The Leeds and Reading festivals are two UK music festivals that are held simultaneously in different cities on the same August Bank Holiday weekend (Friday, Saturday, and Sunday).
Leeds is the third largest city in the UK. It’s located in West Yorkshire, about 170 miles north of London.
Reading is a large town about 30 miles west of central London.
-
- Location of Leeds and Reading in the UK
Many different bands, singers, and musicians perform over the three days, however some pop and rock acts will usually perform at both festivals as the headline acts. The headline bands that perform in Leeds on Saturday, will travel to Reading and perform there on Sunday. Similarly, the headline bands that play in Reading on Saturday, will play in Leeds on Sunday.
The Reading Festival is slightly bigger than the Leeds Festival. The capacity of the Reading site is about 87,000, where as the Leeds site is around 75,000.
-
- Leeds Festival
-
- Reading Festival
The Reading Festival is actually the world’s oldest popular music festival still in existence. It started in 1961 as a jazz festival, but changed to a pop and rock festival in 1971. The Leeds Festival started much later, in 1999. Since then, the Leeds and Reading Festivals have been held together annually.
Many people attend both days of the festival and camp overnight. Single day tickets are available, but they sell out very quickly.
Here is the line-up for the 2014 Leeds and Reading Festivals.
-
- 2014 line ups
