AAA White Paper The political economy of informal events, 2030 | Page 13

4500
4000
3500
Growth in the number of
music festivals, UK,
1979-2019, approximate,
and indicative estimate
for 2030
2,850
3000
2500
2000
1500
1000
700
500
0
Wild Thing, 24 February
1969: after a barnstorming
Monday night at the Albert
Hall, The Jimi Hendrix
Experience booked the
next Monday night – and
cooked up a tumult:
‘He played with his teeth
and then on the floor…. [the
stage] was beseiged [sic]
by fans, police, bouncers,
floor managers and practi-
cally the entire audience!’.
4,500
250
30
1979
2005
2010
2019
2030
1. INTRODUCTION
When so much of modern working and leisure life depends on
the virtual world of IT, real-world events retain their power to
attract business participants and large consumer audiences. They
are an essential part of any city’s cultural and economic life; they
help bring in the 2-3 million tourists and £1-2bn tourism spend
that Britain attracts each month; they have shown that highbrow
shows, around literature and public debate, can win new audiences.
Events are also expanding. Take music festivals. That category has
become more elastic over time – many firms now claim to run a music
festival of one sort or another, while few did 30 years ago. Still, music
festivals have certainly multiplied, and have come to attract larger,
more diverse audiences than those of the past. Altogether, Chart 1,
above, has a force that cannot be denied.
In events there is an unrepeatable confluence of people,
Jane Simmons, The Official
Jimi Hendrix Fan Club Of
Great Britain, newsletter,
April/May 1969
13
5000
Chart 1
Source: Chris Anderton,
Music festivals in the
UK: Beyond the Car-
nivalesque, 2018; Find
Festival; UK Rock Festivals;
Access All Areas estimates.
Note: reporting in 1979
was less thorough than it
is today