The future of UK music festivals

With only 8% of festivals applying for the first round of the Culture Recovery Fund, and those that were successful receiving just 1.3% of the available grants, the Government’s flagship investment in the arts was of limited benefit to the festival sector as a whole. This was in part due to the needs, resources and management structures of festivals, many of which were not used to applying for public funding. However, it also reveals that there are lessons for Arts Council England and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport to learn about how they engage with, and meet the needs of, this important part of our creative industries.

Government-backed insurance is crucial to mitigating the Covid-19 related risks to festival organisers and enabling them to start planning, as the vast majority do not have the financial resilience to cover the costs of another year of late-notice cancellations. Despite the events and insurance industries proposing a range of solutions for how such a scheme might work, the Government have refused to take multiple opportunities to address the market failure in the provision of insurance for live events this summer and set the conditions to unlock the significant economic and cultural contribution made by festivals and their supply chains. Although there remains considerable uncertainty around the risks of new Covid-19 variants, the Government’s plan to wait until all restrictions are lifted will simply be too late for festivals this summer. With restrictions on lower-capacity, socially distanced outdoor events already having been lifted, the Government must act now.

We repeat our call for the Government to introduce a time-limited insurance scheme for costs incurred by live events scheduled to take place after 21 June that may have to cancel if there is a need for, or return to, continuing Covid-19 restrictions. The scheme should run until the commercial insurance market offers sufficient cover to the events industry for Covid-19 related cancellations.

The success of the vaccine rollout and the target date announced during our inquiry under the Government’s roadmap for lifting lockdown gave hope to many that festivals will be able to take place this summer. However, the lifting of all restrictions on live events remains heavily contingent on the Events Research Programme. Despite initial positive data from some settings, we are not confident the pilots will deliver the evidence needed in time to lift all restrictions on live events from 21 June. By the Minister’s own admission, festivals are unique settings and yet they were initially overlooked in the first tranche of pilots. We strongly welcome the decision, following our questioning of the Minister, to conduct a festival-type pilot in early May; however a one-day event for 5,000 people does not capture the full range of UK festivals and further pilots may therefore be needed.

While our preference remains for a comprehensive sector-wide insurance scheme, we recommend, in the absence of such a scheme, a targeted intervention that extends the Events Research Programme and associated liabilities to a range of additional pilot events, including festivals of different sizes and genres, across the UK during the rest of 2021. (Paragraph 37) The future of UK music festivals 33 The economic and cultural contributions of festivals

Festival supply chains and freelance workers cannot sustain another year with little to no income. Continued uncertainty about whether events will go ahead or a significant reduction in the number that do go ahead this summer will make it harder for skilled personnel temporarily working in other industries to return to the sector. We are concerned that this will have consequences not only for the safe running of events this summer but for the talent pipeline of this important growth sector.

We welcome the PRS Foundation’s Keychange initiative to increase the number of female artists appearing in festival line-ups, and recommend that all festivals sign up to it. During the pandemic, support from the public purse has been available for festivals, albeit to an insufficient degree. It is incumbent on festivals to ensure that under-represented female artists at all career stages also benefit from that support by appearing in greater numbers on festival line-ups in the future.

The UK has long occupied an important place in Europe’s live music ecosystem, and has traditionally been a starting point for tours creating work for UK-based freelancers and suppliers. The substantial UK-based infrastructure, including haulage, for tours and festivals is currently at risk unless the Government finds a solution to Brexit-related costs and complexities. We recommend that the Government report to us, monthly, on actions it is taking to alleviate this issue bilaterally and with the EU Commission.

The UK-EU trade and co-operation deal threatens not only the vibrancy of the UK’s festivals but the music industry as a whole. The cost and complication of moving people and equipment between the UK and EU will make it less attractive for bands from overseas to play at the UK’s festivals, and will limit the chances for UK artists and crews to build audiences and contacts at European festivals. We are not aware of any progress having been made to resolve the issues arising from the deal, and will continue to put pressure on the Government by questioning the Secretary of State, DCMS Ministers and the Rt Hon Lord Frost CMG.

Despite the good intentions and countless initiatives to reduce the environmental impacts of festivals, the growth of the market has undermined the sector’s efforts to reduce overall emissions, and the legacy of the pandemic presents a further threat to those measures. The Government and local authorities should signal their commitment to emissions targets by holding the festival sector to account on, and supporting, its pledges to reduce emissions, rather than letting it continue to mark its own homework.

We recommend that before the 2023 festival season the Government, the Local Government Association and representatives from across the festival sector develop standardised environmental objectives that local authorities must adopt when licensing festivals, and that local authorities should report back to DCMS on those events’ progress at reducing emissions year-on-year.

We are highly concerned that a compressed festival season, the likely circulation of high-strength, adulterated drugs and increased risk-taking after lockdown will lead to a spike in drug-related deaths at festivals this summer. We heard compelling 34 The future of UK music festivals arguments that drug checking saves lives, but in many cases service providers and police forces are being constrained by a lack of clarity in the legal framework and the need for a stronger evidence base. While it would be preferable for the UK to develop a dedicated legal framework for drug checking services, rather than try to retrofit the existing legislation, this will take time.

We recommend that, before festivals take place this summer, the Home Secretary should make regulations under section 7 of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 that allow organisations conducting drug checking to operate lawfully. Thereafter, the Government should introduce a dedicated licensing scheme for drug checking to set a clear legal framework and minimum standards that service providers must meet. Within the next six months, DCMS should convene a roundtable on such a licensing scheme bringing together the Home Office, the Department of Health and Social Care, police representatives, festival organisers and service providers.

With tickets on sale for festivals that might not take place, we are concerned that the difficulty of securing refunds from secondary ticketing platforms, and the industry’s understandable desire to maximise sales, could mean consumers lose out as the events industry emerges from the pandemic. We recommend that the Government assesses the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic in its Post Implementation Review of the Breaching of Limits on Ticket Sales Regulations 2018, which it committed to conducting between 2021 and 2023. (Paragraph 90) The future of UK music festivals 35