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Why festival tickets have become a lot more expensive

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Published

2 years ago

May 3, 2022

CLare Dominic

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Why festival tickets have become a lot more expensive. The price of festival tickets has risen considerably. If you bought your ticket in 2019 or 2020, you are often lucky and you will not notice anything in the price of a ticket this summer. But people who buy a ticket now often lose about 5 to 10 percent more. What’s in it?

“More expensive tickets are inherent in the market,” says Rosanne Janmaat, COO of event organiser ID&T Group. “Raw materials and personnel costs have risen. In addition, we have stood still for two years due to corona. Many people who worked in our industry have left.

This means investing in new people. And the war that is going on on our continent is also having an effect. The price of steel, petrol and wood has risen. These are materials that we use.”

“Wood, gasoline, steel, all those materials have become more expensive. But insurance costs have also seriously increased.”

Rosanne Janmaat, COO of event organiser ID&T Group

How exactly is the price of such a ticket structured? Janmaat: “In total, 9 percent of the price is VAT, 5 to 7 percent goes to music rights and the remaining 85 percent goes to the other costs for a production: the location, artists, catering costs, the assembly and dismantling:

all the facilities that are needed to have up to 65,000 people a day on the floor. Insurance costs have also seriously increased.”

Rising ticket prices

And the festival visitor notices that. “We see that the costs have sometimes risen to 35 percent. We already went on sale in 2019 with many tickets and more than 70 percent of the tickets of major festivals had already been sold in 2019 and 2020.

We could have refunded the money and put the tickets back on sale at a higher price matching the current cost. But that didn’t feel right to our loyal fans. So their ticket is still valid,” says Janmaat.

“There is also a limit to what our fans can pay, so we have chosen not to increase the new tickets by more than 5 to 10 percent, instead of fully passing on the rising costs.”

“At Rock Werchter you can buy vouchers and coins in advance. In terms of money distribution, that is a nice method.”

Jon Bleekemolen, festival visitor

Whether visitors will be deterred by rising prices remains to be seen. Babet and Jon Bleekemolen are festival-goers at heart. At a festival, once they are inside, they spend about 50 to 100 euros a day. Babet: “We pay attention to the money. I don’t like wine at festivals and I don’t like beer, but I’m not going to drink cocktails. I think that’s a waste of money. But we are not difficult: when the coins are finished, we just get new ones.”

“Everything is more expensive,” says Jon. This year, Rock Werchter, among others, is on their program. “There you can buy vouchers and coins in advance. In terms of money distribution, that is a nice method.” They will not be held back by rising prices. “We haven’t been able to go to festivals for two years. It’s a kind of holiday. When we’re there, we want to take it.”

Situation in Ukraine

Rosanne Janmaat of ID&T does not dare to say what the future of the festival looks like economically. “It’s coffee grounds watching and depends on the situation in Ukraine and how quickly this is or is not resolved. Due to corona, for example, the production in wood was lagging far behind. All kinds of factories were closed, but that backlog was updated again at some point.”

“In addition, we have launched a successful campaign to tackle the staff shortage. With every set builder, there are currently two new people running along to be trained. That kind of thing should pay off next year.”

“A record number of tickets have been sold for Awakenings. The Dutch have a blasting urge.”

Rosanne Janmaat, event organiser ID&T Group

Despite everything, Janmaat is looking forward to the festival summer. “We notice that people really feel like it again. And they don’t let the prices hold them back. For example, for the Awakenings festival, a record number of tickets have been sold. The Dutch have a blasting urge.”