Consumption and audiences at festivals: The 2022 barometer

Draw­ing on its sup­port for major Euro­pean events through­out 2022, Weezevent offers an analy­sis of trends in con­sump­tion and audi­ence types at fes­ti­vals. Aimed at event organ­is­ers, the results are based on data col­lect­ed in 7 coun­tries by the WeezTick­et, WeezA­c­cess and Weez­Pay solu­tions, and answer 7 key ques­tions.

1. What is the average price of a day ticket?

The price of the typical* day ticket was €59 in 2022, an increase of 8% from the average price recorded in 2018.

The min­i­mum price record­ed was €39, while the max­i­mum price record­ed was almost dou­ble the aver­age price at €109.

Sim­i­lar to the rate of con­sumer price infla­tion in France over the same peri­od, the increase in aver­age tick­et price is not unique­ly high. We advise organ­is­ers to main­tain cur­rent prices, while tak­ing infla­tion into account.

*The aver­age price of a day tick­et is cal­cu­lat­ed on the basis of a stan­dard day tick­et for a Sat­ur­day, exclud­ing pro­mo­tions.

2. How has the average festivalgoer’s basket changed?

The average basket per day was €28 in 2022, an increase of 29% from 2018.

In addi­tion to cal­cu­lat­ing the min­i­mum (€13) and max­i­mum (€55), we have added a dis­tinc­tion between urban fes­ti­vals (+10%) and rur­al fes­ti­vals (-3%) as well as between small fes­ti­vals* (-20%) and large fes­ti­vals* (+10%) to account for these dis­par­i­ties.

The data col­lect­ed on the types of atten­dees (more and more VIPs) and the offer­ing of more upmar­ket prod­ucts — which we present to you in point 6 — seem to explain these dif­fer­ences in the aver­age bas­ket.

*In this study, the bound­ary between ‘small fes­ti­val’ and ‘large fes­ti­val’ is 15,000 fes­ti­val­go­ers per day.

3. How much does a festivalgoer spend on site compared to the cost of the ticket?

Typically, in 2022, the average basket was 47% of the ticket price. With a growth of 8 points from 2018, the increase in the average basket is higher than the increase in the ticket price.

This analy­sis means that for a €100 tick­et, the aver­age fes­ti­val­go­er spent €47 on site.
The aver­age bas­ket in rela­tion to the cost of the tick­et ranged from a min­i­mum of 23% to a max­i­mum of 62%.

This data is valu­able and can be used to cal­cu­late your esti­mat­ed rev­enue, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the case of a first edi­tion. It can also be used as an indi­ca­tor to draw up a por­trait of your atten­dees: com­pared to the aver­age, are your vis­i­tors extrav­a­gant or cau­tious with their mon­ey? You can use the answer to adjust your on-site offer­ing.

If we combine the festivalgoers’ average basket with the ticket price, we can see that the average revenue generated per day by a festivalgoer in 2022 was €87, an amount that has increased by 14% since 2018.

4. How is turnover distributed throughout the event?

Since 2018, the share of turnover generated by Bars has decreased in favour of Catering and Merchandising.

Below is the break­down of turnover dur­ing the event (exclud­ing tick­et­ing):

• Bar: 59% (-5pts from 2018)
• Cater­ing: 30% (+3pts from 2018)
• Mer­chan­dis­ing: 5% (+2pts from 2018)
• Oth­er: 6% (sim­i­lar to 2018)

Giv­en that cater­ing is an increas­ing­ly impor­tant part of fes­ti­val turnover, it would be unwise to miss out on this oppor­tu­ni­ty and not devel­op your food offer­ing fur­ther.

As men­tioned in our last arti­cle on the digi­ti­sa­tion of cash­less, click & col­lect could be the next step in your strat­e­gy to reduce wait­ing times at food out­lets, and increase your sales.

Merchandising has nearly doubled its share and is enjoying the biggest increase.

Although it rep­re­sents only 5% of the turnover gen­er­at­ed dur­ing events, mer­chan­dis­ing is the fastest grow­ing expense item. We there­fore rec­om­mend that you con­tin­ue to offer your atten­dees acces­sories, clothes, bags and oth­er good­ies bear­ing your festival’s image.

5. What is the proportion of partners and VIPs in relation to the total audience, and what do they buy on site?

The proportion of VIPs in relation to all festivalgoers has almost doubled since 2018.

In 2022, the aver­age share of the VIP audi­ence was 5% of the over­all fes­ti­val pop­u­la­tion (min: 0%, max: 11%). This echoes the rec­om­men­da­tion we made in our New Year’s advice arti­cle: you have every­thing to gain from imple­ment­ing pre­mi­um seg­men­ta­tion for your events. Many peo­ple are will­ing to pay for extra com­fort and access to ser­vices pre­vi­ous­ly reserved for part­ners and major spon­sors.

The average basket in the VIP area was 89% higher than the average basket for the total audience.

With an aver­age bas­ket of €53, VIPs spend far more on site than oth­er atten­dees.
To increase your event’s rev­enue, as well as devel­op­ing your cater­ing offer­ing, think about cre­at­ing zones and opti­mis­ing the man­age­ment of the wel­come offered to VIPs.

6. What are the average prices at bars?

To get an idea of the aver­age prices record­ed, we col­lect­ed data on three bench­mark items: clas­sic beer, spe­cial­i­ty beer (price and vol­ume sold) and soft drinks.

Here are the average prices in the other European countries participating in the barometer:

• Spain | Clas­sic: €5.25 / Spe­cial­i­ty: €6.50
• Germany/Austria | Clas­sic: €5.80 / Spe­cial­i­ty: €6.80
• Switzer­land | Clas­sic: €6.15** / Spe­cial­i­ty: €7.60
• Bel­gium | Clas­sic: €6.80 / Spe­cial­i­ty: €8
• Unit­ed King­dom | Clas­sic: €7.40** / Spe­cial­i­ty: €9.70

*Prices adjust­ed to a pint where the capac­i­ty is 0.33cl.
** Cur­ren­cies con­vert­ed to € at the exchange rate applic­a­ble on 01/08/2022.

The share of speciality beer* in relation to total beer consumption increased by 5 points from 2018, while total consumption remained unchanged.

Although the aver­age vol­ume of beer con­sumed per fes­ti­val­go­er has remained sta­ble at 0.9L since 2018, the type is chang­ing. In 2018, 59.5% of the beer con­sumed was clas­sic, but in 2022 this share dropped to 54.5%.

This data breaks the pre­con­ceived notion that the major­i­ty of fes­ti­val­go­ers con­sume the ‘cheap­est’ beer, and proves the need to work on the depth of your beer offer­ing by build­ing on the vari­a­tions that exist today. This is expect­ed by audi­ences, as well as pro­vid­ing an addi­tion­al oppor­tu­ni­ty to boost your rev­enue.

*Spe­cial­i­ty beer refers to pre­mi­um beer (ALE, IPA, etc.).

The average price of soft drinks in France was €3.20 in 2022, the lowest in Europe.

The price of soft drinks also increased in pro­por­tion to infla­tion. It should be not­ed, how­ev­er, that in urban areas, this aver­age price can increase by almost 30%, and in Ger­many has reached €4.80.

7. How can we take advantage of different audiences’ consumption habits?

These fig­ures, cou­pled with those in our arti­cle on the digi­ti­sa­tion of cash­less, allow us to draw three main find­ings:

• The demand for high-end expe­ri­ences is increas­ing
• The demand for cater­ing is increas­ing more than for bars
• Audi­ences are demand­ing a more advanced dig­i­tal expe­ri­ence

To meet these demands and offer an expe­ri­ence that meets your audience’s expec­ta­tions, you’ll need to adapt your offer­ing and con­tin­ue to devel­op expe­ri­ences that will enrich it (e.g. a mobile app, click and col­lect, pre­mi­um drinks offer, VIP pack, etc.).

We rec­om­mend that you use what­ev­er means are at your dis­pos­al to con­tin­ue col­lect­ing and analysing your data in depth. For instance, you can explore in detail the data col­lect­ed on your Weezevent account through the tick­et­ing, access con­trol, cash­less and mail­ing tools at your dis­pos­al.

Want advice on col­lect­ing and using your attendee data? Con­tact our team of experts!

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