Sunshine bakes Reading Festival

Updated 19.25 Mon Aug 27 2007
Keywords: Reading Festival

Festival fans have streamed into Reading to spend the weekend camping on a site that only four weeks ago was totally submerged.

Last month's flooding left most of the fields on which the three-day rock extravaganza is held under water.

Round-the-clock efforts from festival director Melvin Benn, along with workers from Reading Borough Council and the Environment Agency, have allowed the annual event to go ahead

But round-the-clock efforts from festival director Melvin Benn, along with workers from Reading Borough Council and the Environment Agency, have allowed the annual event to go ahead.

Only a small part of the site has been left unusable and car parks have been converted into camping areas to compensate.

Mud, and lots of it, is the inevitable side-effect of setting up a festival on waterlogged fields but die-hard music lovers came well prepared.

Wearing wellies to wade through the mire and T-shirts to soak up the brief sunshine, they came in their tens of thousands to hear Razorlight, The Gossip and Maximo Park among others.

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