Giddings’ Outstanding Contribution

John Giddings’ work on resurrecting Isle Of Wight after a gap of three decades has earned him this year’s Outstanding Contribution To Festivals award.

It’s one of a raft of gongs that Virtualfestivals.com, the U.K.’s popular festival Web site, will hand out at its annual awards ceremony at London’s KoKo November 6th.

The winner is picked by a panel of judges, who have previously given it to Melvin Benn, Michael Eavis’ Glastonbury Festival team, and the legendary, late Radio One DJ John Peel. The other categories will be decided by votes cast on festivalawards.com.

The number of votes each event polls is weighted against its capacity in a bid to make a fair comparison. Voting closes October 28th.

Giddings restarted Isle Of Wight as a one-day, 25,000-capacity festival in 2002, building it to a three-day 55,000-capacity within six years.

In 2004, the third year the born-again Isle Of Wight was staged, a report in the Sunday Times said it had already become the U.K.’s "coolest" festival.

Apart from the Solo Agency chief taking "Outstanding Contribution," the festival has been nominated in five other award categories, including best major festival, best lineup and best headline act.

In all three categories it will be up against Scotland’s T In The Park, which won best major festival last year and is nominated in eight of the categories this year.