The festival is dead – long live the festival

The imminent death of the festival has been heralded in many media quarters of late, with the demise of (summer) seasoned regulars on the map like Nostock in Bromyard, Herefordshire and Standon Calling and Bluedot’s decisions to postpone their 2024 events until next year.

There’s no doubt that UK festivals are facing a tough year, with the cost of living hitting ticket sales and inflation inflating production costs for the events. All the same, we’d argue that reports of the death of the festival are hugely exaggerated.

It’s easy to remember, too, that the huge explosion of the number of festival is a relatively recent phenomenon. For many years, Glastonbury and Reading were the only singificant events on the summer schedule, with traveller-crrated free festivals and the occasional civic-funded, one day inner city knees up thrown in where an enlightened council with some spare cash could afford it.

In the mid 90s, Phoenix Festival was launched as ‘the third festival’, but despite headliners as big as David Bowie and the reformed Sex Pistols didn’t survive. Then came the raves turned legit events like Tribal Gathering – which blended more indie-slanted like acts like Black Grape with huge DJ line ups – and suddenly, the numbers of festivals began to mushroom around the millennium.

It’s only recently, too, that the numbers have hit peak festival, with new events continuing to emerge. Look at the way Wide Awake festival – one of many now held in inner ctiy locations – has grown from a celebration of the DIY scene to an unmissable 50,000 capacity official opening of the festival season with big names like Dry Cleaning, Young Fathers, Slowdive and King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard.

They key, in this age of the oversubscribed, seems to be having something unique to offer. Seek Out, for example, near Clitheroe in July, is a small, more intimate affair, held in stunning woodland surroundings. They may not have a line up of stadium filling bands but they have had the nouse to book Juno Daily favourite Acid Klaus – who scoooped our album of the year accolade at the end of 2022 – to headline, as well as laying on loads of family-orientated events such as theatre and workshops alongisde the best electropop and other music around.

Interesting, also, to note that the double header live electronica dream team of Orbital and Leftfield have opted to grace smaller events like Beat-Herder, in the Ribble Valley from July 18-21, and Margate’s The Last Dance on September 14, the former with Subfocus, Mr Scruff and Shy FX also included and the latter also featuring Paranoid London live and the mighty Luke Vibert and Richard Fearless at the decks.

The festival is dead? Long live the festival, more like. We’ll see you down the front.