A newly launched Independent Festival Directory will increase visibility for the sector, making it easier for festival fans to discover independent events.
The directory has been put together by The Association of Independent Festivals (AIF) – the UK’s national not for profit festival trade association, representing the interests of 153 UK music festivals.
Festival fans can sign up to use the directory at aifdirectory.com. The resource will enable people to explore festivals, follow the ones they love and find new ones to try.
The directory launched as part of AIF’s 2026 Festival Congress. The annual B2B gathering for independent festival organisers in the UK returned to Bristol Beacon today, Thursday 5 February, to a sold out crowd of 400 delegates from the independent festival sector.
AIF CEO John Rostron said: “Listening to our member festivals, we’ve known there’s been a problem that the bigger budgets of the corporate events can crowd out the independents when it comes to festival discovery. Trying to battle that out with them has been a zero-sum game. So we’ve moved to a new playing field. We know festival fans are increasingly seeking independent spaces, so we wanted to build something where they could find and follow their favourite festivals, as well as discover some new ones, without the corporates crowding them out.
“It’ll also be an incredibly helpful tool for festivals. After early bird and line up announcements, promoters have to spend a lot of money during the ‘hard yards’ that follow as they try to sell the rest of their tickets – putting significant resource towards ads, social media campaigns and more during that time. This directory allows them to come together in one space where independent festival fans will also gather – meaning greater discoverability and cross-promotion. It’ll make a big difference for many events.”
Author: Sam Hyland
Sam is the assistant content manager for Event Industry News (EIN). Sam is involved in publishing news stories, videos and podcasts. Sam also collates the latest stories for the EIN e-newsletter. If you have a press release or story you think we might be interested to know about please email features@eventindustrynews.com
