Sales are slow this year! WTF?

[j...rox]

All the money Glastonbury Festivals LTD makes from Glastonbury Festival (20--) is donated to charity. So it is all the profit made by Glastonbury Festivals LTD.

I don't think they are in real competition.

[mrtourette]

Yeah, they must use some of the profits from one year for the festival the next, but what's left after that is what they give to charity.

[TalkShow Bob]

Exactly. I agree with mrtourette, I think FR gets a flat fee but it's just to help with infrstructure (the fence etc) and they have nothing to do with bookings. The donations to charity come from the Eavis' take.

As for the idea of R/L seeing itself in competition with Glastonbury, that may well make sense on a lot of levels. I'm probably extrapolating my personal experience too far but this'll be the 3rd year I've done both. They compliment each other as being so far apart it's more affordable to do both, R/L is just about a bands schedule as opposed to the more wide-ranging experience at Glastonbury, and R/L has a more rock angle. If R/L has a few acts not at Glastonbury (e.g. the Strokes, Muse, Pulp, Offspring, The National) it makes it look very attractive as a second fest of the summer.

[MEGABOWL]

Im pritty sure they dont get a flat fee as they own a 40% share of the festival. If they were just contracted in this wouldnt be nessaery. But your right, they deal with organisation and infrastrcutre issues not programming and arts.

[MEGABOWL]

I think your wrong.

[rexclark]

Every Glastonbury they give away £2 million to charity and Eavis pays himself £65,0000. The rest is obviously spread out with all the costs and staff.

You have to remember though, with no Melvin Benn involvement there would be no Glastonbury so really whatever FR are being paid it's worthwhile.

[thetime]

Every Glastonbury they give away £2 million to charity and Eavis pays himself £65,0000. The rest is obviously spread out with all the costs and staff.

You have to remember though, with no Melvin Benn involvement there would be no Glastonbury so really whatever FR are being paid it's worthwhile.

[hannah23]

They're still on sale.

Although I think when more bands are added a lot more tickets will be sold out, as odviously a wider variety of bands will fit more peoples music tastes.

This has to be the worst year for ticket sales yet?

[mrtourette]

It's only in the last few years that the festival has sold out on the first night, it never used to.

[hannah23]

Yeaah I know, the festival had increased in popularity though to be fair.

I suppose it's a range of things decreasing the sales.

Hmm, it'll be good nevertheless.

[TalkShow Bob]

Every Glastonbury they give away £2 million to charity and Eavis pays himself £65,0000. The rest is obviously spread out with all the costs and staff.

You have to remember though, with no Melvin Benn involvement there would be no Glastonbury so really whatever FR are being paid it's worthwhile.

[Benj]

Hey we tackled this topic in a big way on Strictly Reading and Leeds last week:

Taking a look at each reason in depth then brought it all together for one final conclusion:

Why Reading And Leeds Haven't Sold Out: The Final Word

Loss Of Community

Value For Money

Is The Line Up To Blame?

Competition From Other Festivals

It's been a pretty cool debate starter, haven't been on here in a while so I thought I'd see if you guys thought we were bang on the money or wide of the mark.

each one is written by a different writer by the way, and we don't all agree.

It's pretty interesting, I think there are so many reasons for it personally, and I wrote the conclusion/final word piece.

I'll be really interested to see if there is a strong reaction to this next year or not by the organisers, if Melvin plays it uber safe. I hope he doesn't, I hope he keeps the top of the bill relatively fresh, I like that "if you missed it, you missed it" attitude Reading has.

[Vacant0]

I thought the recent capacity increase was a residents only increase (at Reading).

Edited April 26, 2011 by Vacant0

[Benj]

Theres been capacity increases of a few thousand every year for at least the last three or four years though. I assume thats what Benj means.

[zeppelin]

I thought the recent capacity increase was a residents only increase (at Reading).

Has the Leeds expansion actually gone through (I'm a Reading man) I thought that was still pending permission for 2012.

Your bang on about ebay though.

Reading is safe next year, no Glastonbury will help everyone else to sell out you'd assume.

It will sell out still I'm sure, the VF guys were saying their were less than 5,000 weekend tickets left and that was a day after the announcement went on sale.

[rexclark]

not necessarily, me and a lot of people i know are planning to head abroad to a festival like sziget next year instead of glasto. i'll probably still be at reading but my point is it doesn't necessarily been everyone will just substitute glasto for another fest in england although it will have an effect.

[mrtourette]

(not that Reading and Diversity go hand in hand these days)

[Vacant0]

I wasn't criticising them for pushing new bands, I've been a huge supporter of doing this, at the expense of the festival not selling out, my point is merely, if we're talking about ensuring future sell outs, nothing would help more than the industry picking up.

Reading can make bands headliners, but it can't make them into draws.

This was my point, Glastonbury not existing should leave a lot of big acts open to play other festivals, but Reading hasn't given much indication that it would book any of them. Would Neil Young find a home at Reading in 2012? Or Bjork? Or the Chemical Brothers? Maybe, maybe not.

Edited April 30, 2011 by Vacant0

[rexclark]

Talking of diversity I would say R&L is the second most diverse of the big festivals in the UK. Glastonbury has a huge amount of genres but R&L does pretty well with popular genres.

[thesecretingredientiscrime]

Too harsh, R&L has a diverse line-up this year. If you look at the framework for the types of bands that are playing, the people they're likely to appeal to and the backgrounds/ages of the bands then it's a real mix, unfortunately a lot of the bands that have been chosen to fill it don't seem to be very popular.

[Benj]

Would Neil Young find a home at Reading in 2012? Or Bjork? Or the Chemical Brothers? Maybe, maybe not.

[mrtourette]

As for diversity that point stands. Reading has proved resistant to broadening it's horizons. They've not approached hip hop or rap stars to headline or subheadline the mainstage in recent years. They've still been closed minded to dance despite the never ending calls for Daft Punk and Chemical Borthers instead playing it safe Prodigy and Pendulum (the acceptable dance bands).

[mrtourette]

I see where your coming from but your argument lies with on three premises that I disagree with:

1) The using mainstream acts is inherently bad or by association not diverse

[mrtourette]

Okay, I was alluding to a straw man argument, creating a false dichotomy, that implying that the inclusion of a more diverse and array of artists would create some kind of slippery slope leading to the following bookings:

"So more Bruno Mars, Jessie J, Chase & Status, Tinie Tempah, Eliza Doolittle, Plan B and Kesha which would most likely come at the expense of bands that R&L pushes more than other festivals would, like Glassjaw, Rise Against, New Found Glory, DFA 1979, Frank Turner, The Offspring and Enter Shikari."

This is a false choice, it's not one or the other, and booking Robyn on the FR stage does not mean FR will suddenly lose all grip on reality and book Bruno Mars and shun Glassjaw.

It's a false choice, used for dramatic effect, it's a misleading and unrealistic comparison.

[rockinthecasbah]

(oh and I'd strong argue that PJ Harvey headlining the FR instead of Midnight Beast would do great business, sold out LDN dates, 10/10 from NME (first for a new album since Arctic Monkeys))