Isle of Wight Festival


The Isle of Wight Festival is a British music festival which takes place annually in Newport on the Isle of Wight, England. It was originally a counterculture event held from 1968 to 1970.
The 1970 event was by far the largest of these early festivals and the unexpectedly high attendance levels led, in 1971, to Parliament adding a section to the Isle of Wight County Council Act 1971 preventing overnight open-air gatherings of more than 5,000 people on the island without a special licence from the council. The event was revived in 2002.

Original festival

The original events were promoted and organised by the Foulk brothers under the banner of their company Fiery Creations Limited and their younger brother Bill Foulk. The venues were Ford Farm, Wootton and Afton Down respectively. The 1969 event was notable for the appearance of Bob Dylan and the Band. This was Dylan's first paid performance since his motor cycle accident some three years earlier, and was held at a time when many still wondered if he would ever perform again. Followers from across the world trekked to the Isle of Wight for the performance. Estimates of 150,000–250,000 attended. The 1969 festival opened on Friday 29 August—eleven days after the close of Woodstock. Dylan was living in Woodstock, New York, at the time and it was widely believed that he would perform there, after the event had been "put in his own backyard". As it happened, Dylan left for the Isle of Wight on 15 August—the day the Woodstock festival began.
The 1970 event was by far the largest of these early festivals; indeed it was said at the time to be one of the largest human gatherings in the world, with estimates of over 600,000, surpassing the attendance at Woodstock. Included in the line-up of over fifty performers were Jimi Hendrix, Miles Davis, The Doors, The Who, Lighthouse, Ten Years After, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Joni Mitchell, The Moody Blues, Melanie, Donovan, Gilberto Gil, Free, Chicago, Richie Havens, John Sebastian, Leonard Cohen, Jethro Tull, Taste and Tiny Tim. The unexpectedly high attendance levels led, in 1971, to Parliament adding a section to the Isle of Wight County Council Act 1971 preventing overnight open-air gatherings of more than 5,000 people on the island without a special licence from the council.
The 1970 festival was filmed by a film crew under director Murray Lerner, who at that point had just directed the Academy Award-nominated documentary Festival of the Newport Folk Festival. The footage passed to Lerner in settlement of legal fees after a dispute with the Foulk brothers in which each side claimed against the other for breach of contract. Lerner distilled material from the festival into the film Message to Love released theatrically in 1996 and subsequently on DVD. In addition to this film, Lerner has created full-length films focused on performances by individual artists at the 1970 festival. To date there have been individual films of Miles Davis, Jimi Hendrix, The Who, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, The Moody Blues, Free, Taste, Leonard Cohen, Jethro Tull, The Doors and Joni Mitchell.

1968

The first festival was held at Ford farm, near Godshill, on 31 August and 1 September 1968, and was attended by about 10,000 people. Jefferson Airplane headlined, with Arthur Brown, The Move, Smile, Tyrannosaurus Rex, Aynsley Dunbar Retaliation, Plastic Penny, Fairport Convention, and The Pretty Things also performing.

1969

This took place on 30 and 31 August 1969 at Wootton, with an estimated attendance of 150,000.
The line-up included Bob Dylan, The Band, The Nice, The Pretty Things, Marsha Hunt, The Who, Third Ear Band, Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, Fat Mattress, Joe Cocker. Many celebrities of the day also attended the Festival, including John Lennon and Yoko Ono, George Harrison with Pattie Boyd, Ringo Starr with Maureen Starkey, Keith Richards and Jane Fonda.

1970

This event was held between 26 and 30 August 1970 at Afton Down. Attendance has been estimated by the Guinness Book of Records to have been 600,000 or even 700,000, due to an announcement by British Rail at that time concerning the amount of sold ferry tickets, although promoter Ray Foulk has said he believes it to have been only half of that. It was widely reported on, due to its line-up and extremely high attendance. Acts included Jimi Hendrix, Miles Davis, Jethro Tull, Ten Years After, Chicago, The Doors, Lighthouse, The Who, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, The Moody Blues, Joan Baez, Free, Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, Kris Kristofferson, Donovan, John Sebastian, Terry Reid, Taste, and Shawn Phillips.

Revived festival details

The event was revived in 2002 at Seaclose Park, a recreation ground on the outskirts of Newport. It has been held annually since that year, progressively extending itself northwards beyond Seaclose Park along the fields of the eastern Medina valley. Many notable artists have performed since its revival including The Rolling Stones, Amy Winehouse, Paolo Nutini, The Crazy World of Arthur Brown, Paul McCartney, Muse, Boy George, Stereophonics, Faithless, Donovan, Ray Davies, Robert Plant, Queen + Adam Lambert, David Bowie, Manic Street Preachers, The Who, The High Kings, R.E.M., Travis, Coldplay, The Zombies, The Proclaimers, Bryan Adams, The Police, Foo Fighters, The Killers, Nile Rodgers and Chic, Fleetwood Mac, Madness, Paloma Faith and Kings of Leon. Bowie’s 13 June 2004 concert would prove to be his last live performance in the UK following emergency angioplasty in Hamburg after a concert in Germany twelve days later which eventually saw him retire from touring. It was sponsored by Nokia from 2004 to 2006. The promoters of the event now are Solo Promoters Ltd.

2002

Held 3 June 2002
Held 14–15 June 2003
Held 11–13 June 2004
Held 10–12 June 2005
Held 9–11 June 2006
Held 8–10 June 2007
Held 13–15 June 2008
Held 12–14 June 2009
Held 11–13 June 2010
Held 10–12 June 2011
Held 22–24 June 2012
Held 14–16 June 2013
Held 12–15 June 2014
Held 11–14 June 2015
Held 9–12 June 2016
Held 8–11 June 2017
Held 21–24 June 2018
Held 13–16 June 2019
The 2020 event, which had been scheduled for 11–15 June, has been cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
On June 12 to 14, 2020, Absolute Radio and Sky Arts both held virtual festivals, broadcasting selected acts from the festival's archives, including exclusive footage from the 1970 edition.

2021

The 2021 event is scheduled to take place on 17–20 June.