A special episode for you this week - where TPOM wonders: just how hard is it to run a festival in 2025, anyway? Spoiler: it's tricky, but rewarding! To find out more, we spoke to John Rostron, who started in the festival world when he co-founded the award-winning multi-venue festival Sŵn in Cardiff in 2007.

He's now CEO of the Association of Independent Festivals which represents over 150 independent UK Music Festivals – making it the single largest collective of festival audiences in the UK, with 1.3 million tickets sold.

So, we wanted to know what challenges festivals are facing today, and he shines light on what goes into putting a festival on, including sharing some astonishing facts and figures around the economics of it all. It's a fascinating interview!

As ever, we welcome your feedback, emails and – in particular – any questions you might have about how the music biz works!

Email us: ⁠⁠[email protected]⁠⁠

See you next week!

Steve and Stuart

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