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You make a great point @gigi21. Personally, I think it's a two factor problem, the first being what I call 'The Glastonbury conundrum' and the second being the general audience's change in how they consume music.   Before the pandemic, festivals would be full of acts who were bigger names, mixed with great up and comers and you felt there was a genuine sense of pride in who could book the biggest line up possible. You had a fixed core about 10 years ago in Europe of the 'big festivals' (Glasto, Werchter, Roskilde, Sziget, Benicassim, Nos etc) but then more and more smaller to mid sized festivals popped up, meaning the acts got further divided between these and then people paying more to get bands on 'exclusives' which took up more of their line up budget. Since the pandemic, I think there is only Glastonbury which sells out regularly, and it is a totally different kind of festival to a lot of these as it has sort of become a TV event now in the UK. It's the only festival which could book a totally uncohesive run on a stage of (for eg) Lewis Capaldi > Lizzo > Guns N Roses and no one bats an eyelid. 10 years ago, I don't know about others but we used to take pride in saying (for eg, at Werchter 14) 'can't believe we saw Placebo, Damon Albarn, Robert Plant and Metallica all on one day' and the days used to be great for a core audience. Loads and loads of festivals have tried to become Glasto now though, where they don't book cohesively and instead try and book themselves as 'something for everybody' (oh, you like KOL and your friend likes ORod, well we have both of those) whereas I do honestly believe a festival would sell far more tickets if they stuck to a genre/style (or a deviation or two within their core) than trying to offer 3 totally different experiences each day. If you look outside of Glasto, the only festivals which regularly sell out are things like C2C, Creamfields, Tomorrowland, Bloodstock etc, things which lock into a style and book a line up around that audience. I was at Nos in 2016 because they booked that line up you said, I wouldn't have been there if they booked (for eg) Rhianna, Rammstein and Calvin Harris (just looking at other festivals around that time which had those headliners, who would have been more than big enough but it wouldn't have worked for me personally).   The second is that the modern audience pays £9.99 or whatever it is a month for Spotify or Apple Music and they have nearly all the music ever at their fingertips. Audiences don't have to pay for music the way they did, which hits artists in the pocket so they need to recoup the money somehow to make it a viable living. At the same time, social media has given rise to enormous F.O.M.O. with the audience coming through. Therefore, bands who would have been one time one-hit wonders or line up filler are now getting elevated beyond belief. Acts like Noah Kahan charging over £100 a ticket and selling out Hyde Park because Stick Season was popular for a bit just wouldn't happen 10 years ago really. But even emerging from the pandemic, you had festivals in the UK really focusing on these sorts of artists and it just fully clutters a line up and festival experience. We were desperate for some sort of festival in 2021 and went to TRNSMT in Glasgow and I remember sitting some chips sat on a bench when AJ Tracey was on. The crowd was full of 18 year olds just stood there, looking at their phones, chatting amongst themselves until he played Ladbroke Grove. The field went bezerk, nearly everyone on their phones recording the song and singing along. And then silence again.    I'm not saying that has never happened in the past because it obviously will have, but festivals now in the UK are mostly just locking on to these one hit acts to sell out to an audience year on year, instead of trying to continue the flow of elevating bands up the line up album by album until they've got 3 or 4 under their belt and then taking a punt on them to ensure a constant flow keeps the industry sustained.    I'm not certain there'll be as many of the big festivals existing in about 10 years or so because I don't know if the acts are there to sustain them the way they were before. I've just really waffled on their a bit but I absolutely love going to music festivals and I just want to see them return to a glory which I was sadly just to young to fully be a part of. They'll probably have their time again, and we'll all find somewhere for a great time next Summer I'm sure. Personally I'm going to give Rock For People a go next year and see what that is like. But yeah, 2025 is looking like another less than vintage year across the board really...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5y74479yk4o   We don't be wanting this though.

DRY    

Music tastes change, people get older, 2016 was a long time ago.   if pop music sold more live tickets than rock music back then, then festivals would of booked them   there were no pop festivals as far as im aware of, people were not going to see Destinys Child, Steps and S Club 7 headline a festival back then. V Festival tried it a few years too early and it failed.   People now will pay to see Olivia Rodrigo, Taylor Swift, Billie Eillish ...   People listen to different genres now thanks to streaming, i see that as a good thing   i had an absolute blast watching Idles followed by Lizzo a few years ago. i cant stand a festival that is only one genre anymore.   before you listened to the one radio station that played the music you liked or watched the one tv channel that played the music you liked, and were never exposed to anything different.   its also harder for a band to make it big, if they do its because younger people make them big and the older generation who yearn for Green Day, Slipknot and Foo Fighters every year dismiss them as a young persons fodder.   im waffling now, i wont be going to this years Nos, not for me this year, but plenty of people will and good for them, not me to say they are ruining festivals because they like different bands to me.

To celebrate getting back in to the fells and bagging a few more Wainwrights (my main way of keeping fit, up to 142 now. Would've been 147 but van trouble yesterday scuppered that. Beautiful day too) I've treated myself to an early Christmas present