Reading and Leeds festival has dominated the indie scene for decades, and looks set to make a triumphant return in 2021 following last year’s unfortunate cancellation. But what can we expect from festivals placed at a precarious point in the post-covid timeline?
With such an excitement to return to festival life, fans have already sold out weekend and Saturday tickets; Friday and Sunday tickets remain at a limited amount. The famous festival has sometimes only sold out weeks before the August date, yet this past week saw one of the most rapid ticket-uptakes in recent memory. The booked artists could be thanked for this; Stormzy and Catfish and the Bottlemen are set to headline the Saturday date, with AJ Tracey not far behind. Festival favourites The Wombats, Two Door Cinema Club, and Post Malone join the Sunday date, making it the standard indie-rock-pop blend we’ve come to expect from Reading and Leeds in recent years.
Andrew Parsons, managing director of Ticketmaster UK, said: “Monday’s announcement kicked off a colossal 600 per cent spike in traffic this week and there’s no sign of it slowing down.” Put simply, we can guarantee it won’t be a quiet festival. Creamfields and Boomtown have seen a similar reception, with fans eager to return to that festival field.
With these numbers comes a need for precautions to be in place. Unvaccinated attendees are rumoured to require negative covid tests and a health passport to enter the Reading and Leeds site, and there will be a steep increase in sanitising stations and medical facilities.
However, precautions and possible cancellations aren’t enough to put a dampener on this beam of hope that the announcements have brought us. All going well, we should be packing our tents and pitching up in the legendary fields as summer rolls around, all ready for a hazy day of shouting along to favourite songs with our mates.
TWELVE INCH 