Reading Festival 2008

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.

Get in the Guitar Hero spotlight at Reading Festival

The Guitar Hero Experience makes its Reading Festival debut, with a very special opportunity to play the global smash hit videogame in the specially-designed arena containing pure, unadulterated rock, with Guitar Hero running wall-to-wall.

Reading Festival is ranked the best event of the summer, having become the most sought-after ticketed event in the UK.

A survey has polled the festival as the number one event, while the top sporting event was also in Berkshire – Royal Ascot.

Festival organisers have denied building a “network of causeways” on the Reading Festival site.

Reading’s environmental watchdogs raised concerns about the “causeways” in the flood plain at Little John’s Farm, at Green City and Open Spaces Forum on Tuesday last week.

If you missed out on a ticket to the festival, or other stewarding positions, have a passion for the environment and want to help get the festival goers to recycle as much as possible, then please join Team Recycle. You will be at recycling points around the festival, in the campgrounds showing people which bin to put their recycling in.

You will be rostered to do 24 hours from Thursday to Sunday, during daylight hours. All volunteers are welcome to enjoy the festival when they are off-shift.

Right - here's your chance to win a bad ass Eurohike 4 man tent and a sleeping bag.

All you have to do is send us a pic or video (YouTube a possibility), showing us just why you deserve to be the winner. Simple huh. Any split decisions will be resolved by a tie breaking question which will be revealed at the time.

If you want to email us your entry, please send it to: competition@strictlyreading.co.uk. Alternatively, sign up to our forums and post your entry here: http://strictlyreading.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=642.0

We have it on good authority that there will be another announcement to the lineup early next week... yes, as usual, we are first with the news.

I'd probably say Tuesday morning would be a good time to stay tuned.

Shuttle buses will be signposted clearly at Reading Station and around the festival site. The pick up is at the front of Reading station itself and the drop off is at The Moderation Pub on the Caversham Road, 2 mins walk away from site. This is in reverse for the Monday.

Festival Republic, promoters of the Reading and Leeds Festival, are keen to alert all festival goers to an unofficial site on MySpace. The site, calling itself Festival Unlocked, claims to be a competition for unsigned bands to play at this year’s event. The site has no link with the festival and none of the bands will be on the bill via this site.

http://strictlyreading.co.uk/files/hoax.pdf for further information

Have you got festival videos from the past years? If so, we need them as do FR! We'll pay for P&P or upload space if you can send the files over.

Any help appreciated!

http://festivalfiles.com/ has most of the videos (99%) of what was shot at Reading Festival 2007.

We hope you enjoy it!

Even there were press releases and the main man himself said there would be no official beer for the festival....

... guess what. What's all this jazz?

"Tuborg Premium Lager has announced a sponsorship deal with this year’s Reading & Leeds music festivals to become the festival’s exclusive 'Official Beer' Partner.

The next flood of confirmed acts is due shortly - stay around! For the time being however:

* All tickets have sold out
* There will be no more tickets on sale - the second batch that happened last year was because Festival Republic managed to extend out licence and capacity. This is not happening this year. Occasionally tickets are put back online [authorised online agents only] from customers with insufficient funds in their bank accounts.
* All coach packages have sold out

There was a focus group attended by the head of FR and several members of various forums and sites. The write-up can be found right here: http://www.strictlyreading.co.uk/fg-responses.pdf

To read the transcript online - just read on...

If you didn't get a ticket for Reading this year and are still desperate to go you could still be in with a chance.

Oxfam are looking for people to steward the 2008 Reading festival, you must be 18 or over and willing to work 3 x 8 hour shifts. In return, Oxfam will provide you with full training, a separate camping area with toilets and showers, a meal ticket per shift, chance to make new friends and the opportunity to help raise close to £1,000,000 for Oxfam.

If you're interested go to www.oxfam.org.uk/stewards, or call 0870 010 8553

There is officially no second batch of tickets to be released.

Unlucky.

Most notable of these Tout sites are:

Westminster Events
Get Me Tickets
Splendid Tickets
Herts Box Office
Click For Tickets
London Ticket Shop
anyworldwideevent.com
ticketssoldout.co.uk
TicketSolutions
Tickettout.com
TicketsUK

Festival legend Bob Nicks has confirmed he will be making an appearance at Reading.

All weekend tickets for the Reading and Leeds festival have sold out in record time.

A total of 200,000 tickets sold in 24 hours for the festival and weekend tickets went in just two hours.

This year marks the tenth anniversary for Leeds and twentieth for Reading.

Melvin Benn, Managing Director of Festival Republic said: “'I am over the moon! Absolutely thrilled. 20th year since we took over Reading after it had been bankrupt.

“10th year since we created Leeds. Whoever is talking about a slump in festival popularity is talking rubbish. Long live Reading and Leeds!'”

Babyshambles have just announced in a MySpace Bulletin that the band have decided to break up with immediate affect, cancelling all tour plans, including their Radio 1 headliner slot at Reading and Leeds festivals announced today.

Although not yet fully revealed, it is believed Pete Doherty has just walked out the band after getting into an argument with ex-band member Patrick Walden.

• Camping Information
• Disabled Information
• Food and Catering Information
• General Information
• Green Reading Information
• On-Site Facilities and Services
• Personal Safety
• Working
• Ticket Information

"This year we have teamed up with Lockerhouse to make sure you can keep your belongings safe at Reading Festival. You get to keep a souvenir branded padlock after the event too! Book now, and be sure to keep your stuff safe all weekend. The lockers also have mobile phone charging facilities, which require you to bring a 12v Car adapters/charger. They are available in the Village 24 hours.

http://readingfestival.com/home/

It's definitely a small step in the right direction.

We have recently brought http://www.strictlyleeds.co.uk back to life so if you are going up North for some rock or know someone who is, then point them to the greatest Leeds Festival site ever!

http://www.strictlyleeds.co.uk is the name, the name is http://www.strictlyleeds.co.uk

To read the Disabled Access Festival Guide 2008, click here

To download the application form, click here

Gain free entrance to this summer's Reading Festival by joining our Campsite Assistant Teams (CATs) or Helpful Arena Teams (HATs).

Typical duties of a volunteer include:

• Assisting festival goes with directions.
• Helping festival goers carry their belongings and pitch their tents.
• Reporting back on any problems – such as litter and facilities.

If you have to bring your car, then please consider using the lift share scheme. Lift sharing is a great way to reduce traffic to the Festival and to save money, hassle and the planet at the same time.

Bands must be local to Berkshire to be in with a chance

"Fancy appearing on Radio One or even performing at the Reading Festival?

If you’re in a band or you’re a solo artist and you’re all serious about your music career, then the aforementioned two should be an aspiration.

Well let me help you with that. Basically, if you e-mail me MP3s of your demos, adding a bit of blurb about yourself and your Berkshire credentials, then I may very well pass them on to the likes of Steve Lamacq, Zane Lowe and Huw Stephens.

Gaymers (who own Blackthorn) have exclusive cider rights at Reading & Leeds this year. This doesn't mean that they will be sponsors of the event.

Some official person said: "We already have some big customers including the Royal Festival Hall, BHS and the Reading Festival."

The Shockwaves NME Awards 2008 took place last night (February 28) at the IndigO2 venue in London, where a variety of music stars and industry types picked up awards for their achievements over the past year.

The Reading & Leeds Festivals picked up the award for Best Live Event.

http://www.strictlyreading.co.uk/forums/index.php - we decided to put in some forums. Hope you enjoy it!

SMOKE levels soared to dramatic heights during last year’s Reading Festival, a study has revealed.

Last year was the first time Reading Borough Council officers were able to monitor air pollution during the August Bank Holiday three-day rock fest at Little John’s Farm.

SIZE
Make festivals smaller and more personal

PRICE CAPPING
Lower ticket prices into line with the rest of Europe

We all know Carling will no longer be sponsoring the Reading and Leeds weekend so what's the 3rd tent ging to be called?

BBC and Radio 1 already have stuck their noses in to many aspects of the festivals and we believe rather than the 3rd tent being called Carling or some other insanely poor beverage, it'll be the "BBC Introducing tent" - or something slightly more catchy!

The latest on "BBC Introducing" can be found here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/introducing/events/

Three "American headliners" have agreed to top the bill at the Reading and Leeds Festivals this August, organiser Melvin Benn has confirmed. From what we understand, it will look similar to the below:

• FRIDAY - The Killers, The Kooks
• SATURDAY - Rage Against the Machine, Queens of the Stone Age
• SUNDAY- Metallica, Velvet Revolver

Festival Republic have partnered with the people behind Lollapolooza and Austin City Limits to create a new rock festival in America.

The team behind the Reading, Leeds, Latitude and Glastonbury festivals have branched stateside for the first time, with a brand new event called the Vineland Music Festival.

Don't forget you can catch all the latest lineup news and reading festival rumours right here: Reading Festival 2008 rumours

Coors today announced to its staff that Carling will not be sponsoring the Reading and Leeds festivals after the current contract, preferring instead to focus on the Carling academy.

The sponsorship agreement between Carling and MF expires on 31/12/07. This is simply the best news that's come out from Meanfiddler/FestivalRepublic for a number of years.

We have 2 Reading Festival 2008 weekend tickets, with parking and early entry to give away!

We need 7 artists on each day. You can have 7 artists that are dead or not together anymore which means at least 14 have to be together, alive etc.

The future of Reading Festival is safe again after organisers bought up a bulk of its site.

Almost all the land used for the August rock event is now owned by organiser Festival Republic following the sale of a 65-acre plot.