Photo: Live4ever Media
The organiser of the UK’s newest live music festival has said the established major events are becoming too similar and have started to ‘merge into one’.
British Summer Time will launch in June at London’s Hyde Park after Live Nation withdrew its Hard Rock Calling and Wireless events from the outdoor venue, and promises six consecutive days of food markets, film set-style zones and micro-breweries along with its headline acts, of which Bon Jovi became the first to be confirmed last month.
And promoter Jim King has told BBC Newsbeat this new experience for festival-goers will help the new event to stand out from its more established competitors.
“The research is there,” he remarks. “It’s very clear. There is a homogenisation, if you like. A lot of events are merging into one in terms of look and feel and service. Creatively we needed to come up with something drastically different from other shows and what had taken place in the park previously.”
“The big festivals can become quite similar as they mainly compete for ticket sales through their line-up but ticket holders want more now,” Beach Break organiser Ian Forshew agrees.
However Andy Copping, the man behind Download, has insisted any new venture will struggle to make an impact on the busy UK festival circuit regardless of what it hopes to offer fans if it fails to secure big name performers.
“If you haven’t got the big name acts it doesn’t matter how great the toilets are or how fantastic the food is,” Copping says. “It’s never going to change.”