Nielsen Report: 32 Million People Attend At Least One Festival

For millions of Americans, a favored route for escaping everyday life and experiencing fresh musical sounds is attending one of the numerous music festivals around the country each year.

According to a study by Nielsen Entertainment, 32 million people attend at least one music festival annually. A segment of these festival attendees are ardent music fans, with one-third of festival goers attending more than one music festival per year.

Nearly half (46 percent) are age 18-34, which offers another incentive for marketers to court the millennial demographic. These millennial festival fans are more engaged than the general population on social media and other digital platforms. They are 98 percent more likely to discover new music on Spotify than the average music consumer. They also show greater levels of engagement on social media outlets such as Snapchat (67 percent more likely to use than the general population), Vine (69 percent), and Tumblr (81 percent).

The study found that these festival-goers also spend more than the general population on music. In general, festival attendees spend an average of $207 on live events, digital music and streaming.

The festival audience is evenly split between men (49 percent) and women (51 percent).

Click here for the full report.