So this year the bubble has well and truly burst. Alongside the new festivals that failed to get off the ground there were also some established names that failed completely or suffered from lower sales. Meanwhile, the better festivals held their own or grew as they were hoping to do.

So what happens when Mean Fiddler's Festival Republic's Melvin Benn gets asked about the trends this summer? He doesn't pick on the festivals that suffered, but instead comments that he's heard that sales were down for two festivals whose sales were better or as good as last year.

What do these two festivals have in common, aside from having been lucky enough to have had good weather in an awful summer? It just so happens that they're the two biggest camping festivals that are outside the Festival Republic / Live Nation / MCD cosy little family group, and one of them is directly up against Melvin's latest project Latitude. Strange that, eh?