How difficult is it to put on a music festival these days, anyway?

0:08John Rostron:Hello and welcome to The Price of Music brought to you by Music Ally, the show that's fascinated by all the fun and games and finances of the music world. As explained each week by me, Steve Lemack and him, Stuart Dredge, it's a slightly different episode for you this week, dedicated to live music festivals. They provide us with all kinds of vivid memories while also giving stages to everybody from the world's biggest stars to the best of your local bands. But just how difficult is it staging a festival these days? And increasingly, what are the challenges facing festival promoters? With a number of cancellations and postponements once again this year, what does the future look like for the UK festival circuits?

0:54John Rostron:We went to John Rostron, who is CEO of the Association of Independent Festivals, who I know, well, I've known for a while since John's day's running Soon Festival in Cardiff, but also, of course, now via my role as chair of Live, the Live Music Industry Trade Body, which AIF is a member of. And, well, because of that, because I didn't want to lead him down certain roads of inquiry or make him feel uncomfortable as I was sitting there scouring at him, scowling at him during the interview if he wasn't holding the company line. So because of all this, we decided it would be better to get a completely fresh perspective on the subject of festivals, which is why, as I quietly recuse myself, Stuart, it's over to you.

1:48John Rostron:Thanks, Steve. And hello, John. Welcome to The Price of Music. Thanks for having me. Yeah, Steve's not here anymore. We can say anything we like about him for the next half an hour. But no, thank you. When Steve and I have been talking about doing this interview for a while, we've had so many questions, I think, because we've both been talking and thinking about the festivals and what's going on. And obviously, we're both veterans of going to festivals. So even after boiling down all the questions, there's a lot to get through today. But I think it's going to be interesting. So thank you. um but i guess a good place to start is with you because you are the ceo of the association of independent festivals but how did you get to this role i mean if it's a marvel style origin story how did you end up with what you're doing now um well most of my life let's do the condensed version most of my life i've been a promoter um you know started putting on my own nights i was dj um putting on club nights but also then started putting on bands and i did lots of other jobs along the way um but that's the one that really defines me i was down in cardiff um and yeah that was a big part of what i did and one of the along the way one of the things that i did was set up a a multi-venue music festival called soon which is well through sound with my friend hugh stevens um which is probably the first time i met steve lemak through through uh through hugh and we put that back on I think it's 2007 we started and actually so so that was my I've been a big festival goer but never run a festival and um and that was my way into into running a festival um I gave I got a bit disillusioned with music and the music industry um uh and was moving into some other some more interested in other areas I think I was interested getting more interested in strategy and policy and the things I thought could really make a difference outside of putting shows on.

3:47So I sold up what I was doing, I think around 2018 and decided to leave the music industry. And I went off and I learned how to make timber frame buildings and I learned how to climb trees properly and chop them down because I was living, I'd moved to a rural place. But yeah, found my way back into music mostly through writing funding bids for people um and that brought me and the other thing I was doing as I'd left promoting was I'd set up this thing with a group of promoters that was becoming what is now the Association of Independent Promoters so I was very interested in in those communities of people um and that kept me in touch with the AIF with Paul Reed who was here and I used to have a regular catch up with Paul and I knew he was leaving he'd been the first and only manager here we had a little catch-up call and he said to me why aren't you going for the job john and that was my cue really i to go actually yeah why why don't i go for the job so i went for the job and i got it here i am goodness and kind of kind of encouraging to know that the head of an industry body also can make timber frame buildings because when the floods come that will be useful i guess yeah i guess i mean i guess for people who maybe don't know the aif and what you do i mean what give us a brief outline of what it was set up and how many festivals you represent and i guess the kind of work you're doing at the organization well aif started i know roughly what happened was around about 2008 um you had these sort of what we called back then boutique festivals and now i think we just call them festivals and you had i think the instigator was rob de bank and his manager friend ben turner rob was running bestival which was probably at quite a size then but was still an outsider and he got a few people together i think there was field day it was run by tom and some other people in london um i think end of the road possibly i think womad possibly there's a number of people and they got together somewhere in london and what i heard was that they were sort of rivals but they knew each other through the music and they got together and they started chatting about what it was like to put their events on because these events were growing and getting more and more popular and they were doing whatever a lot of people do they had no idea what they were doing and um and so they sat in a room and started realizing they had lots more in common than divided them and they just thought we need to do that again and and rob had and ben had a record label um sunday best so they were a member of the association of independent music which is you know the big you know who aim are looking after all the independent labels in the uk and a conversation emerged with them to say i don't know where it came from but what happened was allison who ran aim um set up kind of said aim can help you set up this group and she organized all that team claire lara they organized the meeting secretariat they helped get people together and they sort of ushered people into a room two or three times a year to to talk and those that group of festivals grew and i had my first interaction with aif then as a young promoter so back 2011 i saw a poster at a train station with all of these festivals on that i loved and uh you know we were saying go to a festival this summer or something use the train and there was this aif badge and i was like what's that and i found out what it was and i applied and I joined the RAF and I went to London at some point and there was maybe 20 people around the table and there was Rob DeBank, one of my heroes.

7:23And, um, there was Womad and there was, um, Kate and Sarah who ran tramlines who really, you know, here's another, uh, they were a multi-venue festival at the time and I was a multi-venue and they, I was thinking about going outdoors and they were thinking about coming, uh, they were thinking, so I was thinking about coming indoors, they were thinking about going outdoors. So, so yeah, it was this brilliant group of people and And yeah, and that is what AIF sort of still is, really. The core bit for me is those numbers have grown. When Paul left, I've been in the job about three years nearly. There was 93 festivals grown to.

7:58There's now about 150, 152, I think. So a big part of what we do is the same, is sort of getting people in a room, except now they're in a room every day in a WhatsApp room and they are talking and sharing and every day they're talking about something sometimes it's like i need some help with this i've got a problem well how do you do this or where do you go for that and they ask each other questions and they and they mostly help each other and then we listen in on those conversations and we bring them together at multiple times per year um and through those conversations we then work out what are the themes what do we what what's what's a problem here or a solution here that maybe they all need training in or they need a new resource in so you're kind of constantly listening to to what to what i call stakeholders and trying to work out what they need um but the biggest part of the job now which was was emerged because of covid was was relations with government um you know the music sector generally didn't have a relationship much with with um the live music sector didn't have much relationship with the government prior to COVID and festivals definitely didn't.

9:07And now it's a big part of my working week, either taking some of these stories to the government saying, we need your help with this, or the government coming to us as they come to other associations saying, like recently this year, we're going to look at licensing. We're going to do a licensing sprint in six weeks. What do you need? And so you've got to quite quickly respond to that, find out what people need, talk to government get in the room and and as is emerging from that in fact think today you know there's a call for evidence to to make some huge sweeping very positive changes for licensing and that all happens because there's a trade body you can call because they can call me and they wouldn't call 150 different festivals i'd love to have that job so i guess great and i think one of the things i've i've known that the only choice but you do put out research and you put out stats and you tell people how things are going and i guess that's one of the big topics today is we're now what we know in october so there's still stuff happening but the summer festival season is done yeah what is your take on i guess this year's festivals in the uk what was good what was challenging like what's the picture of what's happened this year to festivals in the uk this is the so this is the my third year in the job my coming out my third summer it's the first year where the sentence has not been we're worried about sales this went wrong that went wrong and we lost loads of money and the sentence is now um a lot more positive um it's you know a lot of our members sold out or sold more tickets than they've ever sold before or sold out quicker um they had really really great events like they just delivered great events and and there's people having the best events um you know which is very subjective term but they just go that's the best we've ever done uh and they've had good spend from customers um so they the most of the sentence is that but there's a bit at the end which is but we lost some money so and that's the hard bit that we're now looking at so you've got people who sold out 20 000 people 30 000 people lots of people you know um 20 000 is surprisingly quite amazing how many festivals are actually at 20 000 when i came into the job i thought there might be half a dozen and there's there's so many but you've got people selling out um but because of the costs because of uh how things have changed um that were walking away some of them somebody was on the phone two weeks ago they sold out they lost two thousand pounds so you're putting a show on that's costing you between something like two to four million pounds to put on and then at the end and selling out and having a really great time but then at the end of it you're losing two grand and that's a very those numbers don't make sense and that's a problem because we although people do it for all kinds of reasons they also need to turn a living and and it needs to be fun and those things um are not happening so that the line's not there for them the parents aren't there for them but then if you're sweating about that then you're losing the fun and that's going to make some people stop putting their events on so that's the bit that we're worried about but but but much more positive you know in the independent sector um yeah and people for this year coming out you know obviously they go on sale straight away and they're flying again blood stock just sold out on the weekend um already 40 000 people for next year sold out it's interesting because i suppose we've and i always get i always get kind of confused about how long it is since the covid lockdowns because it feels simultaneously an age and yesterday but i guess at the height of that people were worried about well what's going to happen in the future are people going to go out again so it must be quite exciting for and encouraging everyone that actually they are selling out people are coming to festivals that two-year blip when everyone was locked in their houses just overworking a bit then the in terms of the the football that has come back i guess yeah yeah i think this year is the first year where we feel like it's the evidence is there you went you mentioned before i like day i like data and evidence because you're dealing with lots of festivals a lot of people and actually what you do need is the data somebody's telling you something it does the data what's the data show and now the data shows it like you can see they're selling out for the first time they're selling out earlier than they've ever sold they're selling more tickets all of that you know is really really positive um in previous years they've not had that but there's also been other things that are caught up in that long tail of covid and brexit which so there was a rush out but there was also So the great example is a festival field manoeuvre that sold out, you know, as COVID was about to hit.

13:47And so recycled their tickets and kept saying, you know, if you want to sell it, you can sell it. So arrive back in 2022, completely sold out. But a third of the people then didn't turn up and the festival nearly, nearly disappeared. So you had all of these weird things that were going on for a couple of years. Where's Gen Z gone? Gen Z gone? That's all gone. that it's clear people really love festivals and they're they're going and they're uh and another thing i don't know what else has changed you know certainly payment plans which we introduced you know hugely because of coming out of covid and we were worried about um cost of living crisis but that habit too you know the take up on payment plans is enormous so yeah people people love them i do look at some other things and obviously i look at what other trade associations are talking and keep reading a lot about the demise of nightclubs.

14:37And there's a lot of worry and panic about that. And we find that it's really hard to read because what we're seeing in the fields is huge demand for electronic music. So if you were sitting in the world of electronic music, you'd probably be, I don't know, you might be happy that people are still really wanting to dance. It's just they've moved from inside to outside. That doesn't, you know, unfortunately, take away from the horror for the nightclub owners. But we're seeing that. you know, so hugely popular and the biggest sort of area of growth. Definitely. I mean, I guess another parallel to what's happening with venues.

15:11And we talk a lot about venues closing down and the campaign about that, about how many venues are closed this year, how many are at risk. And I've seen those stats around festivals in the past. They've been concerned about how many were shutting down, how many were never coming back. Have we reached a better place now then? Are you not seeing so many shutdowns or festivals at risk of not coming back next year? Or is that still something you're seeing people concerned about? with the costs of that? I am pretty much not worried about it now because when I, yeah, when I started to roll, somebody said to me, this goes back to evidencing, somebody said to me, there's a lot of festivals seem to be cancelling.

15:47And I was new in the job. I was like, well, are there? Like, what's the, you know, yeah, what's the normal number? And nobody knew what a number was. So I started counting. And we discovered that at least 96 festivals fell during the pandemic. and then in 2023 that first year in in the job 33 fell that year so we had a number uh because i was going to government saying lots of festivals cancelling and they asked me a very sensible question like well how many normally cancel turned out nobody knew so we had we had a number 33 um 78 fell in 2024 and that's when you know you know i can't remember when but early spring we were already at the number for 2023 that having that data having those numbers being able to say this is the number from last year this is where we're at now that that was a key moment for us because then everybody started paying attention like really paying attention and and some changes and some support came for the festival sector on the back of those numbers this year we're on 42 i think or 43 actually black beer's just cancelled so it's not going to get to the high numbers you know we might get to 50 um and like i said i think a lot of people who've gone now really have gone and you're always going to have some festivals that go.

17:01We not only track the cancellations, but we track Y. And you will have the rogue promoter. You'll have the person who didn't get their license application in. There was one company, and one company this year actually took down, I think, 10 or 11 festivals in one go, one independent company. Oh, wow. Yeah, one and C. So that's quite extraordinary. That's quite unique. So it's always sad to see festivals go, but I think those worst days are over. at the moment but what I'm worried about is the ones that are trading right now will they continue like will they be making the money to continue or will they be happy enough to continue yeah like you say it sounds like you mentioned the idea of the strain of putting on an event and you only make two you lose two grand at the end I guess there can be some worry that something maybe in theory be able to carry on going it sells out but if the people who are behind it who are putting all those hours in are just tired, tired or stressed, then it could stop for that reason, couldn't it?

17:59Like the human cost, I guess. Yeah, and there's festivals, some of the festivals set up to raise money for charities or around a particular cause, you know. And if you're not doing that either, you know, I mean, there's a lovely little example. There's one called Test Fest, which is set up to raise awareness for testicular cancer. So it's not about, ideally it raises money, but also it's about people being in a space and doing things and engaging particularly men around testicular cancer um when they're struggling financially to make it all work the the trustees are saying why are we doing this you know maybe we should just turn up at the supermarket with our banners and sue who runs it um is so passionate about festivals and she's like no because this is so different you're bringing all the people that wouldn't you're catching all these people who come to have a good time and you're adding this thing to them and look at the response so they get so much engagement around their charity they get so many people who choose to volunteer as a result of being at the festival that they wouldn't get in these other places and she's had to fight really hard but she's a classic case like she was going into this year and i hope she doesn't mind me saying you know really worried that they wouldn't get over the line um and then she was messaging it's one of the loveliest thing about the whatsapp group from the event going we just had the best event we've ever had now not necessarily financially but but creatively as a show and to reach their sort of objectives of making people aware about this thing.

19:25So yeah, there's a lot of test fest type people out there, you know, really important to the culture of the UK. And like you say, that energy is so important for them to go again next year to have that. I mean, something that we've talked about in the podcast quite a lot is one of the other things that feels like it's become a big issue this year, maybe than before, is the whole, I guess, the controversy around politics and certain bookings. So we've talked about Bob Villain, for example, Mary Wallopers, like events at festivals where a band has either said something on stage at the festival and there's been trouble, or the festival has been told you can't book this artist, otherwise you won't get your licence.

20:02Is that something? I mean, I don't know what often happens then is online, because everyone online is just kind of jumping to conclusions, it's the festival promoters often get in the neck. Oh, you cancelled that artist. But I know it's often a much more complicated story. It's not their decision. It's other things. I mean, is that something that you've seen on behalf of your members that this is something else they have to be aware of, that there's this political discourse around who's playing and what they might have said in the past and what they might say on stage? I think the lens on things moves all the time.

20:35So last year there was lots of people looking at Barclays Bank sponsoring all the Live Nation shows. and the lens was very much focused on that. This year it moved to sort of political boycotting around sort of international affairs. You know, those things will keep moving. And yeah, you're touching upon, you know, there was some particular examples, you know, Catherine and Joe ran Radar Festival, you know, were in a, yeah, who had Bob Villain booked. Bob Villain says something at Glastonbury, which actually was a, yes, there's procedures at Glastonbury about what you can and can't say, but also it was actually a broadcast issue because it was the broadcast bit that shouldn't have happened um but they're at the receiving end of huge amounts of quick anger people's opinions much like you know go to a football match and there's 30 000 people who who know you know who know how to manage the team but they're getting that with this huge anger and katherine you know has shared this publicly but she got death threats and she was getting and they were getting threats if they put them on, and they were getting threats if they took them off.

21:45And nobody, well, for a while, a lot of people just were not actually looking at the detail. What was really warming about that, if I can say that, because it was a horrible thing that happened, was there was a huge community of people who did, who know the festival or know the artists or know the people and knew that it was more nuanced than that. And then there was other people responding and reading articles and Catherine was writing things or saying things. And they were reading them and saying, no, it's not as simple as that, actually. And they were trying to sort of hold around them. And I thought that was really inspiring.

22:20But it didn't stop, of course, some people who just want to have an attack. You know, when you're running a festival, there's all kinds of things to be, that's the point. We're not looking at one particular lens. We're not going, right, let's focus on politics this year or sponsorship next year. There's a thousand different things that can blow through. You know, when you're running a festival, So you're focused on a number of different things. In the middle of the space, you want to have the best party of whatever it is that you're doing that you've ever seen. And you want it to be the safest party that's ever happened.

22:50You know, that's the two things going at once. How can we let people be as free and as wild and as creative and as loose as they want? You know, and people take kids to festivals and they just let their kids go, right? How do we make that happen? Because we make festivals incredibly safe spaces. So they are the bits that we come out of whatever the conversation is. That's the focus. is it safe? You know, what are we doing? And are we following the right policies and procedures to do that? And the festival industry broadly, particularly through things like AIF, you know, the tight-knit community who will lean in and help each other, but also learn off each other.

23:25What happened that weekend? What do we need to do for next weekend? Is there anything that you've done that we can learn from that we can change? You know, and trying to help each other along. And that, you know, I have to say broadly, it doesn't matter whether you're independent or not. There's a lot of that. A lot of that happens. Three years ago, there was a vape spiking incident at Isle of Wight. Of course. The whole industry, it felt like, knew about that straight away and was immediately talking about, is this something we should be worried about? What should we do about it? Because that's what we want.

23:56We want people to come and have a good time. And fortunately, that seems like an isolated incident. That was that. Like you say, something happens at one festival, they have to react very quickly, but then everyone else can learn and prepare, I guess. which brings me into this next thing because and there's no danger of me and steve doing this just to warn you ahead but if we were wanting to start our own festival we were thinking about just how little we know about what what goes into it what you should be thinking about and so i was going to kind of pick your brains on the notional basis if i was launching a festival now yeah um but the kind of process and the pitfalls and i guess a good place is is where do people start like do people often start with they've identified an underserved place or they've identified an audience or they just have a site they want to use like what what are the what's a good starting point for someone who's thinking i could put on a festival most people yeah there's two sort of ways there's a but there's the sort of broadly speaking the corporate way which we won't talk about and there's the independent way and a lot of the independent festivals start with a party somebody's having a party about something a birthday or a tribe of people or they really want to put you know um stroud on the map whatever it happens to be right um and that's where the festival starts you know um because i think about i think about hidden notes the other weekend where you know there's something in stroud with all these amazing artists got a record label you know so there's a community that comes together and wants to have a moment to market for some reasons you know birthday and anniversary and then they do it and it looks and feels a bit like a festival and then they do it again and it becomes a festival that's that's the biggest driver of festivals um and sometimes you know there's stories where people go to a festival um whatever it is and go oh wow that was amazing i want to do that uh in you know todd morden or whatever it is right so why don't we do that here you know and that's the catalyst or they stumble up you know they've been somewhere they see a site they're like oh this would be a great space to have a party you know by party i mean you know dancing or live bands or something you know or you've got people like love trails you know you've got a group of people who love running and love music and so they go to west wales and they run love trails where you you run all day and then you party at night and that's where most festivals come from it sounds like there's a real central like you have to have an idea i guess an ethos or not just i quite fancy putting a festival on it sounds like all those things they came from a core of a strong core of people or a strong idea of a new combination of things yeah they're absolutely driven by generally a person or a small group of people passionate about something um that want to celebrate it and mark it right and that that's where they come from and if you want to run a successful festival um that's what you need to do right and i actually now that that's what those people are doing well you know you double down on that community you know if you're there are some people who go right you know they i'd like to be a festival promoter you know and you start booking bands you are unless you've got um a very very deep wallet you are going to fail doing that because you're relying on um you don't have a community to start with you're hoping for the fans of the band to come along and then those bands are going to change every year what's your community so it does work for some people but you tend to see those ones run by the major operators um rather than most of the festivals you go to you can look and you know the tribes of people whatever those people are tribes can be metal or tribes can be uh gloucestershire you know like you know like it can be you know i set up one that was in cardiff it's all about celebrating cardiff and its city and wales you know that was a big driver for me and he when we set ours up and i see when I met um Kate and Sarah from Tramlines at the time that's exactly what they were doing in Sheffield I was like I've met my these are these are my people they're doing exactly what what we're trying to do over here and there's there's loads of those multi-venue festivals all done for the same reason celebrating a scene celebrating a place yeah that's just dying point for you yeah and I guess I guess and this is again it's where my knowledge is thing but I guess one of the things that separates me a party from festival is obviously you have to go and get a license for it which is not i mean we could do probably four hours couldn't we on the licensing ins and outs of a festival but that's something where i think people who don't who have never been involved in this would think well you just ask the council and say can i have a festival please and they go yes of course that would be marvelous licensing is a really important step to get right and to to make sure it kind of maintains isn't it yeah very much it goes back to what i was saying you you want to throw a really good party but it needs to be safe right yeah and you might promise yourself it's going to be safe but actually what you need is a set of um you know an event management plan a book that you've written that explains how it is going to be safe you know which has got things like if there's lightning this is what we're going to do this is our this is our extreme weather plan if there's you know uh you know if we're building the site and suddenly and it's dry all the time and then suddenly the rain comes down this is what we're going to do to make sure it's safe this is our traffic management plan this is how we're going to get people in and out and we've identified where the bottlenecks and things will be that's all the stuff that you do that comes both from people with huge experience of what those things look like i mean they you know if you when you go to particularly the really big events you see it you see it glastonbury you see suddenly people turn up in a row a place where you're walking around you can't walk anymore there's people with torches guiding you because they've got this huge management plan crowd management plan because they know that was it this year charlie xcx is going to be a big hit so they're going to move so they've thought all of that through yes sometimes they might not work out how popular um the band is or whatever but generally that's all that's so that's what all goes into that license application where you meet with what's called the sag safety advisory group where where and we we always find these really they're a good talking point in festivals because all of the party element of a festival and the color and the vibes and the wonderful things they do none of that is discussed in a sag in a sag it's like it's health and safety and fire and traffic and all the really like important stuff but you can actually really lose sight of why you're doing it because you're not talking about all the good times but but all of that stuff is what makes the event safe and what you go back to review and you need you go through that process you have to pay money too for a premises license of course um but then you go through and you get your license and and off you go and you've you've got your evidence trail to say um for everybody you know that you're getting a license with a local authority the local authority has to answer to questions from from people who live there and um and if and if you know whether it goes right or wrong you know so that's you're just laying all the paperwork out there's a lot of paperwork unfortunately in festivals yeah so we were talking and saying like even down to the the the minutia of like we were we were trying to say i wonder how much festivals spend on portaloos i'm thinking that's a line like every festival i'm like i can tell you exactly how much i spent on portaloos it was this much it's in my accounts staffing and security even insurance which is another area that we could probably do an hour on but all this stuff has to be put in place and be right otherwise you're going to have a problem aren't you on your hands yeah yeah i mean uh yeah somebody joined our membership uh this year last year and in the whatsapp at some point said um or traders asked me for a copy of such and such license but insurance sorry but i don't need that do i and immediately the membership was like yes you do right and they've been running their festival for a number of years uh without the right insurance um and luckily had got through and now have got it sorted um you know yeah um the the yeah there's a 2000 trees james who runs 2000 trees and gavin who runs damnation do a podcast and they did one called the cost of festivals where they came with their spreadsheets.

31:52And I can tell you that 2 ,000 trees at the time, so for his budget for 2025, James gives what he calls Stinky Pete, who does the toilets, £34 ,000 for toilets. £10 ,000 for diesel. £10 ,000 just the diesel that they went through. £50 ,000 it was on power. £1 ,000 was like the tables and chairs that you get, like if you're backstage and you just want to sit down somewhere like if you're a press officer a thousand pounds on that but the ones that are really interesting you know three quarters of a million on artists so you have a two million pound festival in terms of costs two thousand trees three quarters a million and then i think the other one that i thought was really interesting because he was just talking about how much that has grown you know as a budget um that's the biggest rise um but over a quarter million on people staff i think food i think feeding the people like the the crew and the artists i think that was maybe 50 000 pounds you know just to make sure everyone's fed through the week the water i can't remember what his water number was i think like 37 000 because they have no water on the site so all everything has to be brought in including all the water which people don't think about i think you you would think oh of course there'll be water from somewhere there won't they there you assume there's a there's some kind of a water pipe already on this site and of course there isn't you have to no and you get to festivals where you then also have people out testing that water all the time it's got to make sure that there isn't a contagion in that that would harm people so you've got huge amounts of yeah the you know i've i've never put on a first festivals of scale and i'm learning so much and the amount of dedication from those people and the money and the time that goes in to make sure that every little detail of that is as safe as possible i find incredibly inspiring actually to be honest when you're sitting with those people um uh so yeah it's quite quite remarkable and most people go to the festival yeah and have a really you know millions of people go and have a really brilliant time yeah i know do you know i want to do a whole podcast about stinky pete now i'm fascinated by but that's another time i mean you mentioned artists i mean that's the other thing i guess that i've learned from talking to people who are promoting festivals is just the the fascinating timelines of booking artists because obviously you have the negotiations happen at certain points we were booking them in but often it can be years these conversations kind of would you fancy doing this or we can't do it next year talk to me sometimes some bookings are like years in the making others are quick and that that must be a really i mean it strikes me as an amazing job just saying which what would be an amazing lineup of artists for this day but there's so many wheels spinning out there to get it right and to get the people you want yeah definitely i mean i've again never had personally had the you know i booked a small festival i could pick things and work with I loved and one of my favorite bits was that was that putting the lineup in an order and imagining what the journey might be for somebody and I think a lot of festival promoters and bookers that's what they really love they they have these little roots um but yeah when you're getting to scale and by scale it'd be 15 ,000 capitals so you're getting into a cycle where yeah a year ahead now or more it's all moved um a long time ago I remember being in South by Southwest with Ben who books Green Man.

35:05South by Southwest is about March or April. And Ben didn't have one of his headliners and was quite relaxed. And those days are long gone. You're a year out. But I learned, you learn that there's all the strange things in the music industry. Like if you offer for somebody for a Friday night headliner, you can't offer anybody else while that offers out. So there's strange games that people have to, and it kind of makes sense in some ways, but also not. And it's strange games that these poor bookers have to play. But sometimes you have a band on your wish list and you just, you know, you've asked about it a number of times.

35:39And then the agent will be like, they're going to be around. We can make it happen. What an agent normally says is we need a bit more money. It's always that way. But yeah, so, you know, the whole booking thing has changed. We, again, every year we see something different. I've only been in this job for years. You know, last year we saw move again. So people went on sale with their early birds, you know, a month after in the summer. by the end of November um everybody had their if you didn't have your headliners out right and some people have their full lineup out bloodstock kendall calling have their full lineup out by the end of November and the second wave of tickets so tickets used to be on sale all the time those days are gone you have these waves of tickets now and basically if you weren't at that point at the end of November then you were you were going to struggle in 2025 and also at that point in November you kind of knew how you were going to do once that second wave of that that was your marker and that's moved massively when people used to use the spring to sort of book the rest of their their undercard that's all done now um for a lot of people it's all done before christmas i mean that the early bird ticket's fascinating too because again i feel like that's a relatively recent well not not necessarily recently they're being offered but recent in the importance of them and the sheer percentage of sales that are done to early bird tickets and how like you say it's not just it's it's a real can we do this next year this will tell us if we can or not i guess yeah and it's been what i have to say like one of the most positive trends that's coming out for us and i think there's probably a couple of things happening when you book your early bird now you're quite often just putting a deposit down on a payment plan so you don't need to find two or 300 pounds you need to find 20 pounds 25 pounds so i think those that coupled with something else you know the magic that's going on we actually did a survey of members recently like a couple of weeks ago saying how many of your tickets do you sell at early birds um you know and how many do you sell at the second wave and sort of headliners and lineup and those numbers are all going up for people so you know uh at the the worst examples they were selling 10 percent to early birds but you've got people selling out on early birds and you know you've got people in 60 70 percent of tickets um and that trend is they're all those numbers are going up and that for a festival um is brilliant and it says a lot of things it says that when the moment when people are there they've had a great time suddenly a month later put a deposit down they want to go and i and i i like how few things in life do you commit to with a year early like when there's a wedding you'll say your friend will say there's a wedding in a year and even that sometimes you're like will i go like you know you might say you're going on holiday and book a week's holiday but you'd book the time off but you might not decide where you're going but festivals you you say yeah i'm gonna go to end of the road in september 2026 right like that is and very few things have that level of commitment and that is growing so those early bird tickets are all on the up and those um yeah that next wave part has moved forward and those numbers are all on the up and then if you're not sold out then you have what's left the hard yards which is what i call the hard yards which is the hard bit then you're trying to trying to get the rest over the line but yeah mostly really positive and it just says that when people are there in the moment they're like yeah i'm up for coming back yeah and often without a lineup just you want to go there again you trust them yeah yeah early birds there's no lineup it's literally i'm gonna be in yorkshire for deer shed next july right and ollie probably at that point he might have booked a band but you know and megan they might have booked a band but they haven't told you who it is yet they just you just know that you want to go there which is i just think it's incredible you trust those people i mean i guess you we talked earlier about your work at the af and the idea that is talking to government and and sometimes responding to what they're doing but also going to them what are your and again this could be a long conversation but what are your what are your big asks at the moment what do you think could be the things that could really meaningfully help when you mentioned licensing is something that's happening right now um what other things are kind of are on your agenda to put on the government's agenda there's one thing really that we're focusing on now which is um which is how do we fix that festival that's selling out but losing a little bit of money um because because Because how do we make that happen?

40:03Because we know that those supply costs aren't going to go down because they're not. And you can only put the tickets up so much because otherwise you start to make festivals exclusive. And we don't want that. You know, we don't want to look what's going on in some of those concert and stadium tours. We don't want that to happen in festivals. So we've we've suggested that they create what we've called a music festival tax relief, which is a you know, they have creative beliefs. They have an orchestra tax relief, a theatre tax relief. They have some of them in the film industry, which helps basically if you're, and it will help start festivals too.

40:38So it would give you relief on the music and the creative elements of your festival. So, you know, it's still a big commitment. You still got to make your show happen. You've got to pay for everything and you've got to get through the year. But when you do your tax return, you get 45 % relief on 80 % of the eligible expenditure. And that's making a huge, would make a huge shift on the bottom line. So if you're making money, your tax bill will go down. So you'll make more money. But if you're losing money, you'll get tax credit and it reduces losses. So that's what we're trying to get into. And also then if somebody's sitting there on the side, if you and Steve are like, we really want to put our festival on, you know, it's hard to get in because of the costs.

41:21And so if you know at the end of it, there's going to be a tax relief, it makes it a little bit more. okay maybe we can do it maybe maybe it's worth a go still risky right still risky it's a big role putting a festival on so it's like opening a shop but for only four days a year and hoping it doesn't rain which is a terrible business model um but thank goodness that people do it yeah and i mean you sold me on that uh but alas well no thankfully yeah but but do you feel do you feel optimistic that the government is going to listen to this i mean like you say that there's it there's i guess there's prior examples of them doing this and it working culturally so are you are you feeling quite optimistic they'll they'll be listening to this well i've taken some advice off people that know this and they've said me said to me that the chances are low and they rate that as a really good chance okay we were looking for no vat or reduced vat and they said they said trying to get vat on tickets at a lower rate your chances were zero right so you're at low so we think you're going to have a good shot at this and actually if you put yourself you know where what do the government want they want growth and this is going to help people start up festivals and it's also going to help some of the smaller festivals grow so if you're doing 10 000 tickets and you're selling out why would you try and sell more right now um because you've got to fund all of that the tax relief would make it oh we can we can try and stretch um somebody was this year when there's a small 5 ,000 capacity event, sells out, they'd love to do a second one somewhere else, but they're like, we can't finance it.

42:56And as soon as we talked about a tax relief, they were like, that would be enough. We'd be able to go to the banks and make that happen. But they can't roll it on two events. So that's, you know, and of course it would mitigate the closures. So we go back to the people that are selling out and losing money. If suddenly it's going to work for them, they're going to have a bit of space, a bit of money and enjoy it again. We're going to keep those people in the game. So I took that advice. Yeah, if low is good, then we're feeling positive. Yeah, okay. But I guess, I mean, the final question I had was about positivity, I guess.

43:30And just the fact that it sounds, I mean, you sound very optimistic. And though, because I think we'd had a conversation two years ago, we might have been worrying about a lot of different things, like you said, about what's happening. But it sounds like you're very confident in, I guess, that getting outside even the cost just getting down to the fact that festivals are selling out they're growing like this idea of people do love going to festivals and they love going to independent festivals because i don't you know i think everyone people do love glastonbury they're the big festivals but the fact they love independent that's that sounds that's exciting that for the music industry as well as for the promoters of these events yeah i mean it's a great time here to catch me because we just come out the summer and so we've been to lots of festivals and they're so good.

44:13They're so good. And I work in festivals, but I forget what it's like until you start in the, you know, so you sort of like approaching the festival, suddenly you get all of these things come back to you and you're like, Oh yes, this is what's going to happen. I'm not very good at sort of imagining what it's going to be like, you know, in the party, but as I approach it sort of, Oh yes. And then they're just so good. They are just so good and um and i get to get to a number of them with with the job and have learned about loads of new festivals and and then i see all of that passion and all that love happening and with all of these communities and these mavericks and these strange people um and it's like wow and it happens you know well you know in the fields we're in the fields from about may june to september but you know i'll be going back to soon festival in cardiff next you know back be back in a multi venue festival i've been listening to the bands that adam who books it has picked you know and it's like i'm so excited about so many bands yeah so all of that fills me with joy and there's other things going on at the moment you know there's a big sustainability report that the whole sector is involved in with you know live nation aeg superstruct and all the indies um called the show must go on report which they do every five years and there's such a if you look at the history that report i think this is the third will be the third iteration i think i might have got that wrong but you know the the at the start there was a small group of people who said i think we should save the planet now you've got everybody it feels in the industry it doesn't matter what size player you are all contributing with um into this report but also on the ground so they're doing things in the festival and then they come to meetings and they share what they're doing it goes back you know like we've tried this bailing machine to and it reduces the amount of diesel you need in terms the number of lorries that come so you can reduce your footprint and everybody's working with the guy that makes a bailing machine or whatever it happens to be um and that's so inspiring and they probably will hate me for saying this but like what i know some of the people have said is like in the summer if you want to save the planet the best thing you can do uh is lock your house up and go to a festival because it's better for the planet than being at home and it's like what a brilliant world if the way to save the planet is go out and have a good time right yeah oh like i'm bang up for that i saw i saw some research recently i can't remember who did the report but it was it was talking about they were surveying um fans attendees of festivals and it seemed like they were really in keen to know what festivals are doing on this front as well like and they actually it's a selling point for a festival if you can say this is what we're doing like this what a number of people want which i mean we shouldn't get into politics but that there's there's a push back against net zero and all these things happening in different parts of the world very powerful people but in this area festivals and music fans it feels like music fans are do care about this and they want to know that stuff is being done and tried it's not i i agree and uh and you know it's the masses against the classes i just realized a tepeche mode album there and that's what's going They're not necessarily just there because they care about the planet.

47:26Like this is the, they like, they ask about it because it's better. So when you go, you know, we out here had a no and low bar, which is going to get into that space, right? So instead of demonizing people not drinking, they had this incredibly successful no and low bar, you know, with a huge range of stuff. And it's like, that's what people want, not because for whatever it, and it's tastier and better. You've got backstage catering. I know there's somebody who got rid of beef at an event, you know, taking it off the menu. And nobody's noticing because what they're being fed is better, tastier.

47:59The 60-40 meals backstage where you reduce the amount of meat in the meal and then you add more protein and plant stuff, but you still serve it up as a chili. You know, people are going, oh, this is delicious. If you told them it had less meat in, some people would protest, but you don't. You're still getting your lamb this or your chicken that. but it's loads of taste it so there's all of this you do it because it's just better and right it contributes to these other things but you're quite right there's a coming out of covid that was a particularly the the communications from individuals particularly younger audiences overwhelmed festivals in the old days it was sort of like they bought their ticket and they turned up and then they asked questions when they were there they now ask lots of questions in the build-up um and our festivals weren't ready for that but they're good questions and they're interesting and they're asking about stuff and so those lines of communication are really open and festivals are like oh we need to they're just asking like you know whatever you know where can i where can i get the vegetarian food or or where's the quiet space for me to go or is there some way i can go for a run right and they're asking it when you hear that a thousand times you go maybe we should have a run club right like actually and then they do and you know we out here they all go for a swim in the lake you know um and so yeah so i think all that stuff is hugely positive and yeah it's great that's great well i mean thanks so much because this has been a really positive discussion and i think honestly just personally you've you've given me at least seven festivals i need to go and investigate for next year now but i think same for you so um thank you very much and good luck with um what's going on the licensing the lobbying the um tax relief and um hopefully we can have you back on again in the future to talk about how it went brilliantly and the government did exactly what we wanted and everyone is doing well 100 and ais stores are always open for yours and steve's new festival all right we're getting cracking on the idea although we you may if you've heard the progress before we we have some differences about the bands we might book we might we might split up creatively before we even split so thank you so much and uh

50:04John Rostron:yes uh enjoy really enjoyed talking to you thank you very much john rostron uh i mean there's so much to take in and digest um from all that which i think we'll come back to next week but uh you've got a lot of information out of that interview stewart um about so many different things as as well i mean just the juggling acts that promoters have to worry about i think so the fascinating thing for me about this whole world is is it it's it's the numbers of course but it's the people the people who do it it's such a fascinating array of people who the the reasons they have been festival that the challenges they're dealing with like you say the juggling it's a real it's weird isn't it weird to say it's a people market because of course it is but that's something i think it comes across whenever you talk to anyone in that world that how you have to be a certain kind of you need to drive you need to be kind of a little bit crazy often i think don't you um but it's a wonderful it's a wonderful part of you know i'm glad i'm glad we got the chance to talk to john in detail about it yeah any thoughts that you have yourselves on anything that's been raised uh over the last half an hour so uh we would love to know the price of music podcast at gmail.com and say thanks again to john uh you can find more details of the work of the AIF at www.aiforg.com.

51:27John Rostron:We'll be back with a normal show next week, catching up on a couple of weeks worth of news. In the meantime, thank you very much for listening. If you are enjoying what we're doing here, please do help spread the word in whatever way you can, or alternatively, you can support us via Patreon. You can become a super fan of the show at patreon.com slash the price of music alternatively uh get in touch via the email or you can contact us via our socials anything you don't understand about how the industry works that you think we might be able to make sense of for you or any guidance or advice you would like from the professionals the price of music podcast at gmail.com take care everyone bye

52:15Thank you.