Why has there been an increase in the amount of festivals in the UK?

The amount of music festivals has increased in the UK because of the proliferation of technology enables people to illegally download artist’s music, which has also been driven by the lifestyle culture of consumerism - having the newest and best music. This has caused the revenue streams of the bands and the corporate body’s that support them such as the record labels that they’re signed, to drop. This has caused them to think of new ways to regain costs lost through illegal downloads. One of the ways thought up to do this was to start music festivals. To further maximise the revenue from these festivals, they have been diversified to segment the market into separate festivals to appeal to different audiences within the more mainstream identities. This will inevitably leave some niche audiences uncatered for leaving gaps for the smaller festivals such as the more upmarket and boutique festivals. All of this segments the market by the different genres of music and collects the people who like similar genres into groups by festivals, as well as helping to create the social groups that people can identify with.