All you need to know about Reading Festival
More than 100,000 fans are due in Reading
READING will transform into a festival town once again next week with residents being reminded to plan ahead with shops, public transport and roads a lot busier than usual as 105,000 people attend the three-day event.
Plan for Traffic Delays
Local residents planning to travel into or around the town centre from Wednesday 21 August to Friday 23 August are being asked to consider and plan their journey in advance, leave early and be prepared for longer travel times as festival goers arrive. Thursday August 22 is expected to be particularly busy as most festival-goers arrive that day.
Near to normal travel levels are expected on the Saturday and Sunday of the festival (24 and 25 August), although shops and supermarkets will be busier than usual.
Roads will be extremely busy again on the Bank Holiday Monday (26 August) as festival-goers leave the event.
Parking
Residents are advised parking restrictions, including no stopping for pick-ups, will be in place around the Richfield Avenue site as usual. The area should be avoided unless absolutely necessary. Consider alternative routes.
Hills Meadow Car Park will be the dedicated area for drop off/pick up. From here festival goers can either walk to the site, or use the free shuttle boats provided.
If dropping off/picking up, please use sat nav postcode for Hills Meadow Car Park RG4 8DH.
Festival car parking is available at Mapledurham and Kings Meadow for parking pass holders.
For festival visitors parking at Mapledurham, a pedestrian bridge has again been constructed direct to the site to ensure easy and safe access.
For those parking at Kings Meadow, an official festival boat service is provided free of charge to help transport everyone, including tents and belongings, into the festival site. People are advised to be on their guard against any illegal/unregulated boats that may be operating, which includes offering a taxi service. There is only the one authorised boat service and monitoring of the river is in place for the duration of the event.
Temporary Traffic Management
As usual, temporary traffic management will be in place at various locations around town. Please look out for signage.
For security and safety, the usual night-time closure of the Thames Path (from 7pm to 6am) will again be in operation from Thursday 22 August to Monday 26 August. The closure will apply between Scours Lane to the far end of Thameside Promenade.
There is again a full closure of Richfield Avenue – between its junctions with Cardiff Road and Tessa Road – from 10.30pm to 1.00am, on the Friday, Saturday and Sunday of festival weekend. This closure is to assist a safe exit from the festival site of the 20,000 day ticket holders, with a contingency to extend eastbound to the junction with Caversham Road (except for access) should reasons of safety necessitate.
During Bank Holiday Monday (August 26), the Napier Road / Vastern Road roundabout will be particularly busy, with temporary traffic management utilised if required.
The northbound closure of Cow Lane, between Portman Road and Cardiff Road, is also likely to be reinstated between 8am and 3pm on the Bank Holiday Monday to help with the coach transfers and exit of service vehicles from the festival site, depending on traffic levels in this area. It is advisable to avoid driving through these areas, in addition to the areas immediately around the site and the main event car parks, on the Bank Holiday Monday.
There will be enforced parking and loading restrictions in place around the festival site, particularly along Richfield Avenue.
Guests should follow the boroughwide signing to the designated drop-off/pick-up area (Hills Meadow Car Park, George Street, RG4 8DH) or to their pre-booked car park.
Getting to the Festival Site
The Council has again worked with the festival organisers to produce travel information, made available to festival-goers and the general public, via the festival website: https://www.readingfestival.com/information-category/travel
For private cars, the only pick-up and drop-off is Hills Meadow car park. Festival goers then have the option of walking along the towpath to the festival site via Christchurch Bridge, the Council’s pedestrian and cycle bridge over the Thames, or taking the free boat up to one of the ticket entrance gates.
To help maintain traffic flow, the Council’s parking enforcement officers will as always be working alongside police to crack down on people who park illegally and cause an obstruction.
The quickest walking route from Reading Station to the site is via the northern side of the station, as opposed to the town centre side. The station subway is set to re-open imminently following the recent refurbishment and will be fully operational. Festival visitors also have the option of travelling to the site via hackney carriages, or a special festival shuttle bus that will operate from the northern exit of the station.
Throughout the duration of the festival a temporary taxi rank will be operating in Tessa Road – opposite Rivermead Leisure Centre and next to the festival site – as a further option when travelling to and from the site.
Visitors are being reminded that they should pre-book private hire vehicles, noting it is illegal to hail them from the roadside. All licensed vehicles will display a Reading Borough Council plate on the back and all drivers should have an identity badge in full view.
Festival-goers are reminded not to use private land as pick-up/drop-off points without express permission from the landowner or they may be liable to receive parking fines and / or be subject to other legal action.
Rivermead Leisure Centre, Noise Checks, Residents Hotline Number
The new Rivermead Leisure Centre and its facilities will be closed for normal activities from Weds August 21 to Tuesday August 27 inclusive.
The intention is once again to avoid unreasonable disturbance to local residents. Sound testing will take place on the Thursday evening and each day of the festival prior to the live show. These will be conducted under the direct supervision of Council officers.
A special hotline number – 020 8080 1518 - has been set up for residents who wish to offer comments or to raise queries during the event. The line will be answered between 9am and 5pm on Wednesday 21 August, and then 24 hours a day from 9am Thursday 22 until 3pm Monday 26 August. There is also an email for residents to use: ReadingFestivalHotline@reading.gov.uk. (emails are checked regularly during main event hours).
Personal Safety
The safety of festival-goers is paramount and anyone attending is advised to check the “Personal Safety” section of the festival website. https://www.readingfestival.com/information-category/personal-safety/
This includes information on:
What to do in an emergency
Wellbeing and safeguarding
Medical and health assistance
Policies on drugs and alcohol
Help map and information on the festival site
Sustainability and Climate Change
The Council - together with Festival Republic - is again urging festival-goers to build on recent improvements and Look Out For The Planet by leaving no tent behind and taking all camping gear home. The total waste generated at the site in 2023 was 6 tonnes lower than in the previous year. There was also a 10% decrease in tents left behind at the site compared to 2022. This is a positive trend that is expected to be built on this year as event organisers and festival goers embrace their responsibilities to the climate emergency
Following its continued success, Festival Republic will be continuing both Eco Camps. Due to popular demand the Green Eco Camp has now sold out, however there are still spaces in the White Eco Camp for festival-goers who are determined to ‘leave no trace behind’ and want to stay with like-minded eco-friendly campers. As those places are filling up quickly, interested festival goers should sign up quickly via Rockstar Energy presents Reading Festival | Where To Stay | Information
Festival Republic is collaborating with Decathlon to ensure even fewer tents are left behind. Decathlon will be providing affordable tents for under £30, available for click-and-collect at your local store. These tents can be returned onsite after the weekend, with tent repair services also available. Select tents come with buy-back options too. For more details, visit: https://www.decathlon.co.uk/c/htc/no-tent-left-behind_b3be522a-a5f2-497e-a93f-f1a3682cdae1.
Reading Festival is continuing its recycling rewards scheme – where an exclusive side of stage experience is up for grabs, along with merchandise and festival tickets, just for taking recycling back to recycling points in the campsite. For more information see Rockstar Energy presents Reading Festival | Look Out for The Planet. All recycling will be sent to the local waste facility to be sorted.
The cup, can and bottle deposit return scheme will also be running where each item sold at the bars will have a 10p deposit included in the price, that can be redeemed at the designated return points either side of the main stages.
Festival Republic will continue with the ban of campfires and disposable BBQs. Anyone seen creating or fuelling a fire will be evicted. Campsites are kept safer in this way and this supports the Council’s local Air Quality Action Plan, contributing significantly to improved air quality at the site and for local residents in the vicinity. It is also in consideration of local impacts as set out in Festival Republic’s Green Nation Charter which seeks to minimise local impacts.
The festival will also be continuing its ban on the use of disposable vapes. For a list of what festival goers can and can’t bring into the site go to The Essentials.
Driving towards Festival Republic & Live Nation’s global company wide target of reducing 50% of its emissions by 2030, the festival is powered by a combination of 100% biofuel in the generators to achieve greater reduced emissions and some battery storage units to enable festival power to be fossil fuel free.
Festival Republic, along with the Council, encourage the use of low-carbon transport such as coach, train, and car sharing. It is working with Liftshare this year to promote car sharing, incentivising this with a priority car park – sign up here Reading Festival Liftshare community - part of the Liftshare network.
This year Reading Festival goers will donate £1 of their car parking fee to Trees for Cities, which has funded the planting of 10 semi-mature trees in Reading, in addition to the 22 trees planted last year.
The Council will again be placing a glass bottle bank for shoppers and festival-goers to use over the festival weekend directly outside the front entrance to the ALDI store at Vastern Court, on Vastern Road. Many revellers leave the festival site to buy drinks in glass bottles before decanting them into alternative containers, as glass is not permitted on the festival site. The Council hopes to capture as much glass recycling as possible at the bottle bank to contribute to Reading’s glass recycling tonnages and reduce glass litter and breakage along the route back to the festival site, whilst also reducing pressure on the public litter bins in the area.