The Isle of Wight festival takes place every year in Newport on, yep, you guessed it: the Isle of Wight.
I like looking at the history of music festivals, having covered the history of Download Festival in the past.
This blog post is about the history of the Isle of Wight festival, but it’s actually more than that.
It’s really the story of the original festival, created during the rise of music festivals in the UK in the 1970’s.
This festival sadly went away after only a few years because it was TOO SUCCESSFUL!
Then there is the story of the revived festival that began in 2002 and has thrived since, becoming one of the biggest festival dates in the British festival calendar.
The Original Festival
In 1968, the Isle of Wight festival was born.
The festival was the brainchild of three Faulk brothers: Ron, Ray and Bill.
And Ronnie Far, but he wasn’t related to them and so it ruins the sentence structure.
Also, I was 100% sure that Bill Faulk was not actually William Faulkner, but I still had to check.
He isn’t. But wasn’t that an exciting tangent?
Anyway, these 3 brothers were bored one a wet Saturday afternoon and so they decided to make a music festival…
And then they actually made it happen!
In 1968 the inaugural isle of Wight Festival took place to a modest crowd of 10,000 people.
The day featured acts like Jefferson Airplane and Tyrannosaurus Rex.
(This was before the band shortened their name to just T-Rex to be more popular with people who can’t spell)
1969
After the modest crowd of the 1968 festival, attendance sky-rocketed with an estimate of 150,000 to 250,000 attendees at the 1969 event.
For context, Glastonbury festival 2019 had just 175,000 people attend.
For even more context, the number of people LIVING on the Isle of Wight in 1969 was fewer than 100,000.
Imagine living your normal life on an island when suddenly the population triples for a few days!
The 1969 festival was absolutely huge, which makes looking at the photos of the rather quaint stage even more amazing.
Performances
The 1969 festival was headlined by Bob Dylan, his first paid performance after his infamous motorcycle accident.
It was unclear if he was ever going to go back to performing, so this was just the comeback event for him!
Other notable performances were from the Who, Joe Cocker and the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band
(Who I promise were a big deal back then!)
1970
This was the third Isle of Wight Festival and it was the largest the festival had ever been.
It was actually larger than ANY festival had ever been, with an estimated audience size BIGGER than that of Woodstock!
- Woodstock 450,000 people
- Isle of Wight 1970 700,000 people
The Isle of Wight festival was a mammoth 4-day affair, with dozens of bands performing, including the Doors, The Who and Emmerson, Lake & Palmer.
Cancellation
After three great years of the festival, it suddenly stopped.
The festival had been wildly popular and the 1970 event was a massive success, with The Who even produced a live album from it because it was such a good set!
So what went wrong?
Well basically, the festival was TOO popular.
The festival had been fantastic for the attendees, and the crowds were getting bigger year on year.
For the 1970 event, the Guinness book of world records states that the audience was around 700,000.
The residents of the area were getting sick of these long-haired hippies descending on their peaceful little island every year.
So in 1971 parlament added a section to the isle of Wight County Council act. This amendment meant that you needed a special licence from the council to hold an outdoor overnight event with more than 5,000 people.
That basically killed the Isle of Wight festival stone dead immediately.
The Revival
You may know this isn’t the end of the festival however, because the Isle of Wight festival still exists, and has been going since 2002, with the 2021 festival taking place in September and being a huge success.
Well in 2002, someone decided that the festival had been gone for too long and strived to resurrect it.
A draft version of the business case to revive the festival back in 2002 is available online.
It includes plans for marketing, yearly targets and activities ideas.
It really makes for a fascinating read (or maybe I’m just a huge nerd for event planning and music festivals…)
But who actually was responsible for the festival’s glorious rise from the ashes?
It certainly wasn’t the Faulk brothers (Or Ronnie Far).
As far as i can tell, the festival was revived by the Isle of Wight council, who realised that banning the festival 50 years ago was a huge mistake.
The council then hired John Giddings, a music promoter, to help organise and plan the event.
After the success of the 2002 festival, the council then passed the running of the festival entirely to Mr. Giddings.
In 2017 Live Nation bought a majority shareholders stake in the Isle of Wight festival, though John Giddings is still the man running the whole event.
2002
The 2002 festival was across 2 weeks, but the main event was a one-day affair, called Rock Island 2002 headlined by the Charlatans and costing just £35 for a day ticket.
Oh how times (and ticket prices) change.
In a fun moment of history repeating itself, this event, like the original 1968 festival, had a modest attendance of around 10,000.
This was enough however to get the festival on again the following year, and every year since (Excluding 2020 of course, because NOTHING happened in 2020).
The attendance has been on a steady rise as well since, with the festival receiving around 72,000 visitors in 2018.
Wrap Up
The Isle of Wight festival went from being a very small festival on a very small island, to being the largest music festival in the world (on a very small island) in the space of just a few years.
But they flew too close to the sun and so the festival was banished forever.
Until it returned, like the Phoenix rising from the ashes (I’ve made that reference already, haven’t I) and has experienced only success in the intervening 19 years.
Well, excluding 2020, but I think we can all just class that year as a write-off.
The festival did happen in 2021 however, and was another big success.
Hopefully the festival will continue to grow and prosper in the future, but hopefully not so much that it gets cancelled again…
