The impact that festival season has on the UK

Potential and current students, even graduates, all recognise the importance of festival season. The build-up to the summer months that host events up and down the country, big and small; the feeling of being outside and partying with the best music the world has to offer, never fades. To success in the industry, there are a few things you’ll need to know about ‘festival season’ and one of them, are the huge effects festivals have on society.

For many Live Events companies, their winter month work builds up to the festival season; organising acts, schedules, and of course, all the backstage action including lighting, sound, and stage set-up. There’s such a tremendous effort by the industry each year to pull off the best experience yet, but what impact does this have on the UK?

Economic boost

At the end of the summer months in 2019, Mintel released information that stated Britain’s number of adults attending a festival last year had risen from 22% to 26% despite one of the largest events, Glastonbury, being in an ‘off’ year. Attending a festival is becoming an advent for many people, so much so that 57% of festival-goers would prefer to visit a muddy-event rather than head to Europe for a week-long holiday. All of these ticket sales add up, so much so, that at the end of 2019, it was announced that live music was worth £1.1 billion to the UK economy.

Environmental impact

Naturally, with these rising numbers of attendees, there is a rise in the negative impact festivals have also, mainly, environmental. Even though 67% of event-goers try to limit the environmental impact when at festivals by recycling and using public transport, there is still a considerable need for more to be done.

Each year, the end of a festival brings about social media buzz, the negative usually consist of the rubbish left behind. Tents, chairs, food waste, fire waste, tinned cans, the list is almost endless as to what you can find on a post-festival field. Clean-ups are a standard part of staff duties at the end of an event, but sometimes, such as with campfires, the damage is done and cannot be thrown away, let alone recycled.

There are many other ways in which festivals impact our society; raising varying political opinions, increasing the expression of individuality in terms of fashion and creating an influx of tourism to more remote areas around the country are just a few. As a student about to embark in a career in Live Events, these are impacts you should be aware of during your studies.

If you want to find out more information about studying Live Events at the University of Bolton in partnership with Backstage Academy, you can browse our courses here.