New Exclusive Research Reveals UK Festival Market Driven By
“Super Fans”
● A quarter of music festival goers spend more on tickets than all other attendees
combined
● “Super Fans” go to four festivals a year and spend £45 more per ticket than
casual festival goers
● Attendances remain strong overall with 88% of all respondents planning to attend
the same number or more festivals this year
London, 8th August, 2016 — Eventbrite , the world’s largest event technology platform which
powers two million events around the globe each year, has released new research revealing a
UK music festival market driven by “Super Fans”.
Of the UK festival goers surveyed, one out of every four the
Super Fan spends
more on
tickets in a year than the other three combined. Comprising just 28% of attendees, they
collectively account for 56% of total ticket spend. They attend more festivals than others, spend
more on individual tickets and act as tastemakers to their friends.
Despite reports of increasing festival closures, the survey also found that appetite for music
festivals is holding strong: the overwhelming majority (88%) of all respondents said they’d
attend at least the same number of festivals over the coming 12 months with
over half (53%) of
these saying they’d go to more.
Key Findings Include:
Super Fans Spend £581 Annually on Tickets and Drive the Market
Spending more than all other festival goers combined, Super Fans attend an average of four
festivals a year at £149 per ticket. Casual festival goers, who account for 38% of attendees,
spend £45 less per ticket, forking out only £104 on just one festival a year.
43% of Super Fans attended more festivals in the past 12 months than the year before, and
53% plan to attend even more this season, helping drive the music festivals market.
They Are Loyal and Act as Tastemakers
Super Fans have attended their favourite festival three times already and 54% would be willing
to go alone if need be. Perhaps unsurprisingly, their top festivals are (in order): Glastonbury, V
Festival, T in the Park, Reading/Leeds and Download. They act as tastemakers to their peers,
with 55% saying their friends count on them to keep informed.
They’re Drawn by the Headliners and Like to Own Music
32% cite ” The headlining artists” as the #1 reason they go to a music festival, twice as many as
the next most popular response ” My friends are going” (16%). They still like owning music, with
61% having bought a CD or vinyl in the past year and 79% a digital download. Their favourite
genres are alternative/modern rock (59%), classic rock (43%) and dance (41%).
While They Aren’t Short of a Penny, Half Think Festivals Are Too Corporate
The average UK festival Super Fan is 32 years old, with an income of £45,000+ and skews
male (59% vs. 41% female). 68% get a sense of community from attending music festivals and
nearly half (46%) think they are too corporate.
Super Fans Are More Active on Social Media
They are also the most active on social media, with 77% posting at the event. Super Fans are
23% more likely to use Snapchat, 63% more likely to tweet and 70% more likely to use
Instagram than casual festival goers.
Said Marino Fresch, Eventbrite Head of Marketing, UK & Ireland ” UK festivals have flourished to
the point of saturation, so it’s never been more important for promoters to know their customers.
Our research indicates that a group of loyal Super Fans drive revenues, attendances and power
the market. Festival promoters would do well to nurture the Super Fans of tomorrow.”
” The research illustrated just how much passion attendees have for their events, for seeing their
favorite artists, or for discovering new artists”, added Russ Crupnick, Managing Partner,
MusicWatch, ” and that passion extends to the sense of community that only a festival can
provide.”
Eventbrite partnered with independent research firm MusicWatch to survey 504 UKbased
1849
year olds who attended at least one UK music festival in the 12 months to the end of May.
To view the full research and learn more about festival Super Fans, please visit
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/blog/festivalsuperfans.
Eventbrite has processed tens of millions of tickets to hundreds of thousands of music events.
It is the ticketing partner of choice for Ministry of Sound, BoomTown Fair, WOMAD, Outlook
festival and Dimensions festival, among others.
# # #
Notes to Editors:
The margin of error for the survey is 3% which is a measurement of the estimated difference in
results had the entire population been sampled.
About Eventbrite:
Eventbrite is the leading global event technology platform. The company has processed over $5
billion in gross ticket sales since inception and powers more than 2 million events around the
world each year. Built with a focus on reliability and scale, the platform serves hundreds of
thousands of event organisers, in the UK these include Boomtown, Showmasters, Telegraph
Events, The Guardian, WOMAD music festival and many more. Organisers use Eventbrite to
help boost ticket sales, promote and manage events, and analyse results across multiple sales
channels: web, mobile, pointofsale,
and a growing distribution platform. Tens of millions of
consumers also use Eventbrite every year to discover a variety of live experiences and get
tickets on a safe, easytouse
platform from
photography classes and obstacle runs to large
concerts and festivals with tens of thousands of people. Founded in 2006 and headquartered in
San Francisco, the company has a team presence in 8 countries including the UK and
processes tickets in 180 countries. Investors include Sequoia Capital, Tiger Global and T. Rowe
Price. Learn more at www.eventbrite.co.uk
