If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.

This has become the mantra of the independent festivals that come together to make up the Association of Independent Festivals. Running a festival is hard. Really hard. There’s financial risk in promoting an event. There’s many challenges to bring it all together. It can be relentless from concept to gate to close to debrief. 

It is because of our deep love and respect for festivals that we are invested in sustaining their future.

For the first time, we’re able to share new data within this report on the number of festivals taking place across the UK this year. 

Within this report is also the state of play within music festivals in 2025. As well as looking at audience capacities of independent ‘v’ non-independent, we also give a transparent look at the ownership behind these events.

We invite you to share this report with your friends, peers and colleagues. Without transparency on numbers, and hard, honest conversations with one another we can’t bring about the change in our industry that we all want to see. 

We are in challenging times. Festivals are falling at an alarming rate, the story in the numbers paints a stark picture. However, also within this report, a positive trend in our small data set that gives us hope. If you’re part of the AIF, you’re less likely to fall.

AIF is working hard to give member festivals the support they need to weather the storm, as well as working beyond the membership. We’re making sure we have a seat at the table with wider industry and lobbying the government for national interventions to turn the tide. This Festival Forecast outlines just some of the initiatives that we’re working on.