Reading and Leeds Festivals

The Reading Festival is an internationally renowned music festival in England that takes place every year on a weekend in August.

Foundation

Precursor of the festival was the 1961 National Jazz Festival, which was in 1964 renamed the National Jazz and Blues Festival. Initiator of the festival was Harold Pendleton, founder of the famous Marquee Club in London. In 1971, the festival - at first, then based in Richmond in Windsor - moved to Reading in Berkshire and was named the Reading Festival.

Genres

Initially there was the music program of jazz, developed from 1971 to rock, blues and heavy metal and gained more and more notoriety and popularity. By 1975, the number of visitors had risen to 70,000, and many internationally known bands had already played at the festival. Among the previous genres came up to the 80s and punk and New Wave added. Due to the different types of music, however, also violence among the fans of the groups in the audience accumulated.

In the years 1984 and 1985 no events took place, as the conservative community the place allegedly claimed for other purposes, and no alternative venue approved.

By 1987 the music was still very oriented to rock and heavy metal and also posted good numbers of visitors. As the organizers put in the following year with Bonnie Tyler, Starship or squeeze on more commercial pop, the audience went though declining rapidly. Meat Loaf was pelted with bottles, what accusations against Pendleton had the effect of which was displaced in this way from the Mean Fiddler Music Group, organizer of the festival.

New organizer from 1989

The Mean Fiddler Music Group (now Festival Republic), as the new organizers managed to make the festival until the mid- 90s again popular. Among the performers now included bands like Nirvana, Suede and Blur. Spectacular 1992 was the appearance of Kurt Cobain, who was riding in a wheelchair on the stage.

Carling Weekend (1998-2007)

1998 was the festival with Carling a sponsor and as of 1999 a further branch in Leeds. Even the name changed. The events were now called, respectively Carling Weekend Reading and Leeds Carling Weekend. A system was developed in which the performers who appeared in Reading on the first day, the following day played in Leeds and vice versa.

While there were problems with violence repeatedly in Leeds, Reading Festival to one of the events of Britain 's best-selling was. Tickets for the 2006 festival were sold out in less than 2 hours, as this year's Glastonbury Festival did not take place.

After the separation in 2007 of the Carling sponsor two events were officially re- name the Reading Festival and Leeds Festival.