Five Percent for Festivals is a campaign asking the UK Government to temporarily reduce the VAT on music festival ticket sales from 20% to 5% for a period of three years. The campaign was created by the Association of Independent Festivals (AIF) and launched in February this year.
According to the Five Percent For Festivals official website, the campaign is solely funded by “contributions from those wanting to support the music festival sector.” This means they are asking for anyone who can donate to do so, and also have a section on the website where the public can find out who is their local MP and how to contact them. The campaign hopes to gain support by contacting MPs by writing a letter asking for change in the VAT amount on festival tickets. They also ask site visitors to download and share the campaign assets and share them with others. Assets include shareable images to promote the campaign on various social media platforms, and downloadable logos, presumably for promotion or advertising purposes. They also have a sign up section to allow continual updates on the situation.
AIF is a UK based non for profit organisation that represents many of the UKs independent music festivals. The Five Percent For Festivals initiative is just one part of the wider picture of what they do for the festival industry. According to their website, their four main aims are growing membership, providing a network of promoters to allow festival organisers to connect, government lobbying (which the Five Percent For Festivals campaign is a part of), and festival congress. Currently they represent over 150 festivals and claim to have the UK’s biggest gathering of independent festivals for their festival congress.
This summer, it was reported that 60 UK festivals had been shut down or cancelled. In a comment earlier this year, the CEO of AIF, John Rostron, said, “The number of festivals forced to cancel, postpone or shut down entirely in 2024, largely because of unpredictable costs and a credit crunch within the sector, shows no signs of slowing”. This all comes at a time where many sectors of the UK music industry are struggling, from independent venues, and events to the nightlife and nightclubs. The Autumn Budget further exacerbates these issues due to the lack of funding, despite over 60 nightclubs closing down in what has been dubbed an ‘unprecedented crisis’. It’s widely agreed that the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic are still being felt, and the financial climate in the UK means independent festivals, as well as the wider UK music scene, are affected.
In a more recent interview, Rostron commented: “We really are at a critical point for the UK’s festival sector… Five years ago, it would have been impossible to imagine that promoters would have to endure something as damaging as the Covid-19 pandemic – but many of them did, without passing the inevitable cost onto the consumer. To think that, since then, they have had to manage the effects of Brexit, war in Ukraine, inflation and an energy crisis is staggering. That festival-goers were able to enjoy some of the fantastic events they did in 2023 is testament to the resilience and passion of those promoters.”
The situation has yet to improve, with festivals like Readipop already being cancelled for 2025, and the list is likely to rise. The importance of campaigns like Five Percent For Festivals have never been as integral as they are right now.
