In the news: AIF on UK festival cancellations and government support
Independent UK festivals keep falling to costs and thin margins. AIF’s asks on VAT and grassroots support — and why finite budgets keep coming up.
The Association of Independent Festivals has spent 2026 counting cancellations, postponements and fallow years — and asking government to extend family-ticket VAT relief, include independents in the Music Growth Package, and pilot grassroots festival tax relief.
The detail shifts as the year goes on; the theme does not: strong audience demand in places, margins that will not stretch. Trade coverage from Festival Insights and later trackers such as Live Laugh Local sit alongside AIF’s own updates.
Why organisers care: grant and sponsor budgets want a number they can write once — not a subscription that outlives the weekend. That is the same pressure behind Eventplot’s no-subscription model for planning software.
