Anyone go to Reading Festival?

I did!

What a result on the wristbands! I have to say that this year it all felt different. They have made the main arena bigger, which made it feel slightly sort-of... soulless I think.

what did you not like about it?

I saw last week that you were going and looked out for you!

I know, it was a results but we spent 3 full days drinking at V the weekend before, so I wasn't much up for it!

It sounds silly to say I didn't like the amount of silly drunken teenagers at a festival, but I didn't! I love Glastonbury and have been to V loads of times, and even V has a better atmosphere than Reading. OK there's the odd p!ssed person, but Reading was chock full of loud, posh teenagers screeching everywhere. Things like people just standing there taking a p!ss in the middle of the main arena, throwing bottles around and corn cobs, no-one put any of their rubbish in the bin, people verbally abusing those collecting cups, lots of pushing in at the food and drink vans, someone nicked a sausage off one of the hot plates as H was buying chips, just loads of little things that made me a bit uncomfortable. I like festivals for the relaxed atmosphere, and Reading completely lacked that. Watching one of the bands on the main stage on Sunday, a group of people next to us were shouting "You're sh!t, get off, *** off" etc.

I think the clentele has changed in recent years. I saw loads of people taking a piss in the middle of nowhere as well. I thought it was gross.

It used to be rock fans coming here for a rock festival. It's not that any more.

Glasto is for people who aren't going to a festival just for the music (think green field etc)

V is for people who like clean festivals (not too much mud thanks, all rather civilised) with the emphasis on relatively mainstream music.

Reading was for rock fans... no angry atmosphere like it has been recently. I was crapping my pants getting out of the main arena - I thought I'd be trampled. It doesn't help that I can't move very quickly and people just think I am dawdling, and cannot see that I appear to have swallowed a football.

The Festival Republic organisation have taken over running it and have backed away from Carling as partners - I'm not saying that beer sponsorship makes the festival work... but there was something about it last year that was lacking this year. And the only thing that's changed is that it's a different company running it. I would me most interested to know if Leeds has changed much...

We watched the very short 45 min highlight show on BBC3 on Monday. My H only watched it as he wanted to see Metallica and they didn't show them!!!

It really wasn't nice there at all. I expected it to be a rockier crowd than I'm used to, lots of older blokes I guess, sitting in the sun having a beer! It wasn't like that at all.

You're right, there's so much more to Glastonbury than the music, although that was really what I went for. V is by far the muddiest I've seen! I don't find it cleaner than Glasto. If I could log in to my Flickr today I could show you some shocking pics from last weekend! It was very, very wet.

It was hell trying to get into the main arena. And getting out was a nightmare too - they had all those bit EXIT C etc signs, but they weren't exits. I spied a good one early on and thought we'd get out through there as the last train home was at midnight, but they wouldn't let us out.

Festival Republic were great with my tickets; one got stolen in the post and I picked up two new ones on the day, but the rest I was not impressed with. I'm glad I've been as I've always wondered what it was like. Never again though! Glasto only for us next year.

We went and had a fantastic time. I agree with what HH said there was definatly a difference to previous years with the running etc. I think the problem with Reading is that you get a lot of Indie Kids there who have been rewarded with tickets for getting good A level results and they just go a bit wild as parents arent around. I was more peeved the beer was 20p more in the VIP area than anything else!

Sorry about the awful punctuation. I'm usimg the t'internet on my mobile and it won't let me do paragraphs. Stupid thing!

I thought there were a lot of GCSE kids. I overheard some talking about getting 13 A stars on the way in on Friday.

Did it come in a proper pint glass?!