Reading & Leeds boss talks to eFestivals

At the press launch of this year's Reading, and Leeds festivals eFestivals got a chance to interview Melvin Benn, Managing Director of Festival Republic.

May I first start by congratulating you on a fantastic line-up this year, which brings me of course to Radiohead, is it particularly hard to get a band so contained by their own agenda onto the bill?

Well, it's hard getting everyone on the bill in a lot of respects but also easy in others. I mean, when it comes to bands like Radiohead they sort of take decisions on themselves where they want to play, and once they've made that decision I wouldn't say it's easy but it's far from impossible.

So it was more they wanted to do it themselves?

Well, bands like Radiohead really can't be persuaded to do things like this especially by money. Unless they've decided they want to do it, it's not happening.

Has this year's organisation been affected by the credit crunch at all?

It appears to be affecting the music industry a great deal, several tours simply aren't working but it is difficult to know if they would have worked anyway and the same thing can be said for festivals. Music and festivals are so subjective though, in many ways nobody needs a festival and in others everybody needs one. I mean, when times are hard, by god you wanna go out and enjoy yourselves!

Well, you're evidently not worried about sales due to your recent decision not to make tickets available at the actual event, is this just confidence?

I suppose there is a bit of confidence there but it's in an attempt to try to dissuade people from believing that if they buy from a dodgy website they can just show up and pick up that ticket, that's really what that's about, we just really don't want people buying from these sites.

So it’s basically an anti-tout measure?

As much as anything, yeah.

One thing I've noticed the past couple of years is the huge popularity of the Silent Disco, something I always hear being commented on. So I've been wondering just out of personal interest if there was any possibility at all of upcoming silent gigs, despite the logistics of it?

I think that's very unlikely at the moment.

Also the BBC Introducing… stage has received high praise, is this something we're going to see becoming a Leeds/Reading staple?

Absolutely, that particular stage is really important to the festival.

And attendees, it's very cool to finally get to see some more underground acts at large festivals like this. Thanks for taking the time to have this quick word but I see there's quite a queue building up so unfortunately we'll have to leave it here.

Thanks very much!

Reading and Leeds Festivals take place on the bank holiday weekend, from Friday 28th to Sunday 30th August. Reading Festival takes place at Little Johns Farm, Richfield Avenue, Reading, Berkshire, and Leeds Festival takes place at Bramham Park, Leeds, West Yorkshire.

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