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Organisers from Pohoda Festival, Art Rock and InMusic discussed their concerns at the recent SHIP conference in Croatia
By Lisa Henderson on 16 Sep 2024
Organisers from Pohoda Festival (SK), Art Rock (FR) and InMusic (HR) have discussed the perils of maintaining independent festivals in the current climate.
“Unexpected things happen all the time,” Ivana Jelača, programming director for InMusic, told delegates at the recent SHIP conference in Croatia.
“No one predicted the pandemic. No one predicted a war in Europe in the 21st century. Organising a festival is a year-long job and things can dramatically change in that time. There are a lot of factors at play such as political factors, social factors, health and safety factors, weather factors and climate factors. There are a lot more dangers that have appeared in recent years.”
A primary danger for these organisers is inclement weather, as well as the resulting hike in insurance premiums.
Pohoda booking manager Barbora Bodnárová discussed the most recent edition of the three-day festival in July, which was curtailed after a thunderstorm caused a large tent stage to collapse and injure 29 people.
“Weather is getting more and more severe and you never know what is going to happen”
“I have never experienced such a storm [as the one this year] and we have storms at the festival almost every year and ways to deal with them,” said Bodnárová. “But we were in a situation where you couldn’t do anything. The policy we have in place wasn’t applicable for 20 minutes because you just had to take care of yourself and the people around you.”
“Weather is getting more and more severe and you never know what is going to happen. We just need to make sure we prepare ourselves the best we can in advance and assess it year by year.”
Though the Slovakian festival doesn’t have insurance for cancellation or inclement weather, it does have some cover.
“We have materials and structures insurance,” said Bodnárová. “Fortunately, we had a really good policy that was not that expensive… though I don’t think it’s going to be [that cheap] anymore.”
InMusic’s Jelača says she’s seen insurance fees for inclement weather “go through the roof” in recent years and points out that it’s a “security issue as well as a very big financial issue”.
“Insurance companies say that they will stop covering climate-related events because it’s becoming systematic and it’s not economically viable for them”
Carol Meyer, director of the French non-profit festival Art Rock, reiterates the point, adding that the cost of a severe weather event could end the long-running festival.
“Insurance is a huge issue in France,” she said. “Now, we hear from the insurance companies that they will stop covering climate-related events because it’s becoming systematic and it’s not economically viable for them. This is a real danger because if what happens at Pohoda happens and you’re not covered, you can kill a festival that is 42 years old.”
Bodnárová says that Pohoda is still weighing up the financial impact of the cancelled 2024 festival.
“It’s a slow process,” she said. “Many people are waiting for their money. We haven’t yet made a decision on whether to return a portion of the admission fee to those who would ask. We paid most of the artists their full fees, though some were able to settle for lower fees.”
Even without severe weather events and unaffordable insurance premiums, festivals are still struggling to balance the books.
“We are an independent festival and we’d like to stay independent”
“We almost never break even and we still need to find the ground after Covid,” says Bodnárová. “Finances are the number one concern for us as we are an independent festival and we’d like to stay independent. Plus, we need to attract younger generations so we can’t just keep raising the ticket prices.”
Meyer says that since Covid, Art Rock has to sell out to break even, and that finances are exacerbated by the concentration of major companies in France.
“Live Nation or AEG have relationships with the big artists and own the venues, the ticketing, and now they own festivals,” she said. “They can afford to lose money because the festival is a showcase.”
Croatia’s InMusic has also had its fair share of financial difficulties, some of which caused organisers to pull the plug on the 2023 edition.
Looking to the future, Jelača urged live music fans to support homegrown events and venues.
“Stick by your smaller events,” she said. “Stick by your local pubs. Stick by these grassroots movements because they do, in turn, give you bigger festivals or bigger events that will gather momentum.”
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