Greenfield Festivals Still Fan Favorites: Gigantic U.K. Festival Survey Findings

Ticket agent Gigantic conducted a survey among 3020 U.K. customers, asking them about their preferences, experiences and expectations when it comes to festivals.

61% of respondents said they still preferred a Greenfield festival over other types like city or seaside festivals.

Unsurprisingly, 35% chose camping as their preferred mode of accommodation during a festival. Just above 20% said they preferred to go home an sleep in their own bed, followed by just under who said their favorite means of spending the night was in a hotel offsite.

Glamping options and campervans were chosen by 10%, while a tiny minority said it was content with “just rolling around in mud.”

Medium-sized (12,500 to 20,000 capacity) and small festivals (5,000 to 12,500 capacity) are favorites among 27% and 26% of respondents, respectively. The 20,000 to 40,000 range of events ranks at number three (17%), followed by the major 40,000-plus events (15%). 13% prefer an intimate boutique festival with up to 5,000 visitors on site.

70% prefer weekend festivals over one-day events.

45% of respondents said they visited festivals in groups of one to three people, 38% usually travel in groups of four to six, while 12% said their festival entourage includes seven or more. Only 3% responded that they flew solo at festivals.

While 53% said they’d go to a festival if loads of people were talking about it on social media, only 17% said that they followed social-media influencers.

The travel-happiness of festival goers has been confirmed in several surveys at this point, and Gigantic’s is no exception: 60% responded that they were happy to travel “a couple of hours for a festival,” while 33% said they’d “travel to the end of the earth to get to a festival.” 6% preferred it on their doorstep.

The own car is still the main method of getting there by far, followed by a friends car and the train, bot of which got selected by just above 10% of respondents.

As far as ticket prices are concerned, 19% said they were willing to spend up to £200 ($259) for a festival ticket. 18% responded they would pay up to £150 ($194), while 17% would even pay more than £250 ($324).

For 15% of respondents, £250 represented the upper limit, another 15% said they wouldn’t pay above £100. 8% were willing to pay up to £80, followed by 6%, who said they were willing to pay up to £50?

The ranking of things people were willing to pay extra for goes as follows: showers (48%), early access (35%), phone charging (34%), glamping (29%), VIP bar (24%), lockers (23%), pre-erected tents (22%), VIP standing/gold circle (18%), Airbeds (14%) and in-festival transport (12%).

47% said it was important that a festival has a wide variety and high quality of food options.

39% responded they would till book a festival in advance, despite the stories of festival cancellations due to weather.

72% of customers said they felt very safe at the last festival they attended. Respondents were able to choose between 1 (very unsafe) and 5 (very safe), and the average rating turned out to be 4.6.

4% of respondents required additional facilities at the last festival they attended. Given the sample size of 3020, that’s around 120 people. Of those, 66% said they were very satisfied with the service they received, while 2% of customers were very unsatisfied.

Arctic Monkeys, Bruce Springsteen, Coldplay, Daft Punk, Ed Sheeran, Fleetwood Mac, Foo Fighters, Green Day, Kasabian, The Killers, Lewis Capaldi, Liam Gallagher, Lizzo, Muse, Pink, Pulp, Radiohead, Snow Patrol, Taylor Swift, The Cure and Led Zeppelin were among the most requested artists for the 2020 festival season.