Template talk:Major British Music Festivals
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Criteria for this template?[edit]
To anyone who cares, also pinging @Orangeisacop: who did the most recent major work on this template (and removed Belladrum in the process - why?)
Is there any overarching criterion for inclusion in this template? It says it is about "Major music festivals", yet it does not include any of the largest folk festivals such as Celtic Connections, Sidmouth and Cambridge, or indeed The Proms, though it gives no indication that is is intended to be limited to rock and pop. Whereas some of the festivals which are included here are pretty small, hardly "major".
I don't mind doing some work on it, but I'd like to understand what criteria have been or should be applied: number of attendees, significance within its genre, longevity, extant or historical, some other arbitrary measure of importance? Also to confirm that it is intended (as it appears) to include festivals in the country of the United Kingdom, as the term "British" may be misunderstood. --Monxton (talk) 15:59, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
- My interpretation of the title was festivals that would be considered major, rather than major in their genre. Though I admit this is up for debate, I imagine that is how many would regard this template? I imagine this was why I removed some of the entries before when tidying the template, though this was some time ago so I can't quite remember the reason, and could have been accidental. Perhaps simply becoming a list for 'Music festivals in the United Kingdom' is the way for this to go? I'm also not sure The Proms would even be regarded a festival? Rather a series of concerts? Certainly doesn't seem to fit in amongst these other entries. At the end of the day, like you said, I'm not sure many care. All the best. Orangeisacop (talk) 23:31, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
Thank you for responding. There is already a List of music festivals in the United Kingdom which includes all (well, a lot more than this template) genres and festivals, not just those considered "major". Obviously you couldn't put them all in this template.
I wasn't trying to point the discussion of criteria in any particular direction, I'm just wanting to understand why the list is as it is. For example, Celtic Connections has about 60,000 unique attendees I think, which is obviously small compared to Glastonbury or Reading, but still ten or twenty times bigger than many listed here. If it was omitted because it doesn't happen in a field, then why is Tramlines included? I will see how difficult it is to get rough numbers of attendees for this list, if you think that is the only known criterion for "major". --Monxton (talk) 00:52, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
Update[edit]
I have gone through every festival which was included in the template and
- removed duplicates,
- moved defunct (but still major) festivals to a new subcategory,
- This was based on whether or not they occurred in 2019. 2020 is obviously a special case.
- removed festivals with a capacity of less than 25,000 as not major.
- Smaller festivals still appear in List of music festivals in the United Kingdom, just not here.
- I have added sourced capacities to the articles of all the festivals listed, though most of the sources are eFestivals. This may not be the greatest source, but at least it tries to be consistent. Several of the festivals have publicity which can be considered disingenuous, in that they claim an "attendance" figure which they calculate by multiplying the daily capacity by the number of days. In the case of a multi-day camping festival that gives a false impression. Hence I have generally used the daily capacity to determine the size of the festival.
Genres suffered from their usual confusion. Several festivals were listed under a specific genre and also "Varied genre", and the specified genre did not always match the festival's self-definition. By all means add some sub-genres into the list if you have reasonable evidence that the festival only programmes that specific genre.
Here's the data:
| festival | capacity | last held | notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| All Points East | 40,000 | 2019 | headline attendance figures are misleading |
| Bestival | 50,000 | 2018 | in administration |
| Creamfields | 70,000 | 2019 | creative attendance counting in this festival's article |
| Glade Festival | 5,000 | 2012 | |
| Global Gathering | 55,000 | 2014 | |
| Homelands | 50,000 | 2005 | |
| Shambala | 15,000 | 2019 | |
| Bloodstock | 15,000 | 2019 | |
| Download | 111,000 | 2019 | |
| Sonisphere | 60,000 | 2014 | |
| BBC Radio 1's Big Weekend | 32,000 | 2019 | |
| Midlands Music Festival | 7,000 | 2010 | |
| Summertime Ball | 80,000 | 2019 | Strangely, eFestivals does not list this after 2015, but other sources do. |
| T in the Park | 70,000 | 2016 | |
| Belfast Vital | 40,000 | 2019 | |
| Forfey Festival | 2014 | Didn't find the capacity, but seems fairly obvious that it is tiny. | |
| Isle of Wight Festival | 59,000 | 2019 | |
| Lilith Fair | Someone doesn't know what "British" means | ||
| Stamford Riverside Festival | 2010 | ||
| Summer Sundae | 2012 | ||
| TRNSMT | 50,000 | 2019 | |
| 6 Music Festival | 5,000 | 2020 | |
| Blissfields | 5,000 | 2017 | |
| Boardmasters | 50,000 | 2018 | |
| Boomtown | 66,000 | 2019 | |
| British Summer Time | 65,000 | 2019 | |
| Camp Bestival | 10,000 | 2019 | |
| C2C: Country to Country | 25,000 | 2019 | |
| Glastonbury Festival | 135,000 | 2019 | We are counting ticket-holders, not people on site! |
| Godiva Festival | 40,000 | 2019 | |
| Green Man Festival | 25,000 | 2019 | |
| HowTheLightGetsIn Festival | 2019 | I couldn't find numbers, but it doesn't seem like a major music festival, even if it is potentially a major festival | |
| Latitude Festival | 35,000 | 2019 | |
| Let's Rock (festival) | 10,000 | 2019 | Many different events, probably each with their own capacity, but they don't seem major |
| Lovebox Festival | 50,000 | 2019 | |
| Parklife | 80,000 | 2019 | |
| Radio 2 Live in Hyde Park | 45,000 | 2019 | |
| Reading Festival | 105,000 | 2019 | |
| Leeds Festival | 80,000 | 2019 | |
| Rewind Festival (Scotland) | 30,000 | 2019 | |
| Rewind Festival (South) | 40,000 | 2019 | |
| Rewind Festival (North) | 20,000 | 2018 | |
| Splendour in Nottingham | 25,000 | 2019 | |
| Tramlines Festival | 30,000 | 2019 | |
| Truck Festival | 10,000 | 2019 | |
| V Festival | 90,000 | 2017 | at each site |
| ValeFest | 5,000 | 2019 | |
| Victorious Festival | 65,000 | 2019 | |
| Wickerman Festival | 18,000 | 2015 | |
| Wireless Festival | 49,000 | 2019 | |
| Celtic Connections | 25,000 | 2020 | they claim over 100,000 unique visitors, the 25,000 figure is for the highest single day. |
| Fairport's Cropredy Convention | 20,000 | 2019 | |
| Sidmouth Folk Festival | 25,000 | 2019 | |
| Tartan Heart Festival | 20,000 | 2019 | |
| WOMAD | 40,000 | 2019 | |
| Field Day | 25,000 | 2019 | |
| Kendal Calling | 25,000 | 2019 | |
| Beautiful Days | 17,000 | 2019 | |
| The Great Escape Festival | 15,000 | 2019 | |
| End of the Road Festival | 14,000 | 2019 | |
| Wilderness Festival | 10,000 | 2019 | No article of its own, just a mention in Cornbury Park. The usually reliable eFestivals has a capacity number which doesn't match their own sources. |