Is The UK Festival Scene In Strife?

The official cancellation of Sonisphere has raised the question of whether the UK festival bubble has burst worse than first thought.

After being leaked by Queen this week, the festival's organisers issed a statement confirming the news.

The event was to feature Queen and Faith No More as well as Australian acts Wolfmother, The Getaway Plan and I Killed The Prom Queen.

“It is with very heavy hearts and much regret that we announce the cancellation of Sonisphere Knebworth 2012,” organisers said.

“Putting the festival together in what is proving to be a very challenging year was more difficult than we anticipated and we have spent the last few months fighting hard to keep Sonisphere in the calendar. Unfortunately circumstances have dictated that we would be unable to run the festival to a standard that both the artists and that Sonisphere's audience would rightly expect.”

It's the latest casualty in a UK season that is mirroring the struggles the Australian circuit had last year. Elsewhere in the region, Big Chill is not happening this year, neither is Ireland's Oxegen, High Voltage, Wizard and Future Festival among others.

Perhaps most significant is the fact that Glastonbury – one of the world's most renowned music festivals – is skipping 2012 to focus on 2013.

Some promoters, like those at the Big Chill, are putting the decision down to the clash with the upcoming London Olympics, but with more economic woes plaguing Europe (the word 'recession' is being through around in the British press) it appears that there is more significant damage being done to the market.

Speaking to The Times last year, Glastonbury boss Michael Eavis said that festivals were having to think short-term sustainability.

“Partly it's economics, but there is a feeling that that people have seen it all before. We've probably got another three or four years. WOMAD and Latitude are not selling out. We sell out only because we get huge headliners. In the year Jay-Z played we nearly went bankrupt.”

On the flip-side, recent reports are indicating that Scotland's music festival market is going through a boom period.

Will Page, chief economist at PRS for Music, said, “What you're seeing is that big festivals like T in the Park are as big as they can be.

“Boutique festivals are cropping up everywhere – Knockengorroch in the southwest of Scotland, for example – and that's actually driving this growth.”