A total of 6.5 million people travelled to music festivals and concerts in Britain last year, and spent £2.2 billion while enjoying themselves. Overseas visitors accounted for 6 per cent of the music fans but spent 20 per cent of the money attending various festivals and gigs, according to a report released by Visit Britain.
In a business that supports local economies and supports 24,000 jobs each year, £1.3 billion was spent on transportation, tickets and accommodation. Another £914 million was spent on food, drink, and other purchases.
Britain is lagging behind the United States, France, and Switzerland in business innovation, but it does attract top-notch artists like One Direction and Adele. Glastonbury is the largest green-field festival on the planet and draws visitors and musical acts from around the world.
Tickets for the 2014 Glastonbury festival sold out in record time recently. More than one million people attempted to buy 120,000 tickets priced at £210 each. Bookmakers have stopped taking bets on whether Fleetwood Mac will be headlining the event; Daft Punk and Depeche Mode are also contenders.
According to Visit Britain, the government’s tourism agency, its research showed that UK music has plenty of pulling power and a great potential to boost tourism. It called for a strategy to pull in more overseas music fans. The report also called for a strategy to bring in more overseas music fans and and for “towns and cities to copy Liverpool’s efforts to capitalise on the Beatles.”
The number of festivals have increased dramatically in recent years along with demand for live events. Artists who have been faced with declining record sales have turned to touring to generate income.
London, which is home to large venues like the O2 Arena as well as Hyde Park, attracts 1.8 million music tourists each year, or 28 per cent of the total. Visit Britain said the figures, which were compiled by Oxford Economics, were conservative because they only included ticketed events at venues with capacities of 1,500 or more. The criteria excluded certain events, such as the Notting Hill carnival and the Beatles tours in Liverpool.
