Reading Festival Tickets
When it comes to festivals, Reading is one of the biggies. The sister festival of Leeds, both events take place on the same weekend and draw some of the biggest crowds – and the biggest names – on the UK festival circuit. In fact, many people see Reading as something of an initiation for any true festivalgoer, so if you want to win your weekender spurs then get yourself a ticket!
About Reading Festival
Reading was the first of the twin Reading-Leeds festivals and established itself in the 1970s with a bill of progressive rock, blues and heavy metal. If Download festival is too heavy for you then and you prefer to rock out in an indie way then Reading is an excellent choice. You’ll find chart names here, alongside rock faces and up and coming bands and in recent years the festival has also expanded with a dance tent and stages hosted by the likes of 2manyDJs. Line ups feature huge names and a Reading festival ticket offers pretty good value for money in terms of the numbers of bands and acts you can see and the kinds of names involved.
Reading takes place each year on the August bank holiday, from Friday 26th to Sunday 28th August. The site has a capacity of 87,000 so it’s a pretty big event, although not quite the size of somewhere like Glastonbury, which hosts up to 150,000 people each year. Compared to some of the more sprawling, countryside festivals, Reading is fairly compact and you can get from one stage to the other pretty easily, which means you can pack in loads of bands. It’s also very accessible by public transport as it is pretty much within the town of Reading itself so there are no treks across fields to make. This means that – if you want to – it’s very easy to stay in one of the hotels near the site, although camping is available.
Buying Reading Tickets
Because Reading is one of the easiest festivals to get to, because of the names that feature on the line-ups and because it’s the first festival most kids want to try out, Reading tickets are really popular. If you don’t get in there early then you will miss out so if you want a ticket then get yourself organized.
In terms of the costs of Reading tickets:
- Adult weekend tickets cost approx £190
- Day ticket costs approx £82
- Early entry ticket (allows you on to the site a day early) costs an extra £15
Under 16′s must be accompanied by a ticket holder over 18 years old. Under 13 (12 and under) are admitted free but MUST be accompanied by a ticket holding adult.
All the ticket prices, other than day tickets include camping but you will obviously need to organize your own transport. This is a much simper affair than for other festivals as there are no ferries like Bestival and no countryside treks like Glastonbury. You can buy tickets through the Reading Festival website and through their recommended outlets.