Glastonbury bucks the trend…
Question:
How can music festivals beat the credit crunch?
Answer:
Put up your prices and borrow money from your customers!
It was announced this month that the organisers of the Glastonbury Festival are releasing tickets early for next year’s event, without the headline acts being confirmed. What’s prompted this?
For Glastonbury 2009, fans can either book a place with a £50 deposit per ticket or buy tickets outright at £175 (plus a £5 booking fee). The festival’s organisers say that the deposit will allow fans to ‘spread the cost’. How very generous and public spirited of them. But it does sound remarkably like a Christmas Club scheme….and we all know what happened to Farepak.
The price of a ticket for Glastonbury 2008 was £160, so the 2009 price represents an inflation-busting nine per cent increase. Michael Eavis & Co say that the price hike is due to ticket prices previously being set too low and barely covering their costs. But this does seem to be inflation gone mad.
Actually this may all be Glastonbury’s answer to the credit crunch. Any small or large business now has an option – get your customers to pay nine months in advance on the off-chance that they might wish to partake of your services nine months later.
Sounds like a great wheeze. And by the way if you don’t end up wanting to come (because we haven’t told you what our ‘service’ will be) you’ll only get £40 of your money back because we’ve used up £10 ‘administering’ your money. What next? Sainsbury’s asking for £50 for next March’s shopping bill? £50 for a meal out next June – but we won’t tell you what’s on the menu?
If you buy a ticket for next year’s festival and, at a later date, decide that you don’t actually want to go or can’t make it, what options are open to you? Not many. The organisers won’t allow you to resell your ticket and you’ll only be allowed a refund until 8 May (and even then you’ll still have to pay the £10 charge). Alternatively you can ‘insure’ your ticket for £3.90 (2.2 per cent of the value of a ticket), which is a pretty steep charge. Oh and don’t forget the additional £4.50 postage.
This is all about offloading risk on to the loyal fans of the Glastonbury Festival. Either that or it’s poor judgement on the part of the organisers. But watch out – if this one goes belly-up, there will be no bail-out from the Government.
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