Belgian festival Tomorrowland sold 200,000 tickets in a record 18 minutes during its presale for Belgian visitors, beating last year’s 27-minute sellout.

The final batch of tickets for the electronic music extravaganza were snapped up in a matter of hours during last weekend’s global pre-sale.

Tomorrowland 2025 will welcome 400,000 ticket holders across two weekends to Boom, in the province of Antwerp, from 18–20 and 25–27 July.

The 2025 instalment will feature artists such as David Guetta, Charlotte De Witte, Armin Van Buuren, Martin Garrix, Netsky, and Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike.

Before heading to Boom, Tomorrowland will stop in Colombia for CORE Medellín in February, then in France for Tomorrowland Winter in Alpe d’Huez in March.

Tomorrowland isn’t the only festival that has reported sellout success for 2025; Wacken Open Air, Primavera Sound, Greenfield Fest and Electric Picnic have also seen tickets fly off the shelf.

Tickets for the 2025 edition of Electric Picnic, Ireland’s biggest music festival, sold out more than a year in advance without a single act being announced.

Green Man, the largest festival in Wales, sold out in a record 60 minutes and without a single act announced

General admission tickets, priced €290, were snapped up within hours. The Festival Republic-promoted festival also operates a loyalty scheme, offering discounted passes for previous attendees.

Electric Picnic will be held at Stradbally Hall in Stradbally, County Laois, from 29-31 August next year, reverting to its traditional late summer date.

Similarly, Green Man, the largest festival in Wales, sold out in a record 60 minutes and without a single act announced. Organisers say the 25,000-capacity, independently owned event is the first UK festival to sell out for 2025.

The festival is set to return to the Black Mountains in the Bannau Brycheiniog National Park in Wales from the 14–17 August with a programme that spans music, comedy, literature, film, performance and installation art, wellness and science.

Elsewhere, the 2025 edition of German heavy metal festival Wacken Open Air (WOA) sold out nine months in advance. The majority of the 85,000 tickets were snapped up days after the 4 August 2024 pre-sale, with the remainder shifted by 30 September.

The 34th edition will return to Wacken, Schleswig-Holstein, between 30 July to 2 August 2025, with acts including Machine Head, Saltatio Mortis, Papa Roach, Gojira, Apocalyptica and more.

Primavera Sound Barcelona also enjoyed sellout success, having shifted all tickets to its 23rd edition five months in advance of the event.

All full festival passes and day tickets were snapped up within 67 days of going on sale for the 75,000-cap festival at Parc Del Fòrum.

Organisers believe the feat offers an endorsement of the 2025 bill, which is headlined by Charli XCX & Troye Sivan, Sabrina Carpenter and Chappell Roan from 5-7 June.

Get more stories like this in your inbox by signing up for IQ Index, IQ’s free email digest of essential live music industry news.

Green Man, the largest festival in Wales, has sold out in a record 60 minutes and without a single act announced.

Organisers say the 25,000-capacity, independently owned event is the first UK festival to sell out for 2025.

Tickets for the 23rd edition of the festival went on sale at 10:00 on Saturday (28 September) and were sold out by 11:00.

Green Man was also the first UK festival to sell out for the 2024 season, which it did in just two hours without any line-up announced.

The festival is set to return to the Black Mountains in the Bannau Brycheiniog National Park in Wales from the 14–17 August 2025 with a programme that spans music, comedy, literature, film, performance and installation art, wellness and science.

Green Man was also the first UK festival to sell out for the 2024 season, which it did in just two hours without a line-up

“A huge diolch [thank you] – how wonderful you are!” says Fiona Stewart, owner and managing director of Green Man.

“Thank you, your support means the world to us. We are so excited about the plans for Green Man 2025, and we can’t wait to see your faces when you join us in the magical Black Mountains of Bannau Brycheiniog next August.”

Green Man has previously hosted performances from Fontaines DC, Michael Kiwanuka, Self Esteem, First Aid Kit and Kae Tempest across its ten stages.

The festival claims to be one of three remaining large independent festivals in the UK and the only large festival – independent or major – to refuse sponsorship.

The female-owned festival generates £10 million into the Welsh economy and boasts a Gold Charter by Attitude is Everything, a charity that improves accessibility for people with disabilities across the events industry.

Get more stories like this in your inbox by signing up for IQ Index, IQ’s free email digest of essential live music industry news.

The 20th anniversary Green Man festival in Wales sold out in a record three days, and 11 months ahead of next year’s event.

“It was incredible,” says owner and managing director Fiona Stewart. Next year’s anniversary festival (18-21 August) will be headlined by Michael Kiwanuka, with weekend tickets costing £210 ($287), and Stewart says there will be plenty of surprises for festival-goers.

“It’s lovely to feel we’ve been able to retain our core values for 20 years. The
festival industry has changed so much in that time.”

“Earlier this year we didn’t know if Green Man would be able to go ahead or not due to Covid restrictions, so we put a lot of energy into planning the 20th anniversary. By the time it opens, there will be three years of pent-up creativity that have gone into it.

“It’s lovely to feel we’ve been able to retain our core values for 20 years. The festival industry has changed so much in that time.”

This year’s event went ahead with short notice, with performances by Mogwai, Caribou, Fontaines DC, Thundercat, Self Esteem and Black Midi.

Stewart says being small independent festival meant it was able to be very agile during the Covid restrictions, adding many of the traders and companies it works with are also small businesses for whom this year’s event was a financial lifeline. “We were contacted by lots of organisations who aren’t anything to do with the festival industry, such as outdoor activity centres, who said our event gave them the confidence to reopen.”

Get more stories like this in your inbox by signing up for IQ Index, IQ’s free email digest of essential live music industry news.

Festival bosses have identified economic uncertainty, homogenisation and difficulty booking talent as the likely factors behind Britain’s slow festival season, as the UK festival business braces for a quieter-than-normal summer.

At a time of year when most summer events expect to be approaching capacity, of the major May–June festivals only Glastonbury Festival and Manchester’s Parklife have sold out – with tickets still available for heavy hitters like All Points East (24 May–2 June), Field Day (7–8 June), Isle of Wight Festival (13–16 June) and Download (14–16 June).

A number of events are also appearing on discount sites such as Groupon, while several festivals are currently advertising two-for-one ticket offers on social platforms.

While the majority of festival professionals quizzed by IQ say their 2019 ticket sales are softer than previous years, opinions are divided as to why, and the broader implications for the UK’s mature festival market.

“We’re OK – we’re probably going to end up 10 to 15% on last year, which is where we wanted to be,” says Oliver Jones, who – alongside his wife, Kate Webster – runs Yorkshire’s Deer Shed Festival (11,500-cap.), which this year celebrates its tenth anniversary. “But there are plenty of events on our radar who aren’t doing so well.”

Jones says the festivals “that are selling out, and will continue to, are independent, and the owners really care about the experience. Look at Green Man, for example – they put hospitality right at the top of the things their festival should offer, and look after people.”

“There does seem to be a general slowdown on ticket sales”

Another festival boss laments that too many events share a booker, with the result that festival line-ups are becoming increasingly samey. “You can make a Venn diagram,” they say, “with a handful of bands. One festival will have Elbow and Doves and Franz Ferdinand, another will have Doves and Franz Ferdinand but no Elbow, and so on… Too many festivals now are just homogenised.”

Gill Tee, co-founder with Debs Shelling of Kent’s Black Deer Festival, says the Americana event, now in its second year, is “going great guns”: “Fortunately for us we are currently on track, and do not seem to be too affected by the challenges other festivals are experiencing this year.”

“With [her] supplier head on”, as co-founder and director of Entertee Hire, Tee says “there does seem to be a general slowdown on ticket sales. I have heard many opinions as to the reasons why, but in reality nobody really knows. There have been years in the past that have shown a general slowdown on the appetite for attending festivals, which has then lifted the year after.”

Conversely, for Paul Reed, CEO of the 65-strong Association of Independent Festivals (AIF), while some members are “a bit slower than usual”, the 2019 season is largely “a mixed bag, as always”.

“I’m not seeing any dramatic changes, but there might be a cloud of Brexit uncertainty affecting people’s buying habits,” Reed explains. “And, as always, festivals are at the mercy of who’s out and touring – ultimately, line-ups are dictated by who’s available.”

Tee largely attributes 2019’s slowdown to “the amount of choice [in festivals] people now have, and they probably just buy later because they can.”

“It’s mad to spend all your budget on one or two bands, when no act is liked by everyone”

Meanwhile, Reed notes that, with artist fees still spiralling, many of AIF’s members have given up on the headliner “arms race” altogether, with several events having “stepped out of playing that game completely”.

That’s true of Deer Shed, adds Jones, who says he’s “not prepared to play that game with headliners anymore”. Topping the family friendly festival’s line-up for its tenth year are Ezra Furman, Anna Calvi and Australian indie-rockers Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever, with money that would have gone on booking a single huge musical headliner instead invested in hospitality, facilities and comedians such as Reginald D. Hunter, Milton Jones and Nina Conti.

Outside the big corporate events, the UK festivals that succeed in future – even in slow years – are the focused, niche events with a strong identity and loyal fanbase, suggests one industry insider.

“Look at 5,000-or-so-capacity festivals like [experimental rock event] ArcTanGent or [Herefordshire music and arts festival] Nozstock,” they say. “Nozstock in particular is doing really well now. I think the penny has dropped that it’s not all about the headliners, and if you go to these kind of events you feel valued and you’re going to have a unique experience.”

“It’s mad to spend all your budget on one or two bands, when no act is liked by everyone,” they conclude. “So you’ve got to adapt. Of course, you can have a great festival if you’re prepared to lose a million pounds – but most of us don’t have that luxury.”

Get more stories like this in your inbox by signing up for IQ Index, IQ’s free email digest of essential live music industry news.