The Craven Country Jamboree has put the town of Craven, Sask. on the map.
Over a one-week period, it goes from having a population of less than 300 residents to becoming one of the largest cities in the province.
The annual country music festival which takes place in July, sells roughly 20,000 tickets at $205 each for a four-day pass – before taxes. This is the first year the festival has introduced single-day tickets for $100 before taxes and organizers say it has increased revenue.
This year’s headliners include Zac Brown Band, Eric Church and all the original Alabama members. Each headliner comes with a price tag of roughly $1-1.2 million.
Kim Blevins is the director of marketing for the festival and says headliners are getting expensive.
“Those prices are going up year-by-year which is hard for us,” Blevins says. “Especially because we’re paying in U.S. dollars and it’s obviously a Canadian festival – so that hurts a little bit.”
In the past five years, the average price of a headliner has doubled.
“We really try and keep our ticket prices reasonable so that the fans can come out and enjoy all four days, but it is getting tougher year-after-year, I have to say,” Kim says.
The Craven Country Jamboree shared a few major expenses with Global News in order to illustrate how large of a production it is.
Post-festival clean up: $60,000
270 security personnel: $175,000
Staging: $200,000
90 RCMP officers: $268,000
Headliners: $3,600,000
————–
$4,303,000
Organizers say musical acts are the most expensive part of running a festival – especially the headliners – and they can get competitive.
“We don’t always get our first choice and that’s what people don’t understand. They say ‘We want Garth Brooks’ – it’s not like we never put an offer in for the guy, he just doesn’t do festivals,” Blevins adds.
Organizers say they don’t want to raise ticket prices but may have to in the future.
Every Craven attendee Global News spoke to, however, said they would understand.
“It’s the best price for the country music” one ticket holder said.
“Yes I agree – 100 per cent great price – worth the price,” another said.
Organizers say Craven 2017 is already in the works, with three headliners almost confirmed.