Richard Ashcroft has been confirmed for the Isle of Wight Festival, which takes place from Friday 9th June until Sunday 11th June 2006 at Seaclose Park Newport, Isle of Wight.

He joins the acts already annouced:- The Prodigy, Placebo, Goldfrapp, The Rakes, and The Upper Room on the Friday, and Primal Scream, Editors, Dirty Pretty Things, The Kooks, and 747s all on the Saturday, and Lou Reed, Maximo Park, and Kubb on the Sunday.

Tickets are on sale, priced at £85 for the three days (under-12’s £42.50), and £105 with camping (under-12’s £52.50). Campervans are an an extra £60 (per vehicle).

To buy, click here.

The Weston Park, Staffordshire leg of V Festival is to have an even stronger policing policy this year, with the aim of targeting troublemakers.

In previous years, Staffordshire Police have used Automatic Number Plate Recognition to target known offenders, as well as using palm-wipe drug testing kits on attendees. Although anyone asked to be drug tested has the right to refuse, the police can regard the refusal as reasonable suspicion of possession of drugs, leading to a full search.

This year, they plan to use facial recognition equipment.
On-site CCTV cameras will be linked to an intelligence database of known offenders’ photos and return facial matches to officers.
The police will also be sending letters to over 250 criminals and known offenders warning them to stay away from V before the festival starts.

Chief Inspector Jon Drake, one of the event commanders, said: “Violence of any kind will not be tolerated and people who get involved in disorder – or any type of crime - can expect to be ejected from the site. A small minority of offenders will not be allowed to spoil the weekend for the tens of thousands of law-abiding music fans.

Andy Redhead, V Festival Organiser, said: “The safety of V Festival fans is of utmost importance to us. We therefore fully support the efforts of Staffordshire Police to ensure that the festival remains a trouble-free zone, for the enjoyment of those that come to see some quality performances and soak up on the great atmosphere that V is well known for.”

Natasha Bedingfield has been added to the line-up at this year’s V Festival.

Natasha will appear at the festival on Sunday August 21 reports The Sun.

Other acts due to perform include Oasis, Scissor Sisters, The Streets and Franz Ferdinand.

V Festival takes place on Saturday August 20 in Chelmsford and Sunday August 21 in Staffordshire.

Franz Ferdinand, Muse and Pearl Jam have just been announced as three of the headliners of this year’s Carling Weekend: Reading and Leeds Festivals.

All three acts will headline the Main Stage of both festivals:

Franz Ferdinand will appear on Friday 25th August in Reading and Saturday 26th in Leeds.

Muse will appear on Saturday 26th in Reading and Sunday 27th in Leeds

Pearl Jam will appear on Sunday 27th in Reading and Friday 25th in Leeds

Radio One’s Zane Lowe will be announcing the bulk of the line-up at 7.15pm this evening.

Tickets are now on sale and are available online here - Leeds Festival / Reading Festival

Manchester’s free music festival DPercussion returns on August 5. We trace the history of the event.

IN 1996 a huge IRA bomb ripped the heart out of Manchester. A year later the city was determined to show its spirit of resilience and optimism with a series of initiatives.

A young music promoter called Steve Smith decided if the city was going to celebrate, then it had to do so using its most powerful asset; music.

The redeveloped Castlefield, with its canals, walkways and summer bars seemed like the perfect location.

The name of the event was RE.percussion and its aim was to promote the positive repercussions of the bomb.

People say that Mancunians will use any excuse to party, and they’re not wrong.

Since then the event evolved from RE.percussion into Dpercussion in 1998, where the D stood for ‘digital’ and celebrated the dawn of the digital revolution and the first ever computer with a stored memory being built in Manchester 50 years earlier.

Dpercussion has become the city’s biggest free music festival, but has been cancelled in two years, 2001 and 2003, due to lack of funds. This year a major funding shortfall to the tune of £40,000 meant that the future of the festival again looked grim.

Ten years after being born out of the ashes of the Manchester bomb, it looked like the party was destined to be well and truly over for Dpercussion.

However, last minute sponsors secured by organizers Ear to the Ground put the festival back in business with an awe-inspiring line-up which guarantees that the event will be bigger, better and louder than ever before.

This year will see acts such as Aim, David Holmes, Liam Frost, The Young Knives and Broke ‘n’ English take to the stage, as well as DJs covering the whole musical spectrum, from electro and indie, to hip hop and drum and bass.

There will also be an 80ft graffiti wall featuring some of Manchester’s finest art collectives.

T in the Park returns triumphantly to Balado by Kinross, which takes place on Saturday 9th & Sunday 10th July this year.

Having recently announced the Futures Stage to the line up, festival organisers Big Day Out Ltd and founding partners Tennent’s Lager can announce today some of the remaining artists who will complete the event line up.

Rachel Fuller, Tara Blaise, Cosmic Rough Riders and the Sluts of Trust lead the latest announcement of stunning artists for T in the Park, which takes place at Balado by Kinross on Saturday 9th & Sunday 10th July.

With days to go until the sold out festival, now one of the most hotly anticipated on the world stage, the final artists are being squeezed into a line up already bursting at the seams with amazing talent.

Rachel Fuller will now open the Main Stage on Sunday at the festival, after organisers made space at the last minute to include her as all were keen to have her play the event. Tara Blaise will conduct the same duties elsewhere on the all new 2,000 capacity Futures Stage.

Alabama 3, Do Me Bad Things and The Magic Numbers are also announced for the T in the Park line up.

With the recent capacity increase, a 69,000 strong Balado faithful will be able to enjoy over 170 artists across 10 stages.

Organisers would like to re-iterate that, anybody who is not in possession of a camping ticket will not be allowed access to the campsite at T in the Park - absolutely no access will be allowed unless in possession of a camping ticket. They must make alternative arrangements to get home each night.

Looking out of the office window, the weather looks pretty grim. But the BBC predict that it will get better by the end of the week.

Click here for a 5 day weather forecast for T In The Park.

All 112,000 tickets for this year’s Glastonbury music festival were sold in less than three hours on Sunday - a record in the event’s history.
Fans rushed to snap up the tickets as soon as they became available online and over the telephone at 0900 BST.

Organisers had vowed to improve the booking system, which saw many fans frustrated last year as the website crashed and phone lines jammed.

They said on Sunday there had been no repeat of the problems this time.

Gigi Dryer, head of Aloud.com - the festival’s ticket agent - added that the ticket sale had been a “great success”.

“It has been the biggest and best planned exercise in live music event ticketing,” she said.
“Now we hope that those lucky enough to get tickets have the best festival ever.”

The 112,000 weekend tickets for the event at Pilton, Somerset, cost £125, with fans able to buy up to two each. A further 8,000 will be sold in the local area.

Organiser Michael Eavis said the ticket selling system had gone “like a dream” and beaten the five-hour target.

“The move to selling the tickets on Sunday was a really good idea as we have the exchanges to ourselves,” he said.
“Selling the tickets in the day time was much better plan and people can now go and enjoy Sunday lunch and go to work tomorrow knowing they have or haven’t got a ticket.”

Organisers spent a long time looking at ways to improve the booking system. Aloud.com designed a bespoke system with extra bandwidth and doubled the number of phone operators taking telephone ticket bookings to 100.

Festival-goers will need to show photo ID, which will be matched with the name on their ticket, in an attempt to beat touts.

The line-up for the event, to be held in Somerset from 24-26 June, will be unveiled on 1 June. But acts expected to appear include Kylie Minogue, Coldplay and the White Stripes.

Source : BBC Online

Dizzie Rascal has been added to the bill for this year’s T In The Park.

Interpol has also been added to the line up reports NME.com.

They will play the King Tut’s Tent on Saturday and Sunday respectively.

Death In Vegas have confirmed they will play the Slam Tent on Saturday, and Fightstar on Stage 2 on the same day.

T In The Park 2005, which is sold out, will take place at Balado, Kinross between July 9-10.

Other acts already confirmed include The Foo Fighters, The Killers, Kasabian and The Beautiful South.