UK Festival Landscape Mapped In AIF Festival Forecast 2025

The UK’s Association of Independent Festivals (AIF) has counted all UK festivals in full for the first time, publishing its findings in its annual Festival Forecast.

“New AIF research has identified 592 music festivals in the UK in 2025. Of that total, 360 are green field festivals and 232 are single venue or multi-venue festivals,” a press release from AIF sums it up.

The Festival Forecast also breaks down the total number of festivals by size, labelling four as major (with a capacity of 80,000-plus), seven as “large” (50,000-79,999), 33 as medium (20,000-49,999), 334 as small (1,000-19,999), and 214 as micro (less than 1,000).

According to AIF, “Live Nation owns all but one of the major festivals identified, with Melvin Benn of Festival Republic (Live Nation) having a director position at the other – that being Glastonbury.”

The AIF analysis also approximates “combined capacities across various ownership groups,” with AEG’s portfolio totalling 230,000, Superstruct’s at 350,000, and Live Nation’s at 880,000.

AIF’s membership totals 148 festivals in 2025. With a total capacity of 1.35 million, AIF member festivals outstrip both Live Nation and AEG combined. Meanwhile, independent festivals outside of the AIF membership have an approximate combined capacity of 1.5 million.

The 2025 Festival Forecast also highlights the challenging landscape that festivals are currently operating in, and a range of solutions that would help ease the burden, such as The Fallow Festival Fund, which was launched by AIF in February, and the LIVE Trust – a new charity created to provide funding for programmes that sustain grassroots live music in the UK.

The Forecast concludes with AIF repeating the call for UK government to introduce a Music Festival Tax Relief which would mitigate closures and help support the recovery and growth of the festival sector.

Mirrored on other Creative Tax Reliefs, such as the highly successful Theatre Tax Relief and Orchestra Tax Reliefs, AIF’s proposal would support smaller festivals under 30,000 capacity with tax relief on eligible expenditure towards the creative and music elements that make up micro and small events.

AIF CEO John Rostron commented, “This is the first time we have been able to map the UK festival market by the numbers in such a detailed way right down to the micro festivals that make up such an important part of our sector. It illustrates the dominance of two major corporations at the top, with Live Nation in particular having an enormous grip on the festival market. But it also highlights the collective importance of AIF and other independent festivals who make up so much of the festival landscape. This will be an important document when it comes to describing our situation to policy makers, regulators and the media as we move through this summer festival season.”

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