Festival Audiences Inject £213m to UK Economy as AIF Turns Five

• AIF grows from 16-44 Festivals in first 5 years, serving 500K audience
• Less AIF Festival Goers Feel Recession in 2012
• 50% Keep Their £ UK Bound rather than holiday overseas
• AIF Partners with BBC Introducing, providing opportunities to 19 emerging acts

London:- Today The Association of Independent Festivals (AIF) celebrates its fifth birthday and its growth from 16 members to impressive 44 of the UK’s most creative and exciting festivals.AIF has also crunched the numbers of a 2012 customer survey to find that despite festival goers spending less overall, than in 2011, they’re feeling the recession less.Throughout its festivals, the total AIF audience capacity reached 557,000 in 2012, and with an average festival spend at £382.49 per person, patrons of independent festival market contributed over £213m to the UK economy.  This average spend is a drop per capita from the last two years (2011 was £461.58) but despite actually spending less, the festival fans claim that the recession isn’t affecting their spending as much as past years. 69% felt the recession affected their spending on general entertainment in 2012, as opposed to the 72% surveyed in 2011. Purely on spending on festivals, 53% felt the pinch in 2012, down from 56% in 2011.Festivals also helped keep the pound within Britain as half the surveyed AIF customers claimed that they chose to go to a festival in 2012, rather than travel overseas.Despite 50% of the surveyed choosing not to leave the UK for their holiday, almost all travelled away from home for their festivals, only 12% of the patrons local to their festivals and a 42% coming from the South (incl. London).Interestingly, the majority of the festival goers proved to be of the fairer sex, as 54% of those surveyed were female and 46% male.AIF pushes into its sixth year this year with a variety of schemes including its continuing partnership with BBC Introducing. Building on the overwhelming success of the collaboration in 2012 the scheme has gone national; giving the UK's top emerging acts an opportunity to perform at some of the UK’s largest and most diverse festivals. The acts that made it to the shortlist represent the top picks for 2013 from across the regional and national BBC Introducing shows. Currently 16 performances at leading independent festivals over the summer have been generated from the partnership  Full performance schedule below.Coming from humble beginnings AIF was created by BBC Radio 1 DJ and Bestival founder Rob da Bank and his long-time manager and Bestival director, Ben Turner. They wanted to create a powerful partnership that would also nurture the festival sector, and went to AIM founder Alison Wenham to help them achieve their vision.Now, AIF offers the 44 members a united voice on issues affecting the festival industry as well as an unparalleled opportunity for exchange and networking amongst festival organisers. One such issue is the question of secondary ticketing, denying genuine fans a festival experience at a reasonable price, and the distribution of fraudulent tickets through illegal sites. In response, the association issued a charter calling for transparency in the secondary ticketing market, welcoming signatories such as Radiohead and the FAC.  In addition AIF developed an ethical ticket exchange system with Sandbag called the Ticket Trust, which is currently exchanging tickets for Beautiful Days, Nick Cave, End of the Road Festival and more.The association also runs seminars for promoters spanning the broad range of issues faced by festival promoters including crowd management, structural safety, marketing and promotion, sponsorship and funding, bad weather planning and sustainable event management, just to name a few. Over the winter of 2013/14 AIF will be running five two-day seminars, educating festival organisers on subjects including festival finance, PR and health & safety.Said Claire O’Neill, General Manager AIF “It is a pleasure to see AIF grow and evolve since its launch, not least for the inspiration gained from the individuals who are putting their heart and soul in to delivering great experiences year after year. “It is by no means easy and is getting no easier to organise festivals and survive, AIF strives to help organisers on that journey, and with such a creative industry I look forward to seeing what the next 5 years will bring!”Rob da Bank, AIF, Bestival and Camp Bestival co-founder said “Time flies when you're having fun, and the last five years of running AIF have gone by in the blink of an eye. Growing from our first tiny meeting with a handful of festivals, we're now very proud to have over 40 festivals under our banner as well as numerous friends of AIF and festival suppliers hanging out with us. Our monthly meetings are a hotbed of technical advice, heated debate and the odd bit of festi-gossip. Of course there’s no doubt we're all learning how to run better, greener and more efficient festivals all the time. Here’s to the next five!”BBC Introducing 2013 Bookings

FESTIVAL	ACT	DATE
Bestival	Ady Sulieman	TBC
Camp Bestival	Ady Sulieman	TBC
Brownstock	Arthur Walwin	Sunday 1st September
Stockton Weekender	Collectors Club	Sunday 28th July
Larmer Tree	Cymbals	Thursday 18th July
Y-Not Festival	Dexters	Friday 2nd August
Kendal Calling	Dexters	TBC
Truck	Dingus Khan	Friday 19th July
Wakestock	Esco Williams	Sunday 14th July
Nozstock: The Hidden Valley	George Ezra	Saturday 27th July
Belladrum: Tartan Heart Festival	Gingus Khan	Friday 2nd August
Secret Garden Party	Indiana	Saturday 27th July
SWN Festival	Masters in France	Saturday 19th October
Tramlines	Masters in France	Saturday 20th July
SWN Festival	Story Books	Saturday 19th October
Leefest	Story Books	Friday 12th July

 Notes to editors:Further Survey Statistics:Where Do You Travel From:I'm a local (I live within 20 miles of the festival) 11.4%London 14.4%England - South East (exc. London) 13.3%England - South West 13.8%England - East Midlands 4.2%England - West Midlands 5.6%England - North West 9.3%England - North East 2.6%England - East 2.4%England - Yorkshire & the Humber 5.4%Scotland 6.3%Wales 3.6%Northern Ireland 4.2%Eire 0.8%

 

 

About AIF

The Association of Independent Festivals is a not for profit body set up in 2008 to represent independent music festivals in the UK and Ireland.Conceived by Bestival promoter Rob da Bank and Graphite’s Ben Turner, the association’s founder members included Bestival, Cornbury Festival, Creamfields, Evolution Festival, Field Day/Underage, Secret Garden Party, Summer Sundae Weekender and WOMAD.With 44 members ranging from Bromley’s Leefest to the 55,000 capacity Bestival in the Isle of Wight, AIF enables the promoters of some of the UK & Ireland’s most innovative and successful festivals to speak with one voice when addressing the wider music business and government.AIF aims to establish best practice for festivals in a variety of areas such as security, the environment and beyond, providing a knowledge base for festival promoters, as well as creating collective purchasing and marketing opportunities for its members.AIF operates as an autonomous division of the Association of Independent Music.www.aiforg.com