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Fans Spend Almost Triple On 2022 Event Packages, Festicket Finds
Courtesy of Festicket – Fan at Mad Cool Festival in Spain.
One of many European events forced to cancel two years in a row, the event will return in 2022.
Festicket analyzed all orders made through its system for the 2022 event season with orders made in 2019, and found an average spending increase of 172%.
The average order value for international bookings stood at €550 ($624) at the time of analysis. Orders could contain anything from Festicket’s range of products, from tickets, to accommodation, travel and transport.
For Festicket, this is proof that “the past 18 months have harvested unprecedented pent-up demand that is now ready to explode.”
As Pollstar found in its own analysis and following reports from various European countries, a number of promoters have increased ticket prices to make up for losses incurred over the past two concert and festival seasons, as well as to accommodate for increased costs associated with putting on an event.
These costs could be a result of having to work around supply chain issues in areas where professionals have left the industry to find new jobs, or increased staffing to enforce the government imposed coronavirus mandates at events, and more.
There’s a general inflation of prices in other areas of business Festicket deals in, like travel and hospitality, which have been finding themselves in a tough spot due to the lockdowns, as well.
All of these factors, could, of course, also have contributed to an increased spending by event goers. A Festicket rep told Pollstar, that they did take this into account in the analysis, but given that the jump was by over 170% this was still very significant.
There’s no data offsetting a potential increase in prices with the increase in fans’ average spending on Festicket available.
– 31% of all international orders for 2022 are coming from music fans in the UK.
In England, all coronavirus-related restrictions have been lifted since the summer.
Leading the booking surge are eventgoers from the UK, with 31% of all international orders for 2022 coming from music fans in the UK. In England, all coronavirus-related restrictions have been lifted since the summer.
Unsurprisingly, the UK is followed closely by the USA, another market open for business again, which accounts for 28% of orders. Mainland Europe is still patchwork in terms of restrictions, making it difficult to plan event-related trips to other countries. Users from France and Germany account for 5% of orders, while 4% came from Ireland. Italy, The Netherlands and Spain follow behind.
Festicket also observes “a huge increase in the use of alternative payment methods,” such as payment plans or its “Pay with Friends” features. “With event-goers spending more on their events, taking advantage of the opportunity to reduce immediate costs is understandable,” according to Festicket.
– Festicket also observes a huge increase in the use of payment plans.
How much of that is due to people’s eagerness to get back out there vs. their potentially reduced spending capabilities is unclear.
The use of payment plans could also have to do with price increases as well as people’s reduced spending capabilities due to the coronavirus crisis. As Festicket states, “a staggering 50% of international orders for 2022 events have been placed via a payment plan compared to 12% for events pre-covid in 2019. Festicket has also seen nearly a four-fold rise in the use of payment plans for domestic events too, increasing from 7% for events in 2019 to 24% for events in 2022.”
Commenting on the data, Festicket and Event Genius’ COO Reshad Hossenally said, “As the live event industry continues to open up we expect it to unleash a wave of pent-up demand from eager event-goers who have been starved of live events for nearly 18 months.
“We are already seeing this play out with those events that have been brave enough to go on sale, such as the sellout Primavera Sound which we were the official payment plan provider for.
“It’s also incredibly promising to see the willingness of fans to spend highly on future trips and that our alternative payment offerings are being well received by event-goers as well helping event organisers boost sales during these challenging times.”
All the above data was taken from the Festicket, Ticket Arena and Event Genius database, up until Sept. 1, 2021.