V Festival

V Festival
GenreMusic
FrequencyAnnually
(penultimate weekend in August)
Location(s)
Years active1996–2017, 2020
Inaugurated17 August 1996; 28 years ago (1996-08-17)
FounderRichard Branson
Most recent21 August 2020 (2020-08-21) – 23 August 2020 (2020-08-23)
ParticipantsSee lineups
Attendance170,000 (2015)
Capacity90,000
Organised byVirgin Group
SponsorVirgin Media
Websitevfestival.com

V Festival, often referred to as V Fest or simply V, was an annual music festival held in the United Kingdom during the third weekend in August. The event was held at two parks simultaneously which shared the same bill; artists performed at one location on Saturday and then swapped on Sunday. The sites were located at Hylands Park in Chelmsford and Weston Park in South Staffordshire. In 2017, the final year of this format, the capacity of each site was 90,000.[1][2]

Richard Branson announced on 30 October 2017 that V Festival would be discontinued but that a new festival would replace it.[3] In 2018, a new festival called "Rize" was held in on the same weekend as the "V Festival" but only at Hylands Park. However, on 5 August 2020, it was announced that the "V Festival" was to return to Hylands Park, without an audience (due to the COVID-19 pandemic), later that month.[4]

The "V" represented the Virgin Group, with the event being sponsored by Virgin Media.

It was originally televised by Channel 4 from 1997 to 2013, predominantly on its sister channel 4Music, with the exception of the 2003 event with ITV in charge. It was then televised by MTV from 2014 to 2015, and the 2016 edition of the festival was televised by Channel 5. ITV returned to televising the V Festival upon its return in 2020, with coverage hosted by Joel Dommett and Maya Jama.[4]

  1. ^ "V Festival (Staffordshire) 2017". eFestivals. Retrieved 18 December 2020.
  2. ^ "V Festival (Chelmsford) 2017". eFestivals. Retrieved 18 December 2020.
  3. ^ Buckland, Lucy (30 October 2017). "V Festival has been scrapped after 22 years - boss Richard Branson announces". mirror. Retrieved 30 October 2017.
  4. ^ a b "Headline acts announced for return of popular Essex music festival". 5 August 2020.