Giddings Grateful For IOW Sellout

The first of the summer’s major U.K. festivals sold out and got rave reviews, but Isle of Wight chief John Giddings still warned that “the days of selling out major shows in 10 seconds are over.”

“I’m glad to have sold all 55,000 tickets in advance, grateful that it’s never rained on the festival in eight years, and pleased that I got headliners of such quality,” he said, explaining that the last tickets went in the week leading up to the June 12-14 event.

He told Pollstar he was always confident of selling out and wasn’t too disturbed when sales were slow because he expected it would take longer this year.

“There’s been a slump in ticket sales since Easter, but we’re all putting a brave face on it,” he said, although he didn’t feel the other major festivals would do any worse than take longer to sell out.

Papers including The Times and The Independent gave the festival rave reviews, while Giddings said Neil Young and The Pixies were among his personal favorites and Sterophonics and The Prodigy the crowd’s favorites.

The other acts on this year’s IOW bill included Razorlight, Basement Jaxx, White Lies, Pendulum, Simple Minds, The Ting Tings, Paolo Nutini, The Zombies, Maximo Park and Judy Collins.