HUGE names including Shania Twain, James Arthur, Busted, Tom Jones, and Young Fathers headlined this year’s Stirling Summer Sessions music festival.
But that didn’t stop the event organisers from announcing this week that the 2025 edition has been cancelled, disappointing locals who had spoken of their desire to see the event become an annual affair for the city.
And it’s certainly not the only one to bite the dust – it has been a difficult year for Scotland’s music festival industry.
In February, Connect Music Festival, which was held at the Royal Highland Showgrounds outside Edinburgh, said it would “take a break” in 2024.
It launched in its new form in 2022, picking up from a festival which had been held in Inveraray in Argyll in 2007 and 2008.
Organisers said that they would still be putting on “Edinburgh Summer Sessions” shows at the same venue but – again – many expressed disappointment.
In May, Riverside Festival — which marketed itself as Scotland's “premiere electronic music event” – was scrapped just weeks before it was due to take place.
The organisers for the festival on Glasgow’s Clydeside said it was an “extremely difficult decision”.
There are many more and it begs the question – what is happening to Scotland’s music festival scene?
The Sunday National spoke with John Rostron, the chief executive of the Association of Independent Festivals – which represents indy festivals across the UK, including Scotland.
He told us that Scotland’s music festivals aren’t the only ones struggling – it’s the whole of the UK.
In fact, so far this year, 69 festivals have been postponed or cancelled in the UK, up from 36 last year, according to the AIF. And since 2019, when there were 630 festivals across the country, over 200 have disappeared.
The key culprits? Brexit and Covid-19, says Rostron.
“They have combined to destroy the independent festival sector or destroying the independent festival sector,” he said.
“They are responsible for a huge increase in the costs of running an event.”
On Brexit specifically, Rostron said: “There's somebody that used to build a site in 2019 and it used to cost them half a million. In 2023, it cost £900,000 to do exactly the same thing because of Brexit-related pressures.
“With Brexit, we’ve seen an exodus of talent to Europe. We're talking about the relocation of some supply chain companies to Europe.
“For example, some of these LED screens and other pieces of kit, they spend their life around Europe. That's their market.
“And if the country that provides friction is the UK and all the other countries in Europe do not, some of these companies have moved their warehouses or even their companies into Europe.
Rostron said that the combination of all these factors also means that artists charge more to come to the UK as it’s the “expensive part of the tour”.
When it comes to Covid-19, Rostron said that the pandemic has only exacerbated and deepened some of the struggles faced by festival organisers.
“Lots of people left the industry because they didn't get financial support, and then they've just not come back,” he said.
“You've got supply chain companies that went bust because they couldn't get through the pandemic.”
He added: “Everything has gone up in price apart from marketing.”
The Sunday National asked Rostron why he believes Scotland – since T in the Park stopped in 2016 – now doesn’t have a big landmark festival in the traditional sense, out in a field somewhere for several days with camping, like England’s Glastonbury.
TRNSMT festival is currently Scotland’s largest festival with a capacity of 50,000 – but is held in the centre of Glasgow at Glasgow Green and has been widely criticised.
“I think it’s partly because Scotland has got lots of really interesting smaller festivals that do well and have loyal audiences like Belladrum Tartan Heart Festival,” he said.
“And it might be that people will choose that over something bigger.”
He added: Broadly speaking, most festivals in the UK are up to 20,000 capacity.
“That's where the majority of them are. There's only a handful, a couple of handfuls that are bigger than that.”
Rostron said that if Scotland is to see the return of a huge iconic festival like T in the Park, it will likely grow from a smaller festival.
“If you think about some of the bigger festivals in the UK at the moment, like Victorious Festival at 80,000 capacity and BoomTown with 60,000 – they all grew, they didn’t start at scale.
“And I think that's probably the key.”
