CMU Daily reports that a new survey shows that the average festival-goer spends £600 when they go to a music festival.

The survey, from the people behind the Lovebox Weekender in London, questioned 3000 festival-goers about their festival experiences and expenditure. The average cost included tickets, travel, food and booze. The latter two accounted for just under a third of the expense, with many admitting to spending £130 on booze alone, which is quite a lot, even allowing for extortionate bar prices as CMU say!

Of those questioned, about a fifth admitted that they plan to throw a sickie on the Monday after going to a festival, giving them more time to recover. The survey makers did some maths and estimate that this means some 141,000 fake sick days may be taken as a result of employees going to music festivals in the UK. Despite the costs of going to a festival, many said they reckoned they saw less than six hours of music during a weekend and many admitted they often couldn't remember who'd they'd seen anyway, the whole experience fading into a drunken blur.

Asked about festival gripes: queues, lack of showers, poor food and weather all got a mention though, unsurprisingly, filthy toilets came top, with 37% saying it was their least favourite aspect of the music festival experience.

19/06/09