Festival line-ups that rock - and those that fall flat

Words: Ellie Ward 

Festivals. Love them or loathe them, they are as much a part of the music calendar as the accompanying wet weather, soggy grass and stage clashes.

Ibis Accor hotel group have analysed over 3 million tweets to discover the UK’s favourite line-ups, as well as those which have left us less than overwhelmed. The research looks at 20 of the UK’s most popular music festivals, analysing Twitter conversations about the line-ups over the past 10 years.

The results may be surprising to some. For instance, despite having the most talked about line-ups, it seems like fans are often left disappointed with Reading and Leeds festivals. Over the past 10 years, an average of 35% of the tweets sent discussing the Reading and Leeds festival acts have been on the less positive side. 2018 and 2019 saw this figure rise even further to 41%.

Those busy packing their tents and wellies for next weekend's Glastonbury festival may be interested to know that it came out as the second most disappointing, with 31% of tweets discussing the line-ups over the past 10 years being sad. Fans seem to have been the most disappointed with this year’s, which sees Stormzy, The Killers and The Cure take to the Pyramid Stage, with 48% of tweets being from dissatisfied fans.

On the positive side, The Great Escape, a three-day festival in Brighton that features over 400 up and coming artists from around the world, comes out on top as the UK’s most popular festival line-up. An average of 82% of the tweets sent about the festival line-ups over the past 10 years have been joyous. Sheffield’s Tramlines has the second most popular line-up, with an average of 59% happy tweets.

While some festival bills just make fans disappointed, others go much further than that. Wireless takes the top spot as the festival which makes our blood boil, with an average of 28% of tweets talking about the line-ups over the past 10 years being angry. 2011, which featured The Chemical Brothers, Pulp and Foals, was the worst year, with 48% of the tweets discussing that year’s line-up being from furious fans.

Download came in second place, with an average of 24% of tweets discussing the line-ups being angry, followed by Y Not Festival with 22% and Manchester’s Parklife with 22%.

So, if you're off to a festival in the weeks ahead, enjoy - and don't forget to tweet your approval, or disapproval.