More and more music festivals in the Netherlands are having a hard time. People are choosing more critically which festivals they visit and are buying their tickets later and later. As a result, more and more festivals are in danger of not going ahead. However, the major Drenthe festivals do not seem to be affected by this. “The wheat is separated from the chaff.”
Now that spring is approaching, many Drenthe residents are making plans to go out this spring and summer. There is plenty of choice for festival goers in the province this season: from the Hello Festival to the International Blues Festival and Pesse Music Festival.
Yet for years the offer was much greater, because in the 1910s music festivals sprang up like mushrooms. The peak was in 2016, with 1165 festivals throughout the Netherlands. In 2024 there were still 628, corona played an important role in this.
There are also fewer and fewer music festivals in Drenthe, sees music researcher Martijn Mulder from Erasmus University in Rotterdam. In our province, the number of festivals decreased by 45 percent between 2019 and 2024.
“The surplus of music festivals causes this decline,” Mulder explains. “There were simply too many festivals. The market was saturated.”
Mulder based his research on figures from the Live Music Monitor. This monitor records music events in the Netherlands where pop music is played. Pop music is a fairly broad concept in the monitor, so for example the International Blues Festival in Grolloo is included in the figures.
The monitor is not completely waterproof. It does not register all events, such as performances at football clubs or small-scale shows. Nevertheless, according to the researcher, the figures clearly show how the development has been over the years.
The decline in the number of festivals is partly because people are now more selective in the festivals they visit, says Mulder. “People used to go to a festival three times a year, but now sometimes only once.” Because life has become more expensive, people are less willing to pay deep pockets for a festival visit.
Smaller music festivals in particular notice this, says Mulder. “If people only choose one festival, they want value for their money. Large festivals find it easier to attract multiple artists and are therefore popular.”
According to Mulder, larger festivals also have another advantage. “On the festival market, costs outweigh benefits. An organization like Mojo, which organizes the Holland International Blues Festival in Grolloo, can better absorb setbacks.”
If ticket sales are disappointing or only start late, such a large organization will absorb this more easily than a smaller festival.
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