Festivals band together

Another sign of the festival over-supply: A bunch of smaller events, including Bestival, Creamfields and Summer Sundae, have come together to find a way to make their events "more cost-effective":

James Barton, owner of Creamfields, said the alliance was a “real opportunity” to help “deliver exciting business ideas.”

This could be the festival equivalent of Happy Shopper or My Mum's branding, where independent grocers combine to challenge the multiple retailers through co-operation. Or, on the other hand, it could be like local radio, where everything becomes templated to keep costs down.

Given that festivals tend to feature much the same bands - just shuffled into slightly different orders - the stuff that makes the smaller players successful is their individual approach. It's hard to imagine that this sort of price-down driving collaboration is going to encourage that individualism to any great extent.