V Festival: Sold Out Within Thirty Minutes

As I’m sure you’re well aware, for the first year in recent memory, tickets for both Reading and Leeds Festivals have failed to sell out within hours of becoming available. To be precise, we are now entering the fifth week since tickets went on sale and the festivals still haven’t sold out. I’m going to look at why growing competition from other festivals has hindered sales.

The first, (and most obvious) factor in this is that there are some extremely strong line ups out there this summer. Competing with Reading and Leeds we have: The Big Four in the UK for the first time together at Sonisphere, a T In The Park line up littered with huge bands, and the eagerly awaited return of System Of A Down at Download, to name but a few.

In recent years it is not just the big name festivals challenging Reading and Leeds with competitive line ups. Many of the festival’s big drawing buzz bands can be seen at various small festivals up and down the country such as The Great Escape or The Camden Crawl; Odd Future appearing at the latter is a great example of this. Tickets for these festivals can cost as little as £49.50 (before fees), that’s a quarter of the price of a Reading or Leeds ticket.

Isle Of Wight Festival Enjoying It's Fastest Sell Out Since 2007

However in previous years, both Reading and Leeds have sold out almost instantly, regardless of opposing line ups, so slow sales cannot be blamed entirely on the strength of competitors. Where the festival’s have lost out this year is in how late they have announced bands and put tickets on sale. Whilst Festival Republic, as usual, left their first announcement until well into March, many of their competitors stole months on them by releasing tickets and bands much earlier. Some even before Christmas (Isle Of Wight, Download)!

In these months it is pretty safe to assume that Download and Sonisphere alone (two of Reading and Leeds Festival’s biggest rivals) would have sold tens of thousands of tickets before Reading and Leeds had even got off of the mark, and therein lies the problem.

It is fair to say that your average festival goer is likely to only attend one major festival a year, (yes, the more hardened among us may end up at two or three, but we are in the minority). If in these months before the first Reading and Leeds announcement, these “average festival goers” are persuaded to purchase a ticket to one of any number of alternative festivals, it becomes quite unlikely that they’re going to be prepared to part with more of their hard earned cash for the sake of Reading or Leeds, because let’s face it, it’s not cheap.

By leaving their announcement so late, Reading and Leeds were relying a lot on the loyalty of their usual punters, who were expected to turn down bands such as: Metallica, Kings of Leon, Foo Fighters, Eminem, System Of A Down, and U2; all in the hope that the Reading and Leeds line up might be to their tastes. They also face the possibility of these festivals selling out if they delay their decision for too long. Simply waiting for the Reading and Leeds line up is a dangerous game, as proved this year by multiple festivals selling out prior to the Reading announcement.

Let’s hope this year serves as a wake up call rather than the start of the decline of these great festivals and that in future we see a far more competitive Reading and Leeds.