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The UK stay music trade skilled a double-digit growth in 2023 regardless of far-reaching operational difficulties for a lot of festivals and grassroots venues, per a brand new report. Picture Credit score: Nainoa Shizuru
Income from concert events and music festivals grew by double digits within the UK final yr, when the home stay leisure sector nonetheless grappled with “hovering prices in a number of areas,” in response to a brand new report.
That report was only recently revealed by LIVE (Dwell Music Trade Venues & Leisure), which produced the evaluation in collaboration with NielsenIQ’s CGA. As a complete, the UK stay music trade is claimed to have achieved a 17% year-over-year leap in “complete market worth,” which got here in at $8.04 billion/£6.1 billion (topping £6 billion for the primary time) and elements for “full worth in income and employment phrases.”
Live shows made up the lion’s share of the full ($5.91 billion/£4.5 billion) and, in opposition to the backdrop of well-documented operational hurdles for festivals particularly, grew their income by 19% YoY (in comparison with 12% YoY development for festivals at $2.10 billion/£1.6 billion), the useful resource reveals.
“A few of this enhance was generated by larger ticket costs, which have been inevitable in gentle of the hovering prices of labour, power and different key inputs for occasion organisers,” LIVE acknowledged. “Nevertheless, it’s nicely above the speed of inflation all through 2023, and displays a robust programme of stay occasions and a gradual enchancment in customers’ spending confidence because the yr went on.”
A breakdown of income attributable to UK concert events and festivals between 2019 and 2023. Picture Credit score: LIVE
By metropolis, Central London accounted for 28% of the recognized 2023 UK stay music trade income, adopted by Manchester (7.4%), Glasgow (5.5%), Birmingham (3.6%), and Edinburgh (2.2%) to spherical out the highest 5, in response to the report.
Moreover, by way of the exhausting numbers behind the UK’s stay area in 2023, pop, rock, and indie acts are stated to have commanded over 56% of the sector’s income.
In the meantime, on the employment entrance, the simply shy of 230,000 staff (49,357 everlasting, the opposite 180,000 or so “informal”) working in stay final yr marked a modest enhance from 2022 however a 9.4% increase from pre-pandemic 2019, the report notes.
Shifting to the not-so-positive elements of the UK stay music trade in 2023, LIVE CEO Jon Collins additionally acknowledged that the yr had seen “36 festivals cancelled and 125 grassroots venues closed.”
Sadly, the troubling development has seemingly continued into 2024, with experiences final month pointing to the cancellation of 60 UK festivals on the yr, as an illustration.
However these clear-cut operational difficulties and people confronted by grassroots music venues, nevertheless, diehard supporters are persevering with to shell out eye-watering sums to see sure commercially outstanding acts carry out stay.
Consequently, in the case of which excursions are hitting business milestones and that are being nixed, the preferences of undiscerning followers look like taking part in a better position than ever.
