Leeds Festival Tickets

Held in the city's Bramham Park, the Leeds Festival was inaugurated in 1999 as a companion event to the seriously overloaded Reading Festival, which could no longer cope with the myriad of music fans descending onto Little John Farm. The idea was to have the same line-up of bands play each venue on different nights, so not all fans had to travel to one venue – they could just choose the one closest to them, which halved the strain on Reading, but doubled the profits for the organisers. The original site of the Leeds leg of the Festival, was Temple Newsam, a stately home in the village of the same name, where the V Festival was held in 1997 and 1999. However, after riots marred the 2002 event, the Leeds Festival lost its licence and was moved to the more manageable Bramham Park country house, near Wetherby, where security was heavily increased and the site, although technically more difficult to construct a stage upon, proved better for fans. Performing acts are a mix of rock, pop, alternative and indie, with all the big names from Guns'n'Roses, The Killers and My Chemical Romance, to The Strokes, Muse and, Arcade Fire getting a look in at some point.

In 2005, a huge video screen was introduced (as happened at Reading), which remains a fixture today, and in 2007, the Kaiser Chiefs played a famous secret gig at the Leeds Festival, in honour of their home city. 2008 saw both the Reading and Leeds sites completely waterlogged, although die-hard fans were undeterred, and tens of thousands still turned out to see the likes of The Killers, Babyshambles and Metallica get soaked along with them. As with Reading, the Leeds Festival also has major camping facilities, with a capacity of 75,000 on 400 acres of stately pile, and both weekend tickets (including camping) and day tickets are available to the public. Disabled facilities are impressive, and the campsites even have their own DJs and football pitches, as well as cashpoints, small cinema tent and numerous food, drink and merchandise stalls.

The 2012 Leeds Festival will be held on the weekend of 24th - 26th August.