The Reading Festival is the 1st of a two leg festival that takes place in England annually with the second leg being the Leeds Festival. It is in fact the oldest, largest and longest running, musical festival in the world. This festival takes place during the August bank holiday weekend and runs from Friday thru Sunday at Little John’s Farm in central Reading. Originally the festival derived from the National Jazz Festival which was inspired by Henry Pendleton in 1961.

Pendleton took his inspiration from music festivals that were held in the US. Both the Reading and Leeds festival take place at the same time but at different locations. The Festival has been through some turbulent times, with several name changes and several location changes.

In fact it was banned in 1984 and 1985 for political reasons but in 1986 it regained its momentum and resumed with record breaking attendance. The Reading Festival is steeped in controversy and excitement including the time when Guns and Roses showed up late and was booed by the audience, to the clashes between the rockers and punks, and not to be forgotten the bottling tradition of throwing cans and plastic bottles to get the less popular bands off stage.

During the 80’s the festival fell into a slump and tried to take a different route with pop only to have unsuccessful and almost disastrous results, especially since its history had been up till then mostly rock. During the early turn of the century the popularity of the festival has grown and continues to grow with the evidence showing in increased ticket sales. As mentioned before the Reading and Leeds Festival took place simultaneously but around 2001 a new concept came as the acts that were the part of the line up at the Reading festival would appear as the opening act at Leeds the following night. One of the unique features of this Festival is the fact that not only can you by tickets for the day but you can purchase weekend tickets and set up campsites for the entire event. The event can accommodate approximately 80,000 people and sets up 3 stages for the bands to perform. This year’s festival will be taking place the weekend of August 26 thru August 28. Attracting fans from around the world and promising to deliver with such bands as My Chemical Romance and The Strokes ,the festival is already shaping up to be another memorable event.