What did Juan Arnau predict?

In a recent interview, elrow founder and global brand chief Juan Arnau put a number on something the business has felt for years: the bar is shrinking. He expects alcohol consumption at events to fall 30 to 40 percent over the next five years, and warns that within a decade festival bar revenue could be down by as much as 70 percent against today. Coming from the man behind one of the planet's biggest party brands, that is not idle talk. elrow turns over around 60 million euros a year and sells roughly 700,000 tickets worldwide, and its Monegros Desert Festival alone costs north of 7 million euros to stage for a single day. When a promoter at that scale says the drinks model is cracking, bookers and operators should listen.

Young people take much better care of themselves than we did. They drink less alcohol. It is a very clear trend.

Are young people really drinking less?

Yes, and it is not a hunch. A 2023 Gallup survey found that 62 percent of US adults under 35 say they drink, down from 72 percent two decades ago, a clear generational slide. Researchers tie it to a cluster of shifts: more attention to health, tighter budgets, a wish for control, and alcohol simply mattering less to how young people socialise. The same crowd increasingly prefers daytime events to all-night benders. Drinking is becoming optional, not compulsory.

Why this lands on the bar, not the dancefloor

Here is the part promoters keep missing: young people are not walking away from festivals, clubs or dance music. They are changing what they want from them. So the danger is not empty fields, it is thinner bar margins, and at most events the bar is where the profit lives. That is why Arnau's warning is really about business models, not about the music. The events built to last are the ones that sell something that does not depend on getting wrecked: production, theatre, daytime programming, food, a sense of belonging. elrow, whose whole pitch is immersive spectacle rather than a queue for pints, is better placed than most. The festivals in trouble will be the ones whose spreadsheet quietly assumed everyone keeps drinking.