Melvin Benn: Last News

Reading & Leeds boss Melvin Benn has hailed The 1975 as “one of the most extraordinary things to happen to the festival”.The Manchester band will headline the dual event this weekend, having stepped in at the last minute to replace Rage Against The Machine. Matty Healy and co.

Download have spoken to NME about the major improvements coming for this year’s event – as well as revealing that all three headliners have already been booked for the 2023 festival.The legendary Donington rock bash has seen a two-year hiatus due to COVID – aside from 2021’s smaller scale Download Pilot to show that festivals could go on during the pandemic – and will return in its full form this June with headline performances from KISS, Iron Maiden and Biffy Clyro.“It’s just over 50 days until we open the gates to the campsite, and there are many, many people counting down every single one of those days,” Festival Republic boss Melvin Benn told NME. “Also, it’s been nearly 1,100 days between Tool closing in 2019 and Heriot opening in 2022.

Reading & Leeds Festival 2022 will be released later today (September 1).While there is still no news about who will be playing the 2022 events, organiser Melvin Benn has told NME that “three of the six headliners are in place”, adding that “some of them have guitars” and one of them has definitely headlined before.“We started as a rock festival but we didn’t stay there,” said Benn. “We will always intend to be relevant to an incredible audience.

Latitude Festival, the UK’s first major festival to be held following ‘freedom day’.The 35,000-capacity event, set to be headlined by Bastille, Bombay Bicycle Club, Wolf Alice and The Chemical Brothers, had already been given the green light before the lifting of COVID restrictions as festival organiser Melvin Benn announced in June it was part of the government’s Event Research Programme (ERP).In order to gain entry to the festival, which runs until Sunday (July 25), ticketholders will be asked for proof of a negative lateral flow test taken within 48 hours of arrival at the festival, or proof of full vaccination with the second dose having been received at least 14 days prior to the first day of attending the festival. As a test event, it

Latitude Festival has issued a statement in response to the government’s announcement that planned easing of coronavirus restrictions will be delayed by four weeks.Previously, all limits on social distancing and crowd capacities were due to be lifted on June 21, however Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced today (June 14) that this will now not take place until July 19 due to the spread of new COVID-19 variants.With Latitude due to begin just three days later (July 22-25) the festival’s founder Melvin Benn has said the team is still weighing up whether it can take place as planned.“We don’t think it means the end of our hopes for Latitude this year,” said the statement, which you can read in full below.A @cinchuk presents Latitude 2021

Download festival will return in June.

Reading & Leeds boss Melvin Benn has offered up fresh hope that festival season will be able to go ahead this summer as planned.Speaking to NME just after the gates opened at last weekend’s Sefton Park COVID pilot gig in Liverpool (where all entrants where tested for coronavirus before being allowed in), the Festival Republic Managing Director revealed what the event could mean for the coming summer of live music.“This is a pilot event and I’ve been pushing to create something like this for a year now,” Benn told NME.

Reading & Leeds Festival will “almost certainly” have a COVID-vaccine passport system in place for this year’s festivals, according to organiser Melvin Benn.The twin festivals are currently due to go ahead as planned from August 27-29, with the likes of Stormzy, Post Malone and Liam Gallagher all set to play.Speaking to the BBC earlier today (March 30), Benn said that he was still confident that both Reading and Leeds would take place this summer with the UK currently on course to lift coronavirus-enforced restrictions in the coming months.“I’m taking the prime minister at his word that from June the legal restrictions will be off and as he and the culture secretary said: ‘We are looking forward to a summer of fun’,” Benn said.“If it is

Reading & Leeds boss Melvin Benn has revealed that “everyone will be tested” for coronavirus at next year’s festival.After this year’s edition was cancelled due to COVID-19, the first names on the line-up for Reading & Leeds 2021 were announced last night – with Stormzy, Catfish And The Bottlemen, Post Malone, Disclosure, Liam Gallagher and Queens Of The Stone Age all topping the bill at the event’s first run at having two main stages and six headliners.Speaking to NME last week before the announcement, Festival Republic boss Melvin Benn discussed how R&L would be tackling the challenge of coronavirus next summer.“COVID has given us a year off, so the innovation for next year is testing – everybody will be tested,” Benn told NME.He

Reading & Leeds boss Melvin Benn wistfully tells NME on the eve of what would have been one of the loudest weekends of the year. Oh, what we’d give to be up at Bramham Park or down at Little John’s Farm right now to see a little more musical history being made.