The Police to headline Isle of Wight 2008

The recently reformed Police will close next summer's Isle of Wight Festival, which runs from 13th to 15th June. It will be the band's only UK festival appearance, and indicates that their reunion will last longer than the current world tour, which has seen them play to over 1.5 million people. Tickets for the festival go on sale at 9am on 10th December.

Beer runs out for Carling Weekend

The Reading and Leeds Festivals will no longer be known as The Carling Weekend following the end of the brewing giant's sponsorship deal after nine years. This means that Carling will no longer be the official beer of the festival, so there might be some halfway decent booze on offer from next year! Bring back the Burrow Hill cider! Expect details of a new sponsor in due course.

2008 Carling Weekend rumours

As ever, artists are being rumoured for next year's festival. Candidates so far include Kasabian, The Verve, Rage Against The Machine and My Chemical Romance. I suspect The Verve are extremely likely to play, given the success of their reunion shows. Kasabian and MCR would also seem like near-certainties. Official announcements will appear when the first tickets go on sale in the spring - usually early April.
For a reminder of The Verve at Reading in their heyday (1997), click here and download part of their set that year.

More Reading live sets online

Over at the Indieglo blog, there are a whole load more Reading Festival highlight sets online in both audio and video form, including:

NIN and Smashing Pumpkins

And also:

Arcade Fire, Biffy Clyro, Bloc Party, Dinosaur Jr, Panic! At The Disco, The Enemy, Pigeon Detectives, The Twang, The View, We Are Scientists, The Young Knives and Red Hot Chilli Peppers.

Phew, should keep you busy downloading for a while! They're mostly not complete sets, but it's great to hear half an hour each of those mighty performances from NIN and Dinosaur Jr again.

Post-festival facts and figures

Ever wondered what the after-festival clean-up operation involves? Here's the facts:

• 16 tonnes of rubbish were collected
• That's 5000 sacks
• The clean-up took 600 man-hours

The charity collection for Give Me Shelter yielded:

• 3000 tents
• 2000 air beds and camping mats
• 1800 sleeping bags
• 1800 camping chairs
• 1000 'soft items' (presumably pillows, etc)

Reading Festival safe

The future of the Reading Festival appears safe after organisers Festival Republic bought 65-acres of the site. This brings Festival Republic's land ownership of the site to 191 acres. The rest belongs to Reading Borough Council. Festival Republic boss Melvin Benn said "This is a very important piece of land and acquiring it was essential to the continuation of the Reading Festival." 

Let's hope they improve the quality of the facilities now they own the site - and build a bridge across the river to the car park!

Reading Festival: The Book

Okay, this has been out since just before this year's festival, but I've had time to read it, and it's excellent. Packed with anecdotes from artists, festival-goers and the organisers, as well as masses of pics to bring memories flooding back (or show you what you missed through drunkenness or absence). The only thing it's missing is the line-ups from each year. Apart from that, it's a corker! Get it from Amazon here.