The Top 50 cheapest (& the most expensive) Festivals To Visit In The World!
Our freedoms to do the things we love doing were returned to us in 2022 as we all eased off from Covid19 lockdown restrictions this year, and for many music lovers, that meant returning to our beloved music festivals, dancing like no one is watching, singing louder than we ever have, releasing all the pent up tension.
There is no doubt that summer festivals are an annual rite of passage for many music lovers. Whatever kind of music you like, whether you like pop, EDM, rock, hip-hop, heavy metal, or anything in between, there is always a festival to suit your taste and with so many great festivals around the world, you can also combine your festival experience with a city break and get the best of both worlds.
But what are the best and biggest global festivals that you can attend and where can you find them?
A Slingo algorithm was used to analyze 50 of the biggest festivals in the world (based on their Instagram following) based on factors such as the capacity, ticket prices, number of stages, and dates in order to answer this question.
- Tomorrowland — 7.51 out of 10
There are a number of great dance festivals to check out across the world, but 17 years after its first edition, Tomorrowland remains the one to beat.
The Belgian festival has by far the biggest social media presence of any festival with 7.5 million followers and takes place over not one, not two, but three different weekends in July, with 16 incredibly designed stages.
2. Glastonbury — 7.43 out of 10
Perhaps the most famous music festival in the world, Glastonbury comes in second place, being the festival with by far the biggest attendance, with over 200,000 people descending on Worthy Farm for the festival.
Glasto also has an impressive 31 stages and areas to discover, from the iconic Pyramid Stage to late-night areas such as Shangri-La and the flame-throwing Arcadia spider.
3. Rock in Rio — 7.19 out of 10
One of the most historic festivals in the world is the famous Rock in Rio, in Brazil, with 1.5 million people attending the first-ever edition back in 1985.
The festival scored highly across the board (despite having just three stages) with a social following of 1.4 million, taking place across seven days, with around 100,000 people attending each day.
You can view the full research here https://www.slingo.com/blog/lifestyle-news/global-festival-index/, and find a few highlights from the research is listed below:
- Time Warp festival in Mannheim, Germany is the cheapest festival in the world
- In second place for the world’s cheapest festival is Vive Latino in Mexico City, Mexico.
- The best festival in the world is Tomorrowland.
- Glastonbury is the second best festival in the world
Time Warp Festival — €65.00 / £53.50 / $70.46
Time Warp festival in Mannheim, Germany, is the world’s cheapest festival. It is an extremely reasonable price of £53.50 for tickets even though the festival lasts only one day.
As great as they are, festivals aren’t cheap, with additional costs such as food and drink all adding to the overall cost.
When it comes to your ticket price though, the cheapest of our 50 festivals is Time Warp, in Mannheim, Germany, with a ticket to the festival costing just €65.
- Vive Latino in Mexico City, Mexico takes second place for the world’s cheapest festival. The festival lasts for 2 days and costs £71.15 per person. In third place is the DGTL festival in Amsterdam, Netherlands. As with Vive Latino, this festival is 2 days long, but has seven stages instead of four at Vive Latino. DGTL festival costs £85.56 in total.
Glastonbury — 203,000 capacity
By far the biggest festival when it comes to sheer scale is Glastonbury, which welcomes over 200,000 people each year.
The festival site itself stretches over 900 acres in the Vale of Avalon, measuring more than a mile and a half across with a perimeter of about eight and a half miles.
Additional findings:
The longest festival is Primavera Sound which lasts 11 days long!
Depending on your endurance, three days at a festival might be more than enough for you, but more festivals are increasing their number of dates, either by adding more dates or putting events on across multiple weekends.
Primavera Sound in Barcelona is one such festival, with two main weekends (with different lineups) as well as the Primavera a la Ciutat and Brunch on the Beach events, taking the festival’s total duration to 11 days!
Tomorrowland — 7.5 million Instagram followers
The best festival in the world is Tomorrowland and it is also the most followed popular festival online.
Social media is a good way to gauge the overall popularity of a festival and in this regard, Tomorrowland is way out in front, with over 7.5 million followers on Instagram.
Held in Boom, in Belgium, the festival is one of the biggest of its kind and takes place over three weekends, welcoming some of the biggest names in dance music.
The festival with the most stages is EXIT, and it’s whopping 4o stages!
Held within the walls of an old Serbian fortress, EXIT has won numerous festival awards since launching over 20 years ago and has now grown to host 40 different stages and zones with performances from artists from across the musical spectrum.
This year the festival will be headlined by Calvin Harris and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, with performances from the likes of Joel Corry, Honey Dijon and the Undertones too.
You are spoilt for choice but at least now, you can make the best choice for you and your pocket!
Methodology
Slingo began with a list of over 150 music festivals from around the world, before whittling this down to the top 50 based on their Instagram followings.
These 50 festivals were then ranked on the following factors, giving each festival a normalised score out of 10 for each factor before taking an average Festival Score across each of the five factors.
