Five festival predictions for 2024

Earlier in the year, we published a statistical overview of 2023’s festival season.

The article crunched the numbers, looking behind the curtain of sales figures, buying habits and tickets sold on the Skiddle website. 

The 2023 festival season has long since ended. But as promoters, you’ll know it’s never truly out of sight. Some festivals have already begun to promote their events for next year, with some event-goers already securing tickets for events in 2024. 

With that in mind, we thought we’d put together five predictions for the festival season in 2024. 

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Festival organisers will react to customer habits

In our round-up of 2023’s festival season, we found that attendees were selective over the events they chose to buy tickets for. However, they were willing to spend more on the events they chose to attend. 

So, the challenge for festival organisers becomes simple: How do you ensure those people return to the event? 

With this in mind, we think that the response will be to add more attractions and more ambitious lineups. If customers are willing to spend the money, it makes sense that promoters will try and bring a bigger and better event. It could entice the previous year’s festivalgoers to attend again and attract new people to the event. 

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More organisers will enable Payment Plan and Pay In 3 features

We’ve already seen attendees begin to buy tickets for 2024’s festival season, with our stats showing a 51% increase in the number of sales already made for next year’s round of events. 

While it’s not all festivalgoers who are choosing to purchase this early, it’s still significant. A fundamental reason for this trend? Skiddle features like Payment Plan and PayPal Pay In 3. 

We think that over time, more festival organisers will choose to employ this feature as part of their sales. 

It’s an advantage for both the promoter and the attendee. As the promoter, you get the conversion and the remittance in full, while the attendee gets to go to their favourite event. It makes things easier on eventgoers pursestrings, too. The cost of living crisis is affecting everyone, and at Skiddle, we’re seeing continue to attend events but be more selective over what they choose. Offering a flexible payment option can make your event stand out. 

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Last-minute sales will still be dominant

While some attendees have made their commitment to summer festivals already, there are lots of people who’ll wait til the last moment to make a purchase. 

Our analysis from this year’s festival has told us that, on average, for a small to medium festival, ticket sales in the 10 days leading up to the festival often accounted for 25-30% overall.

It’s something we think will carry on. Many people are feeling the pinch when it comes to money, but there are a range of events to choose from. Plus, people still want to have a great time. 

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Sustainability approaches from live shows may be adopted at festivals

In September, several outlets reported that the 02 Arena will host ‘carbon removed’ events in 2024. 

AEG Europe owns and operates the venue alongside several festivals around the UK. 

So, we think festival promoters may adapt the processes at their own events. Of course, the execution will look different. Festivals are a different beast compared to live events, thanks to the fact that they run longer and have larger capacities. 

But it isn’t out of the realm of possibility that these shows could lead to an industry-standard model for the rest of the live music industry. 

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Fyre Festival will fail…again

We were shocked at the news of Fyre Festival’s return to the festival space back in August. 

As everyone and their dog know, the event was a disaster. The food was terrible, acts pulled out in droves, and the co-organiser Billy McFarland was sent to jail for fraud after the event. 

However, tickets went on sale for the second edition this summer. While it seems that there is a lot of demand, will the organisers be able to deliver a passable event after the fiasco of the first? 

We don’t think so. 

Mismanagement and deception were at the heart of the first Fyre Festival, and you can’t build a great event off the back of that, no matter how glitzy the location is. 

Expect another round of scandal when the date for Fyre Festival II comes around. 

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Got a question you need an answer to? Give us a call on 03333010301 or ask us a question over on the Skiddle Promoter Twitter account by clicking or tapping on the button below. Alternatively, you can also find a list of our most frequently asked questions over at https://help.promotioncentre.co.uk/