EXCLUSIVITY CLAUSES are “the biggest threat to small festivals”, the organiser of 5,000-capacity Y-Not Festival has said.

Ralph Broadbent told eFestivals in an interview that it’s not just the headliners that command such clauses, but acts much further down the bill.

“Whenever we try and book any small artist more often than not they’re already under exclusives, normally with the bigger festivals,” he told eFestivals.

“Because we’re all about new fresh music this makes big problems for us. New music has really exploded in the last few years. Now the major festivals really want to get involved in that, so they put in exclusive contracts.”

Y-Not takes place from 3-5 August in Derbyshire.