Festival tourism connects live events with travel, overnight stays, local spending and jobs. In 2022, UK live-music events attracted 14.4 million music tourists and generated £6.6 billion in music-tourism spending, according to Here, There and Everywhere 2023. The figures below show how that national picture varies by region and how individual festival destinations convert audiences into wider economic activity.
Contents
- UK music tourism at a glance
- Regional music tourism in England
- Edinburgh Festivals: audience scale and visitor mix
- Edinburgh spending and additional economic impact
- Glastonbury and Somerset business impact
- Scotland-wide impact from Festival 2014
UK music tourism at a glance
UK live-music events attracted 14.4 million music tourists in 2022. This total included 13.3 million domestic music tourists and 1.1 million foreign music tourists, showing that the market was primarily driven by travel within the UK while still drawing substantial international demand. These figures come from Here, There and Everywhere 2023, measured for 2022.
The same report put UK music-tourism spending at £6.6 billion in 2022 and associated the activity with 56,000 full-time-equivalent jobs. These are music-tourism estimates for the UK as a whole, not a count of festival-only visitors or festival-only employment.
Attendance provides another view of scale. UK festivals and concerts recorded 37.1 million attendances in 2022. Festivals accounted for 6.5 million attendances, while concerts accounted for 30.6 million. An attendance is not necessarily a unique person: one visitor can attend multiple events, so attendance totals should not be read as visitor totals.
| UK live-music measure | 2022 figure |
|---|---|
| Music tourists | 14.4 million |
| Domestic music tourists | 13.3 million |
| Foreign music tourists | 1.1 million |
| Festival attendances | 6.5 million |
| Concert attendances | 30.6 million |
| Festivals and concerts attendances | 37.1 million |
| Music-tourism spending | £6.6 billion |
| Full-time-equivalent jobs | 56,000 |
The distinction between tourists and attendances matters. A tourist measure describes people travelling for music, while an attendance measure counts event visits. Together, they indicate both the size of the travelling audience and the volume of live-music participation.
Regional music tourism in England
The regional figures in Here, There and Everywhere 2023 show that festival destinations operate within broader music-tourism economies. London attracted 4.9 million music tourists in 2022, generated £2 billion in music-tourism spending and supported 13,200 jobs. The North West attracted 1.9 million music tourists, generated £696 million and supported 6,510 jobs.
The East of England attracted 570,000 music tourists in 2022. Its music-tourism spending reached £332 million and the activity sustained 2,920 jobs. The East Midlands attracted 510,000 music tourists, generated £321 million in spending and sustained 3,150 jobs.
The North East recorded 350,000 music tourists in 2022. The region generated £165 million in music-tourism spending and music tourism sustained 1,690 jobs. These regional values cover music tourism rather than a separately identified festival-tourism segment, so they provide context for festival destinations without assigning every regional result to festivals.
| Region | Music tourists | Spending | Jobs |
|---|---|---|---|
| London | 4.9 million | £2 billion | 13,200 |
| North West | 1.9 million | £696 million | 6,510 |
| East of England | 570,000 | £332 million | 2,920 |
| East Midlands | 510,000 | £321 million | 3,150 |
| North East | 350,000 | £165 million | 1,690 |
Destination comparisons need care. London’s larger visitor total and spending figure reflect the scale of its overall music economy; smaller regions still show substantial tourism activity and employment linked to music. The source reports rounded regional values, so they should be treated as reported estimates rather than precise measurements to recombine without the underlying methodology.
Edinburgh Festivals: audience scale and visitor mix
The Economic Impact of the Edinburgh Festivals reports 4,272,000 attendances in 2010, 4,538,000 in 2015 and 3,237,000 in 2022. The 2022 figure describes event attendance during that measurement year, not the number of unique visitors.
In 2022, 701,000 unique attendees generated those 3,237,000 attendances, with an average of 4.6 attendances per attendee. This shows how a festival-city audience can produce repeated visits across a programme. It also explains why comparing attendance directly with a visitor count would overstate the number of people.
Staying visitors from outside Scotland represented 31% of Edinburgh Festivals staying visitors in 2022. Those visitors generated £174 million of gross Edinburgh audience expenditure. Day visitors from outside Scotland generated £25 million, while Edinburgh residents generated £23 million of gross audience expenditure.
The geography is explicit: the £174 million and £25 million figures describe audience expenditure in Edinburgh, and the £23 million figure covers spending by Edinburgh residents. They are not interchangeable with Scotland-wide totals or with national UK music-tourism estimates.
Edinburgh spending and additional economic impact
The Edinburgh study counted audience, performer and delegate activity when assessing the wider festival economy. In 2022, this spending produced about £246 million of gross expenditure in Edinburgh and about £266.5 million across Scotland. The Scotland figure includes activity beyond the city, while the Edinburgh figure is geographically narrower.
After the study’s adjustments, net audience, performer and delegate expenditure was about £203 million in Edinburgh and about £169.3 million across Scotland. Net values should be kept distinct from gross expenditure: they reflect the study’s treatment of what is additional and should not be added to gross totals.
The study reported overall additionality of 82% for Edinburgh audience expenditure and 64% for Scotland-wide audience expenditure in 2022. These percentages describe the share treated as additional within the study’s framework. They are not visitor proportions and do not mean that 82% or 64% of attendees travelled from outside the area.
The Edinburgh Festivals generated £407 million of net output in Edinburgh and £367 million across Scotland in 2022. Public-sector investment produced about £33 of net economic impact per £1 invested in Scotland. This return measure is specific to the study’s public-investment and impact methodology.
| Edinburgh Festivals measure | 2022 figure | Scope |
|---|---|---|
| Gross audience, performer and delegate expenditure | £246 million | Edinburgh |
| Gross audience, performer and delegate expenditure | £266.5 million | Scotland |
| Net audience, performer and delegate expenditure | £203 million | Edinburgh |
| Net audience, performer and delegate expenditure | £169.3 million | Scotland |
| Net output | £407 million | Edinburgh |
| Net output | £367 million | Scotland |
| Public investment impact | About £33 per £1 | Scotland |
Glastonbury and Somerset business impact
According to Glastonbury Festival - Info, more than 140,000 ticket-holders attended the 2023 festival. Entertainment was presented across more than 100 stages, and the event ran for five days. These are 2023 festival-scale measures; ticket-holders should not automatically be treated as unique tourism visitors.
Glastonbury generated around £168 million of income for UK businesses in 2023. Somerset-based businesses received around £32 million of that income. The event’s total production cost was approximately £62 million, and its 2023 production costs were paid across 922 supplier organisations.
Festival-goers also spent an estimated £1.6 million in the wider Somerset community in 2023. This is a separate estimate from the £32 million of income for Somerset-based businesses: the two measures have different descriptions and should not be combined without a defined methodology.
The Glastonbury figures demonstrate several channels of festival impact: ticket-holder volume, the physical programme, supplier purchasing, business income and spending in the surrounding community. They do not provide a complete measure of visitor nights, travel spending or employment, so they are best read as selected indicators of local and national business impact.
Scotland-wide impact from Festival 2014
The Festival 2014 event impact analysis reported visitor-driven economic effects across Scotland in 2014. Event visitors generated £104.4 million of direct output impact, £41.4 million of indirect output impact and £30.2 million of induced output impact. Together, the reported total output impact was £176.0 million.
The same analysis estimated £87.2 million of total GVA impact across Scotland and said event visitors supported 2,515 full-time-equivalent jobs. These figures are for Festival 2014 and its 2014 measurement period; they should not be read as current forecasts or as a direct update to the 2022 or 2023 figures above.
Direct output captures initial visitor-related activity, indirect output captures linked supply-chain activity and induced output captures spending effects associated with incomes. The report also recorded £121.4 million of total output impact across Scotland from Merchant City Festival event visitors in 2014. That figure is an individual event result within the wider 2014 context, not an additional amount to add automatically to the £176.0 million total.
Across these studies, audience scale is only one measure. Visitor origin, repeat attendance, local spending, supplier networks, additionality, output, GVA and jobs each describe a different part of festival tourism’s economic footprint.