Reading Festival articles

As the first festival-goers are set to arrive, work is still underway at the Reading Festival site to make the camping area as dry as possible for people to pitch their tents.

It's a race against the clock.

He said: "The very first time I ever took out insurance against cancellation of the Reading Festival was this year and I did that because I was genuinely concerned that it might not happen."

The festival site on Tuesday 21 August 2007

"It's not going to be needed, we're definitely going ahead but it was at that level, it was serious, the underwriters were down here with their Wellington boots on checking water levels and things. It was a worry."

In a letter to festival goers posted on the official Reading Festival website, Melvyn writes:

"When we got on site on July 25th, Green Camps ABC and D were waist high in water from the floods, yellow camp FGH and I were over 3' deep in water, all of brown was over my knees, purple I couldn't get to and white was just part of the river."

That the site on Tuesday 21 August is merely just boggy with puddles is testimony to the round-the-clock effort to get the water pumped out.

Sucking up the surface water

Darryl Foster from New Zealand is the man responsible for getting everything ready.

He said: "I've been here since the 27th (of July) and every day we've pumped water."

Pointing to one of the paths alongside a camping area, Darryl said:

"Weeks ago this whole road was under water, except there were a few geese here, so we pumped that out and we've been taking off the surface water.

The festival site on Tuesday 21 August 2007

"But it's a bit of an uphill battle at the moment because as much as we're pumping out we've got rain in the night and fills it back up again."

At Caversham weir the sluices have been opened to help lower the water table on the campsites.

The level of the Thames beyond the weir at the festival site has, as a result, dropped by around six inches to little more than an inch above the average for this of time year.

Thanks to Darryl and his team the Reading Festival is going ahead - with a few changes to the camping and parking plans.

But if the images in the video are anything to go by, festival-goers should definitely bring their wellies.