Reading / Leeds Festival

Where and when? Little John's Farm, Reading / Bramham Park, Leeds - 28th-30th August.

Why should I go? To enjoy the traditional bottling off of an inappropriate booking.

Any interesting titbits of information? Reading Festival is the oldest popular music festival still in existence.

Although they’ve only been twinned for the last decade, the Reading and Leeds festivals have become synonymous with an August bank holiday of debauchery under the blazing sun.
The Reading Festival has had the longest, most chequered history, starting as a jazz festival in 1961, taking a detour into the prog wilderness in the ’70s before settling down into its current guise as the mainstream rock weekender of choice. It’s steeped in history: even a dire attempt to commercialise the festival by programming pop in the ’80s lives on in some recent creative booking choices. Daphne And Celeste before Slipknot, anyone? It joined forces with the somewhat less storied Leeds Festival in 1999, sharing a bill to form the behemoth we know and love today.
Specialising in mainstage line-ups of inordinate size, this year the festival has pulled a Radiohead coup, grabbing the band for a Sunday night headline set. With Kings Of Leon and Arctic Monkeys also playing you’ll probably want to stay in the thick of it to secure prime bopping space throughout the weekend.
We’ve no idea what the facilities will be like this year. But let’s hope sandbags are involved: in 2007 25% of the Reading campsites and carparks were flooded when rain burst the Thames’ banks. Crikey!
Ticket price: Tickets are sold out. Viagogo.co.uk is recommended for ticket re-sale.

Accommodation: Camping included in ticket price. Campervans/Caravans must pay a £20 supplement advance or £30 supplement on arrival. Tangerine Fields tents and MyHabs are also available.

Site opening: TBA.

Capacity: around 80,000

Stages: TBA.

Travel:

Reading: By car, head towards Reading city centre and then follow signs. There is a car park available (the Green car park) but only for pre-booked permit holders. The car pick up/drop off is adjacent to the car park. National Express are running dedicated coach services to the site, see www.nationalexpress.com. A shuttle bus will run from Reading Train Station to the site though the distance is easily walkable.

Leeds: By car, all routes to the festival site are via the A1 (M1). Follow signs from A1 (M1). National Express are running dedicated coach services to the site, see www.nationalexpress.com. There will be frequent shuttle buses running from Leeds City Railway Station and Leeds Coach Station to the site. There is also a service from York Station on Thursday and back to York Station on Monday.