The new look Isle of Wight Festival which relaunched this year, is coming back with a two day event next year, hoping to steal some of Glastonbury’s thunder. Although not as big as the flagship UK music festival it will precede it by three weeks, which organisers hope will help gain their event some prestige.
Organiser John Giddings told NME: "Our new dates (7 and 8 June) are at the end of the exams and still long way away from the Reading and V festivals. The intention is to go ahead of Glastonbury. I will be spending a lot more on headline acts this year, and I am in negotiations with acts at the moment, but I don't want to say who."
Although not as established or big as Glastonbury, the Isle of Wight Festival does have a heritage to fall back on like the Somerset event – the three Isle of Wight Festivals in the late sixties – climaxing in the 1970 event – were seminal events in the history of British rock ‘n’ roll.