Boomstock: festival ticket sales soar
They may have required Hunter wellies more than factor-20 sunblock but music festivals boomed this summer, according to legendary music man Vince Power's newest stock market company.
The imaginatively named Music Festivals plc raised £6.5 million through a 65p a share placing at the end of June, which it used to buy Kent's Hop Farm Music Festival, the new Irish-themed Feis Festival held in Finsbury Park and Spain's largest festival, Benicassim.
Hop Farm 2011, which was headlined by The Eagles, Morrissey and Prince this year and Bob Dylan in 2010, ran for three days for the first time and saw a 34.4% rise in festival goers. Benicassim sold out all of its 40,000 tickets - twice as many as were available the previous year. The Streets, The Strokes, Arctic Monkeys and Arcade Fire were among the bands that performed.
Music Festival's chairman David Mansfield injected a note of caution in his statement, saying that while ticket sales had been well up, higher costs meant margins and the profitability of the festivals had been lower than expected.
Music Festivals shares dropped 4½p to 59½p, which means they have fallen just over 10% since they floated.
