason, even if described as something else
Per touring as Roxette is a bit of a cheek when Marie was the face of the duo, and she died in 2019. “The other one from Roxette and some other woman singing the songs of Roxette” would be a better strapline.
Yep
Surely they should be called Proxette now?
Ex-Rox?
Very good!