WeGotTickets Festival Analysis Reveals Steady Season

•    Sector Holds Its Own Against a Flat Economy
•  Festival Long Tail Growing Strong

6 October 2011, London:- WeGotTickets, the UK’s leading paperless ticketing agency, emerged upbeat today from what was a challenging season for some UK festivals.With over 200 festivals on their books, and not all music, WeGotTickets revealed that their sales “tail” was longer and larger this year with the total sales in 2011 for the hundred or so festivals outside their Top 100 best sellers being over four times the corresponding figure for 2010.There is no denying that growth has slowed in 2011. A glance at WeGotTicket’s Top 20 selling festivals shows a slump of 15% from the previous year, however a major contributing factor is likely to be the cancellation of a couple of boutique festivals in 2011 that had been amongst the Top 10 best sellers in 2010.That said, results stand in contrast to the company’s 2010 festival ticket sales, which were up 44% on 2009, following 2009 ticket sales up 34% on 2008.The Top 50 comparison however of 2010 to 2011 shows a drop of only 9% and the Top 100 shows a drop of 3%.Director Dave Newton says:"It is clear that some festivals have struggled in 2011 and I think that we’re probably seeing a ‘correction of the market’ this year. It was widely predicted that this would happen last year but it never came to fruition probably because quite a few events were still running through on the momentum of previous years.  But some events have still done fantastically well – and not just the ones that we sell tickets for! Shining examples such as End Of The Road sold out in record time this year. "From the perspective of the festivals that we have regularly sold tickets for over the past few years, we’re seeing that sales are holding up well. I wouldn’t want to speak on behalf of the festivals themselves but overall we’ve already sold 110% of what we sold in total during 2010 and there’s still a little way to go in the 2011 festival season – a few more outdoor weekend events into early October and then ATP wrapping the festival year up in December."If I were to make prediction then I think we will be close to 20% up on 2010 by the end of the 2011 season – and with WeGotTickets growing at around 20% then you could conclude that festivals in our sector of the market are holding their own."About WeGotTicketsWeGotTickets is the UK’s leading paperless ticketing agency. Launched in 2002, WeGotTickets works with over 4,000 event organisers placing it in the top five ticketing agencies in the UK.WeGotTickets has made it possible for organisers of events of all shapes and sizes to benefit from advance ticket sales, and now sells more than 750,000 tickets a year; from art events and underground restaurants to traditional live music and comedy shows and festivals.Since its launch, WeGotTickets has consistently pushed for innovation, transparency and best practice across the ticketing industry, with many of the company’s ideas becoming standard industry practice.The company’s 10% maximum ticket commission rate has helped to lower fees across the business, whilst its pioneering paperless ticketing system has been a major factor in reducing the live music industry’s carbon footprint.Over the years WeGotTickets has been proud to work on a number of special campaigns with charities such as Oxfam, Macmillan, Youth Music and Warchild, and regularly donates a percentage of their booking fees back to these groups. In 2009 the company launched a unique feature allowing ticket buyers to quickly and easily make a donation to a featured charity whilst purchasing tickets.WeGotTickets is now proud to be a full member of STAR (Society of Ticket Agents and Retailers) and is fully behind the organisation’s new fraud prevention kite mark.www.WeGotTickets.com