Leeds Festival: Melvin Benn on 'bold shift' with headliners including Chappell Roan and camping overhaul

Having never left Yorkshire before, a young Melvin Benn pinned his hopes of getting to Reading Festival on hitch-hiking the more than 220-mile journey from his hometown of Hull. “Me and my mate went down in the clothes we were stood in because we didn’t even know we needed to take a tent,” he remembers. “We had no idea what we were doing.”

They made it though - to Benn’s first ever festival, back in 1972 – and little did he know then what path it would lead him down. An avid-festivalgoer he soon became and in the 1980s, Benn began staging free political festivals up and down the country. He’s now been involved in promoting festivals for 45 years, first through the Mean Fiddler organisation and then Festival Republic, where Benn is managing director. The leading event promoter is behind some of the UK’s biggest music festivals, including Latitude, Wireless, and Reading and Leeds.

“I started Leeds (in 1999) because I wanted to create a festival in my home county and because I wanted that festival to become the North’s festival,” Benn says. “And it has. I also wanted it to last generations – and it has. I’m now meeting and doing business with people who are in their 40s who tell me about how they loved to go to Leeds when they were 18 and how important it was for them. That feeling of being in the North and part of the North is something that you very much get at Leeds Festival.”

Returning to Bramham Park on Thursday, and running until Sunday, Leeds, which is staged alongside its twin, Reading Festival, is being headlined this year by Chappell Roan, Hozier, Bring Me The Horizon and Travis Scott. “The thing I look forward to most more than anything else is opening the gates,” 69-year-old Benn says. “When you can say we’re open and everyone starts coming in looking forward to a great weekend.

"After that it starts becoming about who you want to see, which artists…Travis Scott is among the best live acts on the planet at the moment. Hozier and Chappell Roan is an incredible day. It’s a bold shift for us really, we’re recognising pop genuinely is a force to be reckoned with again and not something to be sneered at and we’ve got some of the most amazing exponents of pop around at the moment. Then Bring Me The Horizon, the Yorkshire lads, if there’s a band in the world that puts on a better festival production, I don’t know who it is. They’re unbelievable.”

This year, Leeds has a new stage, Reload, which is celebrating the underground electronic communities, and offering a platform for producers and DJs. The Aux Stage is also returning after its first edition last year, a space for digital creators that gives fans chance to get up close to online stars. Plus, of course, there’s BBC Introducing, whose stage at Leeds has long provided opportunities for up-and-coming acts to perform.

But it’s not just the line-up that has Benn enthused. This year, there’s been a major overhaul to the camping offering at both Reading and Leeds. For the first time, there will be five distinct campsites, allowing festivalgoers to tailor their weekend experience. As well as the main camp (The Fields), there is a quiet camp, known as The Garden, with yoga, meditation and a run club; and an eco camp - The Meadow -for those wanting to reduce their impact on the environment.

People attending on their own or in a pair have the option to stay at a dedicated campsite called The Valley, which has initiatives including find your pal events; whilst the fifth camp, The Grove, is described as being a community-focused safe place, supported by gender-inclusive teams. Other changes include vacuum toilet cubicles being introduced across the campsites, as well as more showers and ‘get ready with me’ stations with mirrors, dressing tables, toiletries, and plugs for hair styling tools.

Explaining the rationale behind the changes, Benn says: “The general campsites at festivals haven’t really changed since I was first going myself in the early 70s. What has changed and developed is the idea of glamping and the opportunity for that. Glamping is great, and if I was still camping at festivals, I’m certain I’d be glamping, no doubt about it, but you do have to pay more for it and that limits the amount of people who can take advantage.”

The camping experience is a formative part of the weekend, Benn says – and he believes the changes made will serve as a “positive marker” for what festivals “can and should be offering”. “I think lots of festivals will follow suit now,” he says. “I think Leeds and Reading will show that actually, you can, in a non-glamping way, still provide an upgraded facility and service. With the ‘get ready with me stations, and things like that, (it’s because) the days of people not caring what they look like at a festival are well gone. That was when I was going as a punter. Now people want to look their best.”

At the core though, nothing has really changed in Benn’s 50-plus years of festival going. It’s always been about the experiences – the music, the memories, the moments. Reading and Leeds have been the stage for some of the most unforgettable, from the Arctic Monkeys’ triumphant 2022 return to Liam Gallagher’s teasing of the Oasis reunion announcement at the end of his set at Reading last summer.

"When you come to a festival, you immediately feel part of a community,” Benn says. “And that hasn’t changed. That sense of a community that you get around a festival is an incredible feeling. It’s a feeling I got myself in the 70s when I first started going and I really don’t think it’s a feeling you can beat.”

- Leeds Festival returns from August 21 to 24 at Bramham Park.