Association of Independent Festivals Publishes Annual Festival Forecast

The UK’s Association of Independent Festivals (AIF) has created a comprehensive list of festivals in the UK in 2025 as part of its [2025 Festival Forecast](https://www.aiforg.com/forecast2025).

The stats:

• AIF identified 592 music festivals, 360 of which are green field festivals, with 232 single venue or multi-venue festivals.

• This is a drop from the 800-900 festivals in 2018/2019.

• Four 2025 festivals are major (80,000+ capacity), seven are large (50,000-79,999), 33 are medium (20,000-49,999), 334 are small (1,000-19,999) and 214 are micro (less than 1,000).

• Of the four major events, Live Nation owns three. The other is Glastonbury, at which Melvin Benn of Festival Republic (Live Nation) has a director position.

• AIF has also estimated “combined capacities across venue ownership groups,” with AEG’s portfolio totalling 230,000, Superstruct’s 350,000 and Live Nation’s 880,000.

• AIF membership totals 148 festivals in 2025, with a total capacity of 1.35 million.

Also in the report:

• The 2025 Festival Forecast suggests several solutions to help with the challenging conditions in which festivals are operating.

• They include The Fallow Festival Fund, which offers independent festivals free AIF membership for 12 months; and the LIVE Trust, which provides funding for the UK’s grassroots music sector.

• AIF also calls on the UK government to introduce a Music Festival Tax Relief, focused on supporting festivals under 30,000 capacity.

What they said:

• John Rostron, AIF CEO: “[Mapping the UK festival market by numbers] illustrates the dominance of two major corporations at the top, with Live Nation in particular having an enormous grip on the festival market. But it also highlights the collective importance of AIF and other independent festivals who make up so much of the festival landscape. This will be an important document when it comes to describing our situation to policy makers, regulators and the media as we move through this summer festival season.”