I’ve been writing this week about the rip-off culture that prevails in our music festival scene, focussing on Boomtown, the South Downs Festival accessed through Winchester.
If you thought that Boomtown was a rip-off of the younger ravers, then prepare for news of what is happening in Edinburgh when the ageing followers of first Oasis and then AC/DC find themselves competing for rare accommodation with those going to or performing at the Edinburgh festival. In case anyone can remember back that far, the Edinburgh Festival was once about Classical Concerts and Formal Tattoos, now it is a chance to feel bohemian going to alternative events which are now ludicrously expensive.
Infact , whether you are deeming alternative culture as the cultural festival or what’s going on in Murrayfield’s sports centre, you are now entrapped in one of the great rip-offs which Edinburgh manages.
What this means is that room-rates to stay in Edinburgh this weekend are now at levels that make Glasto and Boomtown bargains. The FT reports
Average hotel room rates in Edinburgh rose 91 per cent for Friday, the first Oasis date in the Scottish capital, to £613 from £321 in the previous week, according to audit, tax and consulting firm RSM UK.
So what we once considered the cheap and cheerful end of the cultural market has now become the elite stomping ground of Brits who can afford this and I suspect a lot of tourists for whom Europe , Scotland and in particular Edinburgh at festival time, is “must do”.
Of course, many attendees and performers are being forced out of town. Some have resorted to camping on the outskirts of the city, sleeping in their cars or couch surfing.
The idea of a festival as a cheap way to access culture en masse , the idea that we started with 60 years ago is now dead. As this comment from Tim Simpson points out, we have now become infatuated with a new standard of delivery that we cannot say is “festival” at all. We had been looking at the £6 ticket that got you into a day’s music at Blackbush with Dylan, Clapton , Armatrading and Parker on the bill.
Some ten years earlier the Rolling Stones had given a free Saturday afternoon concert in Hyde Park down by the Serpentine lake. I didn’t go because I had thought the rest of London would (but apparently not) be attending. The previous summer there had been three such free concerts given there by the ‘prog rock’ bands.
The difference between the presentations was that (then) all that groups had was their ‘road’ kits and spectators/fans were satisfied with that.
Nowadays the arena installations and light-shows are a fortune in themselves and obviously have to be paid for.
Similarly church-hall ‘discos’ were (then) little more than a ‘Dansette’ record-player and whatever the girls brought in the way of records. Not the multi-deck DJ systems etc that are boasted of nowadays in clubs etc.
Rock on..!
With Tim, I am making a protest about the state of culture of the Edinburgh/Winchester variety, where transport, residence and performance become an investment. I wonder what paying a thousand pounds for a night’s entertainment brings us? I worry that this is about status, achievement and a vulnerability to the need to keep up with others.
I might remind the festival goers that you can stand in the Albert Hall for £8 and watch great music, you can watch local bands performing for free (Windsor Ukulele)
As for Oasis and AC/DC – do you think they really care about their “fans”? They have moved on from the days when they were creating a new way of listening, now they are simply cashing in and we are the mugs who pay whatever price we’re presented with.
I suspect that this summer will be a tipping point when people will take a step back from Festival Culture which has become too expensive, too precious and too middle of the road to be worth it. What Neil Young thought he was doing at Glastonbury I don’t know, he preferred the gutter when he was creating.
“Heart of Gold’ put me in the middle of the road. Traveling there soon became a bore, so I headed for the ditch. A rougher ride, but I saw more interesting people…” – Decade sleeve notes.