Reading Festival 2009

Music

For the first year we are inviting BBC introducing into the arena to work with is to bring you the very best of new young talent. In addition to this, the Carling stage is no longer and has been renamed the Festival Republic stage.

The silent disco gets more popular each year and will be on the move again to a new location. Keep an eye out on the online site map for updates. We are also inviting the mighty Club NME down to the Rivemead Centre. They will be there till late each night from Thursday to Sunday, so do check it out.

We are planning to increase the size of the main arena by opening up the North side where the Festival Republic and Alternative Stages are. This will make more room for generally having a wander or sit in the sun.

We are planning to have a wristband exchange on each of our external gates (i.e. Green, Red and White gates) instead of onsite. So you will be banded as you enter the site this year, speeding up the whole process.

Parking arrangements are the same as last year with only White and Green public car parks in use. Orange is back to being a campsite again. If you are planning on driving, and we urge you not to (see the website for alternatives), you will need to register with SEE tickets. For those of you who will be parked in White this year, you will be very pleased to hear that, subject to permissions, we have commissioned a pedestrian bridge. So you will be able to walk across the river 24 hours a day. The White campsite remains our quieter campsite and again this year we will be sending campervans and caravans into white.

This year you can try something different and book a Myhab unit to live in or contact Tangerine Fields for them to provide you with a camping kit on site.

Many of you will be pleased to hear that the opening times for the free public showers on G4 road will be extended and they will now be open from 5:30am to 5:30pm, Thursday to Sunday, with some breaks for cleaning.

We are pushing ourselves to be better and hope you will join us. There's more recycling this year with green lid bins in the campgrounds for cans, bottles and other recycling. The cup deposit will be returning and will also include half pints this time. Last year you recycled 94% of all pint cups. Amazing, thank you. We'll also have a 20p deposit on all bottled water sold by traders at the festival. The recycling rewards at the Litter Exchange are returning. Bring back bags of rubbish and recycling in exchange for free beer tokens. Also remember there are free drinking water points throughout the site where you can refill your bottle.

Please, please do not set fore to your camp at the end of the show. It doesn't matter how dirty or filthy your
stuff is, the environmental effects of burning all that nylon and toxic material is catastrophic. Please think about taking your hear home and reusing it, but if you can't be bothered, pack it down and hand it into to the many donation points in the campground. Your stuff will make its way to charity and community groups. Last year we had more than 10,000 items collected at both Reading and Leeds and hope you'll get involved again this year. If your tent is slightly damaged, please also hand it in as we have people who want to take the fabric from them to make other things

Campsite campfires are fine but must be smaller than 1m in diameter and no higher than knee height. No fires at all are permitted in the arena. And there must be absolutely no bonfires.

As part of our plan to create a safer event we have made many improvements to the security of the site and we are working closely with a group of festival goers who will be the eyes and ears for us during the festival. They will meet with us regularly throughout the festival feeding back to us on how it is running, how the facilities and how staff are etc. You can also make comments and complaints during the show in the book that is kept in the information tent and which we review twice daily. We are upgrading the perimeter fence around the site and will have more staff on hand in each of the campsites. We will also be adding a second ejection tent into the campsites which will be used to eject anyone without wristbands and anyone causing trouble in the campsites. Help us make it an even safer event for all