UK: Skiddle has revealed that women are buying a record number of tickets to live music events. Over the past five years, women have grown their market share of overall ticket sales by 22%. In 2018, female music lovers out-purchased men by 13% on average.
Music festival tickets are where women are most dominant. In 2018, women bought 65% more music festival tickets than men – an increase of 35% on 2017.
In recent years, a call for greater diversity across festival line-ups has been the focus of much media scrutiny. Skiddle speculates that a move towards more equal representation on stage could be one of the reasons female ticket buyers are growing in confidence.
A shift towards events being safer and more inclusive could also contribute to this shift, with charitable organisations like Safe Gigs For Women and Girls Against achieving greater prominence across live music and festivals in recent years.
Commenting on the increase in female ticket buyers, Victoria Bamber, Head of Campaigns at Skiddle, said: “Ahead of International Women’s Day 2019, it is incredibly encouraging to release this data which shows women are now buying more tickets than ever before to live music events. Above all, music should be about inclusivity and accessibility, and whilst we all know that this sometimes isn’t the case, it is fantastic to see that women are taking more ownership over how they and their friends spend their free time.
“An increase in the number of women at live music events can only be a positive thing for music, and whilst efforts are being made to diversify both on stage and behind the scenes, it certainly appears that this messaging is filtering through to female music fans who are growing in confidence and making a real impact across gigs, club nights and festivals UK wide.”
The full breakdown across all events:
2012: men buy 12% more tickets than women
2013: men buy 10% more tickets than women
2014: men buy 9% more tickets than women
2015: women buy 4% more tickets than men
2016: women buy 7% more tickets than men
2017: women buy 9% more tickets than men
2018: women buy 13% more tickets than men
