With summer approaching, the festival season is kicking off again. According to the European Festivals Association, there are approximately 1,900 music festivals scheduled in Europe this year. That’s a lot, especially considering that this database might not be complete. (Of course, there are many more amazing music festivals worldwide, but I decided to focus on European festivals because the dataset was already quite extensive for this small analysis.)
Let’s examine where the largest festivals take place.
The 370 festivals on this map are those with more than 10,000 attendees per day. A surprising number of them occur in Belgium and the Netherlands, including one of the most famous electronic music festivals, Tomorrowland. Many also take place in southern regions like Portugal and Italy. Who can blame people for wanting to enjoy the sun?
I found it fascinating how many of these major festivals are free to enter. Let's delve into how festival prices have changed over the past few years.
With data from Festivals United, I selected a few popular festivals, mainly in Germany, to examine how ticket prices have evolved over time. It seems they are increasing, but that's not surprising given the current inflation across all sectors. Interestingly, some festivals, like Ikarus, haven't significantly raised their prices, despite attracting more visitors.
It's noteworthy how different organizers have managed the period since the two-year COVID break. Despite likely experiencing significant losses, some have returned with lower prices, possibly to attract their initial crowds. Unfortunately, the trend has been to raise prices again, often quite sharply.
This year, I plan to attend the Feel Festival (for the fourth time) and, for the first time, Nature One. I'm fortunate to have a good job that allows me to afford multiple festivals in a season, though with rising costs, I've decided to limit myself to two this time.
This story originally appeared on DataWrapper.
