‘Too Many UK Festivals’ Claims Isle Of Wight Organiser


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Photo: Live4ever




Isle Of Wight organiser John Giddings has echoed the recent sentiments of Glastonbury supremo Michael Eavis by claiming the current UK summer festival season is overly saturated with events and is now unsustainable.

Speaking to the BBC after reports of over 30 festival being cancelled in recent months, Giddings outlined his belief that more smaller-scale festivals will suffer in the future.

“There are just too many events now in the UK and it’s impossible for them all to survive. The market is saturated,” he said. “I don’t think there will be a big casualty, I think there will be smaller ones. I think it’s like a culling affect at a lower level.”

While the comments are in line with Michael Eavis’ own thoughts on the current hectic schedule, Eavis did himself concede that a larger festival could be affected – in his opinion Glastonbury itself.

“Partly it’s economics, but there is a feeling that that people have seen it all before,” Eavis told The Times last month. “We’ve probably got another three or four years. Womad and Latitude are not selling out. We sell out only because we get huge headliners. In the year Jay-Z played we nearly went bankrupt.”

The Isle Of Wight festival has arguably just enjoyed its most successful year since returning in 2002, with headliners Kings Of Leon, Foo Fighters and Kasabian contributing to a superb weekend last June.


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