The problem of high fees for music festivals has become strange, and thousands of music fans have called for it, and it seems that the organizers are ready to reduce the "sincerity" of the price. Especially since the recovery of the offline performance market this year, the topic of "music festival ticket prices are too high" has constantly rushed to the hot search.

Recently, at the Yellow Bohai Midi Music Festival held in Yantai, founder Zhang Fan's speech was praised by many music fans. At the end of the stage, Zhang Fan took the stage to speak, and he appealed to all fans: "If you want to bring down the ticket price of the music festival, you must press it." "Let all young people in China have money to participate in music festivals." On the one hand, music fans shouted "price reduction", on the other hand, the organizer revealed that "it is difficult to reduce the price", what is the difficulty of reducing the price of the music festival? The reporter interviewed industry insiders in the offline performance market.

Yangtze Evening News/Purple Cow News reporter Sun Qingyun

Music fans have suffered from "high music festival ticket prices" for a long time

The problem of high ticket prices at music festivals has often been complained about by music fans in the past two years. Last year, people borrowed the popular meme of "ice cream assassins" and called these high-ticket music festivals "assassins."

The Cactus Music Festival, which opened in Chengdu last year, although the lineup was quite luxurious, inviting well-known singers or bands such as Pu Shu, New Pants Team, Pain Yang, and Rejuvenation Dan, but the high ticket prices still "dissuaded" many fans. The reporter found that the price of the music festival has doubled and doubled in just five years. Taking the early bird ticket price of the Cactus Music Festival as an example, it was charged 2018 yuan in 260, and in 2019, the ticket price rose to 350 yuan, and the price was 2021 yuan in 588, and it directly soared to 2022 yuan in 699.

This year, the offline market has recovered one after another, and the topic of random charges for music festivals has once again rushed to the hot search. The price has doubled, many ticket prices often start at four or five hundred yuan, and many single-day tickets remain between 700-1000 yuan.

Music fans have suffered from "high music festival ticket prices" for a long time. The reporter searched on social platforms, and when each music festival was ticketed, almost all netizens could see a post saying: "Can the ticket price be reduced?" ”

Why are festival ticket prices so high?

Before the festival ticket prices were stabilized and regulated, the popularity of the music festival market had been pushed to a climax. According to the "2023 May Day" Travel Vane" released by Fliggy this year, hundreds of concerts and music festivals will be held across the country before and after the May Day holiday, which is the first outbreak window for the performance market in more than three years.

However, what is embarrassing is that after May Day this year, I can see many music fans who participated in the music festival post articles complaining: "The atmosphere is not as good as expected" and "I won't go next time"... Such remarks are made because these fans spent a lot of money on tickets, originally had high expectations, but the live experience was far behind their imagination. A music critic once commented on the matter: This is not just a loss for fans, it makes consumers chill, and it is the music market that should ultimately feel "lost".

What is the reason behind the high ticket prices of the festival from the perspective of the organizers? Zhang Yi, a practitioner in the offline performance industry and project manager of Sony Music Live's department, told reporters that in fact, the main source of revenue for the music festival is not the box office of the audience, "With a high flow of people, attracting title manufacturers is the key." ”

But running a music festival always requires expense. Zhang Yi introduced that the main costs are "three", one is the cost of the venue, one is the cost of construction, and the other is the appearance cost of the performing artist, "These three costs are rising, which is the main reason for the high ticket price of the music festival." ”

"The cost of the first two parts is difficult to push down." As for the third part, from his personal point of view, most of the domestic music festival models are still in a state of "copy and paste", and it is difficult to form a music festival brand that can attract regular fans to enter. So the audience buys tickets, focusing on the "lineup", most of them are coming to the participating band artists. This has led to many organizers not taking too much "risk" to tap into niche music teams, and over time, the cost of the third part is also raised. In addition, he also noticed that over the years, many organizers have been "retail investors", and the money earned by holding one session is also a major reason for the current unstable market fees of music festivals. As a practitioner in the music festival industry, Zhang Yi still hopes that the music festival market can return to a healthy state as soon as possible.