Festival weather watch to Reading and Leeds

With Reading and Leeds to kick off in just two days time, we take a look at the weather preview for both festivals.
Reading Festival is set for a cloudy start on Friday (28 August) with highs of 16C before a sunny Saturday (29 August) will reach 19C.Sunday (30 August) is set to be the warmest of the weekend with highs of 20C i spite of the weather only being fair.Things don’t look enough as excellent up the M1 in Leeds, though. Festival goers can expect it to be cloudy both Friday (28 August) and Saturday (29 August) with highs of 14C on both days.Sunday (30 August) is looking a little better, but it is still set to be partly cloudy. Temperatures should reach 17C though.Kings Of Leon, Arctic Monkeys and Radiohead are set to headline Reading Festival 2009 and Leeds Festival 2009.Tickets for both adventure are sold out, but secondary ticketing platform Viagogo are offering tickets right up the adventure, with festival goers able to buy online and pick up at the gate.

Police: Warning to Reading festival goers about scam tickets

Music lovers preparing to go to Reading Festival are being desire by police not to buy tickets from unauthorised websites.
The warning follows results of some scam websites, which tell people to collect non existent tickets on site.
Ch Insp Dave Parker, who is leading the policing operation, said: “There is care that we could be turning away some disappointed people from the site, who have handed over money for festival tickets which do not really exist.
“The Reading Festival website www.readingfestival.com contains a list of ticket websites which have not been delivered with tickets to sell and our suggestion is to stay clear of those sites.
“If people do hand over money and don’t receive the tickets we will of track accompany out an investigation, but we would desire people to avoid these websites in the first place.”
Police are also desiring people without tickets to stay away from the venue.
Ch Insp Parker added: “If you haven’t got a ticket there is no chance of getting in to the festival site. There will not be any tickets accessible to buy at the site.”

Reading Festival early with Club NME

Club NME is set to stage a one-off night to kick off the Reading Festival (August 28-20) early this year. A special event will take place on the Thursday before the festival (August 27), allowing those who appear on site early to get into the festival spirit accurate away.The night will take place at the Rivermead Leisure Centre, deposit close to the festival site, with White Lies booked to play a DJ set. Club NME DJs Jeff Automatic and Simon Subsonic will also be spinning tunes. Club NME: Reading Festival kicks off at 9pm (BST) and goes on until 3am.The accident is only open to those with wristbands for the festival and costs+ £5 on the door.

Reading Festival granted permission to get bigger and louder

The organisers of Reading Festival have been given permission to expand the capacity of the event over the next two years.

Reading Borough Council licensing applications sub-committee agreed, on Friday, to increase the size of the festival from it's current capacity of 78,500 ticket holders to 82,000 next year, and then to 85,000 for the 2011 event. Reading Festival organiser Melvin Benn and Festival Republic also succeeded in being allowed to increase the number of early arrivals, who enter on Wednesday, from 7,500 to 20,000.

The festival has also been given permission to turn up the volume. The council have given permission for sound levels on site to increase from 98 decibels to 107 decibels.

An extra 3,500 tickets to this year's festival held on August bank holiday are now available only to residents of the Borough of Reading (one per resident) until Friday 31st July (midnight). This includes all residents with RG1 postcodes. Reading Borough Council residents within RG2, RG4, RG6, RG30 and RG31 are also eligible - all applications from these postcode areas will be checked that they fall within Reading Borough Council's boundary. Residents of Mapledurham Village are also eligible for tickets, any left over will go on general sale on Saturday 1st August.

Those festival goers who are eligible must register via email before Friday 31st July in order to be emailed the ticket link. Registration must include name, address and how festival goers are planning to travel to the festival. Those who apply and are eligible will be sent the link from Monday 3rd August to buy one ticket.

Drug clamp down at Reading Festival

A SENIOR police officer has issued a warning to drug dealers planning to cash in on next month's Reading Festival.

Supt Steve Kirk said his officers will focus on the festival's camping areas rather than the main arena where performances take place from Friday, August 28 until Bank Holiday Monday, August 31.

Supt Kirk said: "We will focus on the tent area and will concentrate on drug dealers, but it is a neighbourhood policing approach really. We have split up the site into different areas and the officers assigned to an area get to know the festival stewards and campers and work with them."

On Friday Reading Festival supremo Melvin Benn confirmed that 3,500 weekend tickets will be made available for fans living inside the borough boundary and that it will be louder this year after licensing chiefs gave organisers permission to turn the volume up.

BBQ caused Reading Festival blaze

A huge blaze at the Reading Festival which spread to 19 vehicles in a car park was started accidently with a barbecue, police have revealed.

The alarm was raised at about 1600 BST on Saturday when music fans saw smoke billowing into the air.

The fire was under control within an hour and no-one was injured.

The three-day festival, which began on Friday, attracted 80,000 people. Thames Valley Police recorded 294 offences and made 56 arrests in total.

Berkshire Fire and Rescue Service said the fire spread to the grass and then to each car.

Twelve were totally burned and a number of others had heat damage in the festival's white car park in Mapledurham, a spokeswoman said.

Music fans enjoyed headliners Rage Against the Machine on Friday night with The Killers topping the bill on Saturday.

Reading Festival bans flags

The move was announced quietly on the official website's 'General Information' section under the heading 'No Flags'.

It reads: “Flags won't be allowed in the arena. They restrict the view of people behind.”

No other reason has been given and no such announcement has been made regarding sister festival Leeds.

Flags have a permanent fixture at festivals such as Reading and Glastonbury for years, with many fans waving the flag of their country or favourite football team or a slogan aimed at their favourite band.

It is believed this is the first time such a move has been made at a European festival.Reading Festival Tickets takes place at Richfield Avenue, Reading between 28-30 August and features headline sets from Kings Of Leon, Arctic Monkeys and Radiohead as well as appearances from Faith No More and The Prodigy.

Both Reading and Leeds are sold out, but there are passes available from the festivals' official secondary outlet Viagogo. We've teamed up with the company to offer you 10% of off Reading tickets.

READING FESTIVAL 2009

Originally a jazz and blues event back in the 1960s, Reading has since left both genres in the past and is now widely regarded as one of the most essential rock festivals of the UK season. The August Bank Holiday weekender rotates its line-up with Leeds Festival, so those up north don't miss the action either.

With the event fully focused on the music organisers regularly pull out all the stops to deliver a monster line-up that mixes the world's biggest names alongside plenty of emerging talent.

Rage Against The Machine, The Killers and Metallica were all booked on English festival exclusives in 2008, so expect more coups for Reading 2009 as a healthy fill of top indie, punk, ska, hip hop, dance and comedy on the five smaller stages.

The campsite has a legendary reputation for hard drinking and partying after the main arena closes, though others may wish to stay in the luxury of a pod pad, which are available to rent over the weekend. Visit www.podpads.comless

Bridgewater to Reading Festival set for Sept. 19

Now that the Super Summer Reader Night at TD Bank Ballpark is behind us, we're gearing up for our Reading Festival on Sept. 19 at the Barnes & Noble in Bridgewater.
The festival will feature some special event, including a book character costume competition and the announcement of the winners of our short story competition. For details on both events, see MyCentralJersey.com/ssreader.We also will be distributing Barnes & Noble certificates to club members who have been arbitary selected to receive them based upon the reviews written and drawn that they have sent in to us. We have two more weeks left to the program, and allowance more certificates to share, so please send us your reviews. And remember that all age levels, including adults, are eligible to receive gifts.The 21st annual Super Summer Reader Club is presenter by the Courier News, the Home News Tribune and MyCentralJersey.com. Pledge coupons appear in the newspaper every Saturday and Sunday.

Co-sponsors include the Somerset County Education Association, the Somerset Patriots, Applebee's restaurants, Learning Express of Hillsborough and Branchburg, Barnes & Noble and the Somerset County Library System.

Reading Festival To Ban Flags?

Reading Festival have understand taken the unprecedented step of banning flags from this year's event. With the colourful cloth of this festival based standards reaching critical mass at this year's Glastonbury, Reading has become the first major festival in the UK to ban the items.
“Reading Festival Flags won't be allowed in the arena. They restrict the view of people behind." There appears do not be allowed in the similar statement on the Leeds site, however.
The most loyal and volatile fans of Reading Festival, so it's thought that news won't be taken well from a crowd that famously "bottled off" 50 Cent after his appearance at the 2004 didn't go down too well with the rock faithful.
The festival takes place over the weekend of August 28 to 30 and features Kings of Leon, Arctic Monkeys and Radiohead all with an unrestricted view.