T In The Rain

Despite some heavy showers and muddy ground, T In The Park and Oxegen – arguably the U.K.’s biggest twinned festivals – both sold out all 80,000 tickets.

"It rained a lot but it didn’t matter so much because the audience is mainly between 18 and 25 and they come to see their favorite bands. They all had a great time and nobody was wandering around with a ‘woe is me’ look on their faces," said Denis Desmond from Ireland’s MCD Productions, which owns Oxegen and is the major partner in T In The Park since buying more shares from Stuart Clumpas in 2001.

Further proof that fans vote with their feet came within 24 hours of T In The Park closing, when 40,000 fans – half the capacity – bought early tickets for next year’s festival within an hour of the onsale.

The remainder will go on sale at the beginning of next year when the first names on the bill are announced.

Desmond believes T In The Park, which celebrates its 15th birthday next year, has steadily made an indelible mark on the British festival circuit.

As for Oxegen, which has sold out for each of the four years it’s been staged, it further enhanced his reputation for being the only Irishman to regularly leave Punchestown Racecourse with money in his pockets.

It’s gone clean in advance each year, starting with 63,000 in 2004, growing to 73,000 in 2005, and then selling 80,000 for each of the last two years.

With the two festivals running over the same weekend, although T In The Park (July 6-8) is a day longer, the unofficially twinned events inevitably buy several acts for both the Scottish and the Irish gathering.

Among the acts playing both this year were The Killers, Arcade Fire, Snow Patrol, Scissor Sisters, Amy Winehouse, Avril Lavigne, Kings Of Leon, Queens of the Stone Age, James Morrison, Babyshambles, The Kooks, Bright Eyes and The Fratellis.