A striking number of pop festivals will not take place this year – what is going on?

Earlier festivals such as Parkpop, Tuckerville and, at the end of last year, Indian Summer disappeared. The last few weeks there was also a line through Supercharged festival in Zaandam, Graveland Festival in Hoogeveen, The Rock Circus in Den Bosch and Mañana Mañana in Laren (Gelderland). The Katwijkse Haringrock will only continue as an Indoor Feest, Festival Grasnapolsky will skip a year because of the financial situation, and Dance Festival Ground Zero will therefore have a final edition this year, and then definitively stop it afterwards.

It has often been said in recent years, everything has become more expensive in Festivalland: staff, materials, purchasing, energy, logistics, transport, hospitality, the artists. And those costs continue to rise, says Berend Schans, director of the Dutch Poppodia and Festivals (VNPF) branch organization. « Often the margins are too small and the risks are too high. It is the high costs, but it is also increasingly difficult to get a permit, and the process to get it is also becoming more expensive, because you have to hire external parties to have things sorted out. » As if there are more festivals there are more festivals, Schans does not want to say. « I am not a prophet of disaster. But I want to say: if you are an organizer of a festival where the margins are not that great, then it is logical entrepreneurial behavior to think three times if you want to let it go. »

There are no cost and benefit figures for pop festivals, but Schans thinks that balance will spread about the same as for stages. And the CBS made it announced last month That although more sales had been made in 2023, about 6 percent, but that the costs had risen faster, namely by 9 percent.

Trend break

Thanks to the problems, the total number of festivals is declining for the first time. Schans sees the number of festivals shrink among the members of the VNPF – organizations that do not skip or take a step back, but no longer exist at all. That is consistent with the figures From research agency ResponseThat announced in January that, although 46 festivals were added in 2024, more than 100 stopped. That made the first year in a long time (with the exception of the Corona Years) that fewer festivals were held the year before. And also in 2025 the researchers expect a decrease.

« It is really a trend break, » says researcher Martijn Mulder van Poplive, a research project at Erasmus University in Rotterdam in collaboration with the VNPF and organizer Mojo. « Not only because of the large number of festivals that stops, but also because of the type of festival that puts an end to it. In the past two years we have seen a good number of dance festivals, since last year we have seen a very large number of small, free and medium -sized pop festivals. » It also strikes Mulder that it is no longer only the smaller organizations that are struggling, but that the bigger ones are also hit, such as the party factory (Mañana Mañana), Friendly Fire (Tuckerville, Indian Summer) and Mojo (The Rock Circus). « This shows that an organization with more financial strength is no longer sufficient, these festivals ultimately sold too few tickets. You even saw it at Down the Rabbit Hole, which was sold out much later this year than in previous years. »

Picket buyers

In addition to the increased costs and regulatory pressure, Mulder also sees a cause for the difficulties: “Ticket sales are much more difficult. People wait longer with tickets and become more elateral, because those tickets are increasingly expensive. And in such a market they prefer a premium product than for a festival that you still have to wait for the same money with Lowland one time with a little time with one time with a little money with one time with a little money with one time with Lowland once in a time with Lowland. names. « 

Worrying? « Partly it is just market forces and it is also a logical process after the extreme growth of the sector between 2005 and 2019, » says Mulder. « But it can be worrying if there will soon be a very uniform, high -threshold range. That Lowlands costs 350 euros is not bad in itself, it will only be worrying if there are no free or affordable alternatives anymore. »

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