Glastonbury is proof that music is a cut-throat business

Apr 9 2008 Matt Johnson, Liverpool Daily Post

AS THE clocks changed a couple of weeks ago and spring is upon us, I watched with interest this week to see one of the UK's leading music festivals, Glastonbury, sell more than 100,000 tickets within 24 hours.

Cast your mind back to the last couple of Glastonburys when the headlines were all about the mud and the rain.

It is still staggering that music festivals of this scale are attracting such huge audiences. Recent years have seen huge growth in the outdoor festival market, but organisers have warned this year that so many big events are happening that some are likely to flop as consumers tighten their belts.

As organisers compete for the big names to draw the crowds in, some events just won't hold the creditability and kudos of others.

As festival goers become more demanding about the quality and calibre of sites, locations and bands, the organisers are going to have a challenge on their hands.

Also, there is a ground swell among pure music lovers against what is becoming more and more a corporate arena. Smaller, more localised festivals are gaining large support as some indepen-dent artists and producers start to run their own events.

One interesting development this year has been that key headlining bands like Radiohead, Oasis and Coldplay have decided not to do the festival circuit, allowing other large headline acts to hold festival organisers to ransom.

Music may be the thing that makes us all smile, but it's a cut-throat business out there operating within the market economics we all work within day to day.

That said, with sell-out numbers for Glastonbury and other large festivals, I think there may be many more years of successful festival-going yet to be had in the UK, as long as the sun keeps shining.

MATT JOHNSON is chairman of Mando group