Yourope Members Survey

Yourope, association gathering nearly 100 festivals and live music events in 26 European countries, published the results of their 2018 members survey.

This survey investigates the general setting of their member festivals, gives insight on the events’ audiences, explores their European dimension, and analyses the structural and economic settings of their member festivals.

Link to Yourope Members Survey

Key facts of the Yourope Members Survey

1| The settings of Yourope music festivals

The number of festivals increased significantly and in a sustainable way; In a time period from 1970 to today, music festivals have become a market segment of the live music sector by itself. As most festivals are open air events, they take mainly place in the summer season (86% of all Yourope festivals). Showcase festivals taking place indoors are also becoming popular and happen all over the year.

The most typical duration of music festivals is 2 – 3 days. Hence, staying overnight is an essential part of the events. The Yourope members survey shows that camping remains the most common type of accommodation for festival goers (65%). An increased demand in comfort on events can also be noted with more and more festivals providing more confortable camping options.

2 | The audience for Yourope music festivals

The core age group of festivals are young people with over 70% of visitors being under 30.

3 | The European dimension of Yourope music festivals

The average number of performing artists per festivals is 97 and the majority of programmed acts are artists from the European region (in average 54%). The big majority of Yourope festivals promote their events on a European (70%) or international (10%) scale.

4 | Structural and economical settings of Yourope music festivals

The cooperation with public authorities for permissions, licenses or other production related issues is evaluated as positive in the survey report with the majority of festival organisations ranking their cooperation with institutional as “very good” (35%) or good (43%). If festivals receive public funding, they are coming mainly from regional funds. National funds remain exceptional.

Based on submitted results and the extrapolation of data, the combined revenue for the festival season 2018 is 480 million Euro. Ticket sales are one of the most important income sources and Yourope notes an increase of 22% in ticket sales during the last 5 years.

The study also details how a festival contributes to the economical infrastructure of a region with significant expenses by the festival and festival goers to accommodation services, consumer spending in town, local food & beverages suppliers, logistical services and supplying of staff for the festival.

The majority of festival organisations are so-called small and medium entreprises according to the staff numbers analysed in the report.

Conclusions & considerations

According to the survey report, the majority of festival promoters organized within Yourope considered the festival season 2018 as good. Concerns are expressed on continuously rising artists fees, the availability of headlining artists, more competition between festivals, challenging weather conditions, and an overall changing economical situation in Europe. The accelerating concentration phenomenon seems to have an increasing negative impact on smaller and midsize festivals than for large scale events.


Disclaimer: The information and pictures used in this post are drawn from the Yourope Members Survey. This post intends to inform about the Yourpe Members Survey, share the findings and methodology used.  

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