I thought we'd gone through all this before in another thread.

In an overall budget of about 750k, about 200k comes from tickets sold for the Arena shows. If it's sunny all week, there's a surplus (not a profit) if it rains all week the arean income is nil and the festival makes a big enough loss to wipe out that accumulated surplus for the last few years. It's sad but true that one week of fine weather and Rolf Harris at the arena saved the festival from going under after several poor years.

Price the season tickets to cover a rainy week and you are accused of profiteering. Price for a good week and get bad weather, you go bust.

The £200k needs to be on tap as a gurantee against the worst case. With a bit of luck it doesn't need to be used, but it hase to be available.

I guess you could scrap the arena but I suspect that on average it's a money spinner that subsidises the cost of season tickets. Anyway there's no really big concert/dance venue without it and it's probably the main attraction for some festival-goers.

Anahata