Reading "the greatest festival in the world" comes to an end

Reading Festival organiser Melvin Benn says putting together this year's event in only six weeks was "very stressful" and "unbelievable" .

105,000 fans attended the three-day festival which was headlined amongst others by Stormzy and Liam Gallagher.

All fans had to prove their covid status to be allowed in.

Speaking to Greatest Hits Radio as the festival drew to a close on Sunday night he said:

"Until July the 12th nothing was properly confirmed, but because we did the pilot shows we knew the only mitigation that works is the covid testing whether it be lateral flow or PCR or double vaccinations, it's hard work, it's laborious but it's got be done and it means we can come out into a field and have a great time so I think that's easily a price worth paying"

He said organising the festival at relatively short notice wasn't without its difficulties:

"its been put together in six weeks, and that's very stressful because it's on the back of a pandemic, it's on the back of Brexit, and everyone keeps talking about the supply chain, and that's real there isn't a supply chain! Half the toilets at Leeds are Glastonbury toilets because there were no other toilets to hire and so Michael (Eavis) was like 'yeah you can use them' because he wants the industry to grow, but at the end of the day there just wasn't enough toilets in the country because they're in the test centres, hospitals and in the schools, so we had six weeks to put it together and it's been unbelievable, unbelievable"

Asked what his highlight had been he said it wasn't about a single performance:

"Just being here is my highlight, being able to say 'thank you' to the artists, just being able to say thank you for coming to play, thank you for amazing sets, just being able to thank them for being there and bringing amazing joy, happiness and excitement to thousands of people, it's just really special"

Mr Benn also defended the decision to go ahead with the risk of spreading covid:

"there's going to be a spike, there will be an increase, but it's a spike we're all expecting, we're all planning for and we know that because of the audience profile they're going to shrug it off, they know (the festival-goers) they're going to shrug it off. If the choice is come and expose yourself to a little bit of covid and shrug it off and come to the greatest festival in the world or stay at home, is there a decision to be made?"

He says next year's line-up will be "extraordinary" and he's already excited about it.

Hear all the latest news from across the UK on the hour, every hour, on Greatest Hits Radio on DAB, smartspeaker, at greatesthitsradio.co.uk, and on the Rayo app.

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