According to the Association for Independent Festivals, 72 of the 204 festivals that have vanished since 2019 did so in 2024.
The recent dearth of festivals is by no means a phenomenon exclusive to the US. In the UK, for instance, 204 such events have “disappeared” since 2019 according to a report from the Association for Independent Festivals (AIF).
The data includes festivals that have “announced a postponement, cancellation or complete closure” in the specified time frame. Of the 204 — the most recent of which the report cites as being Tenterden Folk Festival — 72 folded in 2024, twice the number in 2023, and 96 were “lost to COVID.”
“This has been a devastating period for the UK’s festival organisers,” said AIF CEO John Rostron, according to the report. “Ours is a highly important sector that offers opportunities to artists, audiences, and develops creative skills and volunteering opportunities across all of the UK.”
He continued: “The festival sector generates significant revenue in and around local economies as well as to the Treasury every year. We have campaigned tirelessly for targeted, temporary government intervention which, evidence shows, would have saved most of the independent events that have fallen in 2024.”
Specifically, the AIF has called for the UK government to temporarily lower the value-added tax on festivals from 20% to 5%. It argues that such a measure “would have saved most of the events” that vanished in 2024, claiming that “urgent intervention from Government has not yet materialised.”
Stateside, electronic music gatherings like Imagine Music Festival, Sunset Music Festival, and Envision Festival have announced cancellations in 2024 alone. As with their UK counterparts, these events’ organizers typically cite rising costs and tepid spending patterns among today’s 18-24 demographic as having contributed to their decisions.
