Overview of Wireless Festival in the UK

The Wireless Festival, one of the most prestigious and widely popular music festivals of the United Kingdom, takes place in London, England every year. The festival started in 2005 and is currently owned and managed by Live nation. Over the years, it has been sponsored by many prestigious companies, which include the telecommunication brand O2, followed by Barclaycard and Yahoo!. The Festival, has over the years, taken place in different parts of the country, with a usual span of three days. In 2015, in the honor of a decade of the festival, another extra day of musical events was added. The Wireless Festival is known and liked for providing a platform for showcasing music from all parts of the world, especially European and American.

Over the years, different artists, musical groups and contemporary musicians have performed on the stage of the Wireless Festival, which have contributed significantly in increasing their popularity. The Festival, in spite of being a regional phenomenon, occurring in United Kingdom only, however, has been gaining increasing popularity and attention of the media from all parts of the world. The primary reason behind the increasing popularity of the festival is that it brings in the performances of phenomenal musical personalities from all parts of the world and provides the opportunity to the viewers to see the live performances of their favorite musical idols.

The vast varieties of musical performances, interesting events, attractive performance line ups, huge promotional activities and brand sponsorships all contribute to the increasing fan following of the Wireless Festival as can be seen from the huge crowd of audience, especially from the youth population of the country, which the event attracts year after year (Morey et al. 2016). The festival also provides platform for the musical talents from all parts of the world, which brings them fame and further opportunities in their music career.

Given the rising fame of the Wireless Festival and the increasing number of audiences it has been attracting in England, with each passing year, there remains huge scopes of expansion of the operational area of the festival to other parts of the world, to cater to the music loving population present in different countries. Keeping this prospect of the Wireless Festival in consideration, the following sections try to analyze the scope, benefits, potential advantages as well as disadvantages of taking the festival outside England, in Australia specifically.

Factors Contributing to Popularity of Wireless Festival

To analyze the prospect of the Wireless Festival in countries other than United Kingdom, especially in Australia, which has been taken as the potential country for expansion of the same Festival, it is of extreme importance to analyze the inherent traits of the festival, including the advantages and disadvantages of the operational framework and the nature of its activities as well as the threats and weaknesses it is subjected to and the opportunities which the Festival has in the coming years. To analyze the same, an extensive SWOT analysis of the Wireless Festival is conducted in this section, taking into consideration the need to have a clear overview of the situations and economics patterns of the event in order to plan the future business expansion of the same.

• Global platform to celebrate music
• Attracts huge crowd from all parts of the United Kingdom
• Attracts tourists visiting the country
• Provides platforms for all types of artists without any race or ethnicity-based discrimination
• Has financial backings in the form of sponsorships and promotional activities of reputed companies from all parts of the world
• Receives immense media attention especially in the UK
• Collects huge revenue in the form of ticket fees
• International acculturation happens and different regional and artists and musical bands get exposure to showcase their talents and their country and its culture in front of a global audience

• The festival occurs only in the United Kingdom
• The genre of music mainly remains constricted to rock and pop, thereby limiting the varieties of performances
• The festival mainly attracts youth population of the country who are specifically interested in several specific genres of music or are fans of some specific musical personalities (Botelho-Nevers and Gautret 2013)
• Ticket prices are considerably high, thereby raising affordability issues
• Several instances of misconducts as well as breach of safety of both the performers as well as the audiences have occurred, which questions the security arrangements of the festival
• Deficiency of accommodation or hospitality of the tourists who specifically come to attend the shows
• Does not usually promote the regional music of other countries
• Deficiency of proper of emergency and health care services which is required for such a huge crowd which the festival attracts

• Provides employment scopes for local residents (though mostly seasonal employments)
• Attracts increased number of tourists which in turn has the potential to make the phenomenon known to global population
• Has the scope of taking the festival to other parts of the world which can increase its revenue generation, fan following and popularity even more
• Creates huge backward and forward linkages in the industrial and economic aspects
• There remains scope of inclusion of more genres of music with the expansion of the event in other countries, thereby attracting different types of fans from all parts of the world
• There remains increased scope of more professionalism in the operational framework which in turn may attract more audiences
• The festival has the opportunity to increase their tie ups with more multinationals for sponsorships and media for publicity, especially the regional ones provided it increases its domain to other countries too

• Many other cultural programs and festivals are taking place in the country itself as well as in other parts of the world where the Wireless Festival can possibly venture
• The regional festivals can posit as tough competitors for the festival, especially in the other countries
• The cultural differences and preferential patterns of the customers can differ in other regions
• Over the years the preference of the people in the country are also getting varied and many other entertainment programs are occurring in the country which tend to shift a major share of the fan following of the Wireless Festival
• The prices of the tickets being extremely high and with more internet usage and online coverage of the festivals, there remains substantial threat of more people resorting to see the performances online
• The safety breaches and discrete incidents may lead to considerable negative publicity of the event, which may hamper the initiation of the festival in other countries

To analyze the prospects of the initiation of the Wireless Festival of the United Kingdom in Australia, apart from assessing the internal conditions, prospects and threats, within the operational framework of the event itself, it is of utmost importance to take into account the overall environment prevailing in Australia, thereby analyzing whether the initiation of the Wireless Festival in Australia will be a judicious decision on part of the organizers or not (Anderton 2015). To study the overall environment and the implications of the underlying factors in Australia over the Festival itself, a PESTLE analysis is conducted which is as follows:

With the help of this analysis, the key factors in the country, including political, environmental, social, technological, legal as well as environmental and their influences on the plan of bringing the Wireless Festival to Australia can be analyzed:

POLITICAL FACTORS- For the plan of initiating the festival in Australia, the inter-country political ties and stability has to be taken into consideration as many factors like the availability of proper venues, aids and assistance from the government, tax structures, approvals of festivals and related activities as well as noise regulations and other registration process and their ease depends on the inter-country political relations. Australia sharing good political relationships and productive linkages with that of the UK, the political factors seem to be conducive for this plan.

ECONOMICS FACTORS- The economic conditions, the purchasing power and the consumption pattern of a country have to be studied in details in order to get an insight about the potential prospects and threats of any new business venture in the concerned country. Given the fact that the Wireless Festival arranges for music performances of considerably popular artists and bands and the fact that the tickets are priced considerably high, there needs to be a considerable share of interested as well as economically well-off population in the country.

Scope of Wireless Festival in Australia

In this context, it can be seen that the average per capita income in Australia is considerably high and a major share of the income of the residents are spent on entertainment programs. The above-mentioned factors indicate towards the possible success of the Festival in the country.

SOCIAL FACTORS- Australia is currently ranked among the top ten musical countries globally, with an enriched and culturally rich society, with affinities to different genres of music. The country promotes acculturation and the concert culture is highly existent in the country, which points towards the high social acceptability of the people in the country, together which can contribute positively to the success of this initiative (Gibson and Connell 2016).

TECHNOLOGICAL FACTORS- For a musical festival of this stature to be successful, extremely advanced technological amenities and infrastructures are required, which are considerably present in Australia. However, with more internet usage among common people and the facilities of streaming live videos, attracting audiences to be physically present in the festival venues can be a bit challenging.

LEGAL FACTORS- The organizers of the festival need to take into account and abide by the legal systems of the country and the regulations regarding the Intellectual Property Rights as well as protection of interest of the consumers in the country (Yüksel 2012).

ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS- The impacts of such festivals, especially in their aftermaths, can be negative in terms of the wastage of materials, improper dumping of huge garbage, usage of chemical sprays on lands as well as massive wiring and electrical arrangements can be dangerous for the environment as well as the residents if not addressed properly.

References

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MAD NEWS UK. (2018). Idiots With No Tickets Fight To Get In To The Wireless Festival 2015 (Video). [online] Available at: https://madnewsuk.com/2015/07/06/idiots-with-no-tickets-fight-to-get-in-to-the-wireless-festival-2015-video/ [Accessed 28 Mar. 2018].

Metro.co.uk. (2018). Wireless Festival 2018 Saturday and Sunday line up, date and tickets | Metro News. [online] Available at: https://metro.co.uk/2018/01/22/wireless-festival-2018-friday-saturday-sunday-line-dates-get-tickets-7250019/ [Accessed 28 Mar. 2018].

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