Reading Festival’s main music line-up gets underway today, with Dave, Megan Thee Stallion, Glass Animals and Little Simz among the acts set for Friday’s line-up. However, we’re also expecting a number of secret sets to take place throughout the weekend. We’ve already got a pretty good idea of who some of them will be – and we’ve got a list of the times secret sets will take place below too.
Confirmed
- The Interrupters 9:20pm Friday
Festival Republic Stage - Wargasm 12 noon Saturday
Main Stage East
The Interrupters will also play at Leeds on Saturday, but Wargasm have confirmed they’re only at Reading.
Almost confirmed
- Pendulum
- Don Broco
- Loyle Carner 3:10pm Saturday
BBC Introducing Stage
We’re only expecting these to appear at Reading, not Leeds, but we don’t have this confirmed.
Rumoured
- Yungblud
After the campsites were hit with an absolute deluge early on Thursday morning, those in attendance will be glad to hear it won’t rain again for the rest of the weekend. According to the Met Office, the sky will mostly remain overcast with a light breeze and the occasional bout of sunshine, with temperatures reaching 23C each day for the rest of the weekend. Chances of even a short, light shower hitting the festival are now minimal.
A high-pressure weather event known as “The Azores High” will begin over the bank holiday weekend, leading to consistently calm and dry weather for most of the country. Aidan McGivern of the Met Office said “The Azores are a group of islands in the mid-Atlantic. Semi-Permanent high pressure sits here throughout much of the year. But what’s been happening through this year so far and especially during the summer, is high pressure from the Azores keeps extending across the UK, hence the warm summer and the very dry summer that we’ve had. And that repeating pattern repeats again this weekend”
The BBC are providing live coverage with iPlayer streaming the main stages throughout the weekend. On Friday, you’ll be able to watch live from 2:30pm – with the live streams getting underway at 2pm on Saturday and 1:20pm on Sunday. And once they’re done, the full sets will be available to watch again in iPlayer for 30 days after the festival.
Click here to watch Friday’s Reading Festival live stream on BBC iPlayer once it gets underway at 2:30pm.
Just like with the BBC’s Glastonbury coverage, a few artists will take to the stage before the live stream starts each day, so it’s unlikely their sets will become available to watch online. But you’re not totally out of luck – radio coverage will begin at 11am each morning, so head to the official BBC Radio 1 stream on BBC Sounds to tune in.
While Leeds and Reading share the same line-up playing on different days, almost all of the TV coverage will come from Reading, so if you’re watching along at home it’s only the Reading schedule you need to pay attention to – though some of the radio coverage may well come from Leeds too.
If you’re here early, you can warm up with three highlight shows from last year. There’s Festival Bars, featuring Stormzy, AJ Tracey and more, Guitar Energy, with sets including Sam Fender and Wolf Alice and Pop Bops with artists including Mabel, Sigrid and Becky Hill.
Image credits:
James Bridle / Reading Festival
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