I’d be interested to know how many of them are breaking even. Are they doing it for the love of it or for the money-making? Because i’d imagine there’s not a huge amount of money to be made once everything’s been paid for, with the smaller festivals anyway.

having gone to Indiependence last year it was an absolute cracker!!! Seeing RSAG at midnight with less than a few hundred folks all going bonkers and then see SFA with about 300 folks in a field….stuff of dreams…who can of course forget camping in a GAA pitch…quality festival…shame I’m missing it this year

@ Ally – i don’t agree that it’s all noise – it’s fundamental to these smaller festivals being able to keep going. My question isn’t really abut the financials in the way that i’m pondering if the promoters are making money themselves, more if the smaller festivals are sustainable enough to carry on the way they are. My reason for wondering is that i know i know a few of the organisers for one of the above named festivals & i do know that they’re still trying to make back money from 2/3 years ago, all the while trying to produce a bigger & better event this year. It just makes me wonder if they are right to keep pushing for it to get bigger, if that’s where the money is for the event itself…

Afternoon J,

Not to go too wide off the subject – a few “festivals” happening here this side of the Urals but nobody of any major interest yet…….
Yet to give a flavour of what’s on the billboards around the city – upcoming gigs:

Tori Amos, Boy George, Ozzy O, Roxette, A Ha, James Morrison, Seal, Placebo, Slash, Pink, Massive Attack, Skunk A, Killing Joke, Goran Bregovich and Leonard Cohen.
BTW – Faithless “opened” the St Petersburg International Economic Forum last night

Make your own judgements!

Jim@3

”Hard to know, to be honest, unless the promoters themselves are forthcomiing about it…”

I was at the brilliant, completely uncategorisable Flat Lake festival (Crystal Swing, Karaoke with sheep, Mr T and the Biscuits, Lily Allen queuing for an organic burger like the rest of us as there’s no VIP area) it had an even smaller capacity of 2,500. Everyone who attended received an email from the organisers yesterday (Kevin Allen and Pat McCabe) where they admitted they had made a loss of 10000 Euro – I like the way they’re completely up front about it. They’re going to hold a small event at the same location in July to make up the deficit to ensure it goes ahead next year.

Una – wait till the Oxegen ad campaign
kicks in – will make it look like a poster campaign for a lost cat by comparison

I’ve been sayig for years that smaller festivals are best. way better vibe in my opinion

Morov – what are ticket prices like for these shows? And any word on if the gigs are
selling or stiffing?

As one of the organisers of Cork X Southwest, I can say honestly that when we set out it was out of love of music, arts and the hope of creating something which could be enjoyed by many for small money. Dont get me wrong, I’m altruistic in many ways but I didn’t fancy footing any bills for it. We took a heavy hit the first two years and are still recovering but keeping it small has meant we can manage and we are lucky in that we have a good sponsor in Murphys, who have been very supportive to our event. Our hard work and the support of our loyal fans has meant that we have created something worthwhile and I commend all those who have made similar efforts. Its about time that small was big again.

I’ve been to many festivals in Ireland and the smaller ones are almost always a more pleasant experience.

J, ticket prices here in EUROS with a few showing min and max:

Ozzy O – 64 to 290, Roxette – 60 to 290, James Morrison – 64, Seal – 84, Slash – 52 to 435, Skunk A – 52 to 87, Killing Joke – 40, U2 (open air 80,000) – 87 to 230 and Leonard Cohen – 72 to 580 !!

Leonard has the pleasure of playing the 5,000 seater Kremlin Congress Palace, where all the Communist Part gigs were held – think I took you to see it.

With 16 million in the city, organisers will always find enough punters to pay the above prices, irrespective of any economic difficulties.

J,

Only in the last few years have we seen the appearance of somewhat decent venues and more organised promoters. Hardly anyone could travel and play here in the 90s – hence you see the pent-up demand for bands, including many 80s and 90s bands!

U2 never played here, hence the prices and it will sell-out. Lenny – you’d be amazed at who will turn up – from across all slices of society.

As to the flatheads – long gone my friend, long gone………

Remember one thing though – this is a “one-off” generation. Apartments were/are privatised for free, giving the punters serious worth and no mortgages. Hence all income is real disposable income and they like to spend it – hence “the Russians are big spenders” tag!………

I’ve gone to Cois Fharraige for the last 3 years and its consistently been the best weekend of the year. Pubs, sunshine, seaside and banter. I’ll never go to a massive festival like Oxegen again (memories of that are mud, mud, tents on fire, tents being robbed, queues, and more mud!)
Maybe I’m getting old (25) but smaller definitely is more craic when it comes to festivals. Fingers crossed Cois Fharraige will be organised again this year.