Festival spending spans much more than the price of admission. Australian music-festival figures show the scale of tickets, operating budgets, sponsorship and grants, while regional case studies show how festivals can circulate money through nearby communities. UK music-tourism estimates add a broader view of audience travel and visitor spending.
Contents
- Australian ticket prices
- Ticket buying and customer spend
- Festival operating costs
- Revenue, profit and loss
- Sponsorship and public grants
- Regional economic spending
- UK music tourism and festival spending
Australian ticket prices
The Soundcheck: Insights into Australia’s music festival sector report measured the 2022–23 financial year. Its ticket figures describe surveyed Australian music festivals, so they are useful benchmarks rather than a universal price for every event.
The average single-day adult ticket cost A$146. Reported single-day adult prices ranged from A$109 to A$249. VIP access was more expensive: the average single-day VIP ticket cost A$233, with reported prices ranging from A$149 to A$336.
Multi-day access had a much higher average price of A$441. The reported multi-day range was A$245 to A$689. These figures reflect the different products festivals sell: a single-day general admission ticket, a premium one-day experience, and access across multiple days are not directly interchangeable.
| Ticket type | Average price | Reported range | Measurement period |
|---|---|---|---|
| Single-day adult | A$146 | A$109–A$249 | 2022–23 financial year |
| Single-day VIP | A$233 | A$149–A$336 | 2022–23 financial year |
| Multi-day | A$441 | A$245–A$689 | 2022–23 financial year |
Access options were also common. Paid tickets granting access to the entire festival were offered by 92% of surveyed Australian music festivals. Paid VIP tickets were offered by 45%. Paid on-site camping was offered by 24%, while pre-set camping was offered by 18%. Those percentages describe the share of surveyed festivals offering each option, not the share of customers purchasing it.
Ticket buying and customer spend
Ticket volume provides context for ticket revenue, although the available figures do not pair each festival’s ticket count with its exact ticket-price mix. Ticketed Australian music festivals sold an average of 9,506 tickets per festival in 2022–23. That compares with an average of 8,116 tickets in 2018–19 and 8,001 in 2019–20, according to Soundcheck.
The average number of tickets per customer was 1.78 in 2022–23. Earlier reported averages were 1.50 in 2021–22, 1.90 in 2018–19 and 1.83 in 2019–20. These measures should be read as purchasing patterns, not as a calculation of average money spent: the dataset does not provide a matching average paid per customer.
Purchase timing also shifted. In 2022–23, 11% of purchases were made within seven days of the festival, compared with 7% in 2018–19. At least 61 days before the event, customers bought 65% of tickets in 2022–23, down from 72% in 2018–19. The comparison covers the 2018–19 to 2022–23 financial years and indicates a larger late-purchase share in the later period.
For an audience planning a festival budget, the ticket benchmarks suggest three distinct cost decisions: whether to attend for one day or several, whether to choose standard or VIP access, and whether camping is part of the event’s paid offer. The reported figures do not include travel, food, merchandise or accommodation outside the festival’s own ticket and camping products.
Festival operating costs
Running a festival can require a multimillion-dollar budget. In Australia during 2022–23, the average cost to run a music festival was A$3.9 million, while the median cost was A$3.3 million. The median is lower than the average because larger festivals can pull the average upward.
The spread was wide. Costs exceeded A$6 million for 13% of surveyed Australian music festivals. The highest reported cost was A$15 million. At the other end, costs were A$1 million or less for 8% of festivals, and the lowest reported cost was A$90,000.
These values are reported festival costs for the stated financial year. They should not be treated as a standard production price for a particular attendance level, because the source does not provide a cost breakdown by capacity, genre, duration or venue type. They do show why ticket prices alone cannot describe the financial scale of a festival: an event may sell thousands of tickets while carrying substantial production and delivery costs.
Revenue, profit and loss
Average Australian music-festival revenue was just over A$5 million in 2022–23. Median revenue was A$3.1 million, and reported revenue ranged from A$90,000 to A$50 million. Revenue exceeded A$6 million for 29% of surveyed festivals.
Profitability was mixed. A profit was reported by 56% of surveyed Australian music festivals. Among profitable festivals, the average profit was approximately A$2.6 million and the median profit was A$731,579. A deficit was reported by 35% of surveyed festivals. Among loss-making festivals, the average loss was A$778,849 and the median deficit was A$470,000.
| Financial measure | Reported figure | Period and scope |
|---|---|---|
| Average revenue | Just over A$5 million | Australian festivals, 2022–23 |
| Median revenue | A$3.1 million | Australian festivals, 2022–23 |
| Highest reported revenue | A$50 million | Australian festivals, 2022–23 |
| Festivals reporting a profit | 56% | Surveyed Australian festivals, 2022–23 |
| Average profit among profitable festivals | Approximately A$2.6 million | Profitable festivals, 2022–23 |
| Festivals reporting a deficit | 35% | Surveyed Australian festivals, 2022–23 |
| Average loss among loss-making festivals | A$778,849 | Loss-making festivals, 2022–23 |
The profit and loss figures should not be combined into a single implied industry margin. The available statistics use averages and medians for different subsets, and they do not supply one consistent total-revenue or total-cost denominator for all surveyed festivals. They are best used to show the range of financial outcomes.
Sponsorship and public grants
Festival income can include cash sponsorship, in-kind support, donations and government grants. In 2022–23, financial sponsorship was received by 63% of surveyed Australian music festivals, while in-kind sponsorship was received by 29%. Financial donations were received by 10%, and in-kind donations by 7%.
The average donations and sponsorship income per Australian music festival was A$176,707. Across 34 Australian music festivals, total donations and sponsorship income was A$4,843,047. The total and the average refer to the reported donations-and-sponsorship measure; they should not be used to infer the sponsorship income of every festival in the wider sector.
Public grants were also part of the funding picture. State or territory government grants were received by 40% of surveyed Australian music festivals. Local-government grants were received by 21%, and federal-government grants were received by 21%. The average public grant received by an Australian music festival was A$388,724.
Because the source reports receipt rates and average amounts separately, these statistics do not establish how much each festival received from every level of government or whether recipients received multiple grants. They do show that public support and private backing were available through several different channels during the 2022–23 financial year.
Regional economic spending
Festival spending can extend beyond the event site through visitor nights and regional purchases. Two 2022 Queensland examples in Soundcheck illustrate different scales of regional impact.
The 2022 Tablelands Folk Festival hosted 2,884 attendees across three days. It generated 5,832 visitor nights in Queensland’s Tablelands region and almost A$1 million in direct and incremental regional expenditure. The expenditure figure is specific to that case study and includes the source’s direct-and-incremental framing.
Savannah in the Round attracted 6,677 individual attendees in 2022. Intrastate visitors represented 82% of attendees. The festival generated 23,369 visitor nights in the Mareeba region and more than A$4.4 million in direct and incremental expenditure for that region. It also generated more than A$1 million in expenditure attributable to the Queensland economy.
| 2022 festival case study | Attendees | Visitor nights | Reported expenditure |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tablelands Folk Festival | 2,884 across three days | 5,832 | Almost A$1 million in the Tablelands region |
| Savannah in the Round | 6,677 individual attendees | 23,369 in Mareeba | More than A$4.4 million in Mareeba; more than A$1 million attributable to Queensland |
These examples are not an average for all Australian festivals. They are regional case studies, and the reported economic measures use different geographic descriptions: the Tablelands region, the Mareeba region and the Queensland economy.
UK music tourism and festival spending
UK estimates place festival attendance within a wider live-music travel economy. Here, There and Everywhere 2023 estimated that UK music tourism attracted 14.4 million tourists to live music events in 2022, including festivals and concerts. UK festivals recorded 6.5 million music-fan attendances in 2022.
Total UK music-tourism spending was estimated at £6.6 billion in 2022, covering festivals and other live music events. Domestic music tourists accounted for 13.3 million of the UK’s 2022 music tourists, while foreign music tourists accounted for 1.1 million.
The visitor-spend measure has an important methodological qualification. Average on-site spending by domestic festival tourists was £302 per visit in the survey underpinning the UK Music 2023 estimates. The survey data came from 2019 and were uplifted for the 2022 estimates, as explained in Here, There and Everywhere 2023 Methodology. The £302 figure is therefore not a direct 2022 survey observation.
The UK totals also cover festivals and other live music events, so they are not festival-only totals. Read alongside the Australian ticket, cost and regional case-study figures, they show the different layers of festival spending: admission paid by audiences, operating expenditure carried by organisers, financial support from sponsors and governments, and visitor spending that reaches the surrounding economy.