James Ralls
ticket price is created and promoted with great value for money attached to it .”
Reed suggests the industry work to raise awareness and educate audiences about what great value events such as festivals are : “ On the face of it , festivals are high-cost tickets but it is important to illustrate to the audience the astronomical costs and risk involved in staging them , and what incredibly good value festivals are because you are paying for four days of non-stop entertainment . Once you start comparing that to other forms of live entertainment , whether it be high-end music stadium shows or theatre – festivals come out looking very good value .”
Despite the inflationary pressures , or perhaps because of them , many operators of events large and small are reporting strong early ticket sales for next year .
Roger Hooker
BST Hyde Park
“ We sold-out of super-early-bird tickets in record time and have seen people sign up to pre-register for early birds in their thousands ,” says Shilling . The ballot process is underway for the 151st Open Championship at Royal Liverpool in 2023 , and Cole-Hamilton reports that tickets are selling extremely well .
“ It will be sold out without question ; sales are going faster initially than the St Andrews event . So , there ’ s no question the appetite for events among the general public is there but we recognise there are significant challenges in the economics .”
Government support With the many challenges that lay ahead , including expected huge increases in cost , there remains a widespread feeling across the industry that the Government should increase its support .
James Ralls , co-founder and MD of Portsmouth ’ s 80,000-capacity Victorious festival , says despite costs being up by as much as 50 % in some areas of the event ’ s production the festival was a success this year and he is particularly pleased with work to make the event experience available to all .
“ We maintained our gold award from Attitude is Everything and increased the resources available to our accessible team . The progress really shows year on year , with the increased number of attendees with different needs that now attend ,” he says .
As the industry prepares for next year , Ralls expects the uncertainty around costs to impact all event operators , especially smaller events . “ I would like to see the Government introduce a lower VAT rate on event tickets for two years to let the industry supply chains re-form properly ,” he adds .
Reed agrees , “ We have to make the case loud and clear to Government and the new culture Secretary that we need a 5 % VAT rate . That would alleviate some of the pressure .”
Cole-Hamilton is a member of Scotland ’ s Event Industry Advisory Group and sits on UK-wide event groups that are working with DCMS . He says , “ There ’ s been a lot of discourse over the past few years with government both at a UK level , at devolved government level and also across not just sports but cultural events and business events . The challenges are still there in terms of staffing , skills and cost .
“ There definitely needs to be a continuation from Scottish Government , UK Government , all the devolved governments , making sure they give the public confidence in the events industry , and that they give organisers , the confidence to actually go ahead and put these events on .”
The pandemic saw unprecedented
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