Pop festival economics revisited

I was musing in a previous post about how the money goes around when it comes to running a festival. I was, and still am, puzzled by the number of these things (which must be in the hundreds, just in the UK) and the huge number of acts that promoters book at each.

Well here's a couple of things, partly prompted by out recent return from Cropredy and also by an item in the press. (Oh and thank you for your prayers: the weather at Cropredy was fantastic).

The famous Cropedy Fringe in action: who needs Edinburgh?

At Cropredy there is just one stage. This means that all the acts have a captive audience and all will perform in front of the best part of 20,000 people (allowing for the fact that a few will be pottering around in their caravans, or having a late breakfast at the rowing club, or visiting the "Cropredy Fringe" at one of the two village pubs). This means big exposure and surely allows for a bit of bargaining power on behalf of the promoters. Speaking of which, the promoters of Cropredy are folk-rock leviathans Fairport Convention. They always play a 3 hour headline spot to close the whole thing on Saturday night but this year it was stretched to 3.5 hours plus, they now do a short set to open proceedings on the Thursday. You will have spotted that the longer Fairport play, the fewer other acts they have to pay and the more money they make. And Fairport make no apologies for seeking to supplement their annual income by making a profit out of Cropredy.

I believe other festival promoters could learn from this. Take the Hop Farm Festival (Marshside blog passim). I read over the weekend that it lost money this year. I'm not surprised. Too many acts and stages and not enough big names to encourage people to part with large amounts of money and put up with yucky loos for 3 days.

Anyway, Glasto's back next year and we've never been. On the basis that surely it's time for Radiohead to headline again, I might well be joining the queue for tickets this time round. Plenty to time to book a nice B&B in the Somerset area!