Why Now is The Time To Prepare For Summer Music Festivals

Now that spring is upon us, the devouring of pancakes has started the countdown to Easter and the days are getting noticeably lighter, it is time to get ready for summer.

For commercial traders hoping to sell food and drink, that may mean regular pitches in places like seaside towns, but others will look to major events like summer festivals as big earners.

Those with such ambitions, especially vendors who have not done this before, will need more than just a pitch at the sites they visit. What will also be needed are storage tents to keep stock in, especially at larger festivals when large quantities will be needed to feed or refresh the hundreds queuing up every day.

Such things cannot be left until the last minute, for the logistics involved in the bigger festivals are quite mind-boggling.

Take Glastonbury. Held in late June, this is the most famous of all the UK music festivals and huge in scope. Over 200,000 people turn up every year, which means that for one week, a city the size of Portsmouth appears on a farm in Somerset. Around two-thirds are revellers, with the rest being staff, vendors and the performers themselves.

It is a far cry from the first festival in 1970, when just a  few thousand turned up, and the growth of the event does not just mean it gets lots of attention, is shown on TV and stars many headline acts; it also means major opportunities for vendors.

Not surprisingly, tickets sold like hot cakes when they went on sale last autumn. But they were not the only thing in big demand, with traders (of hot cakes and other goods) also needing to apply, although pitches are not allocated on a first-come-first-served basis.

Fortunately, Glastonbury is far from the only big festival offering traders some lucrative opportunities.

The twin festivals of Reading and Leeds, held over the August bank holiday with the acts swapping venues halfway through, offer two great opportunities, using edge-of-town sites well away from access to local shops, especially in Leeds. Both get around 100,000 festival goers.

Other festivals with very large numbers of attendees include Download (110,000) and V Festival with 90,000. On top of these, there are other significant festivals such as the Isle of Wight, Latitude, Kendal Calling, Parklife, Wireless and Radio 1’s Big Weekend, providing many other opportunities.

The key for vendors is not just that they need to have secured their pitch well in advance - indeed, even now you might be thinking ahead to 2026 - but that more logistical preparations are made in good time.

After all, the festivals themselves will ensure they have named their headline acts long in advance, with lots of preparation being made by them for their performances, just as the organisers will have worked on all the logistics of turning green fields into temporary cities.

In the same way, you need to make logistical preparations and to that end, having temporary storage facilities for stock is vital. Not having the capacity you need to store enough stock will not only cost you a great opportunity to make money, but make it unlikely you’ll be allowed back the following year.