Glade Festival blighted by flooding

Heavy rain likely to hit festivals around the UK

United Kingdom | 20 July 2007

Glade Festival has been hit by extreme flooding with fans on site describing the scenes as "worse than Glastonbury 2005".

The dance festival has been badly hit by the heavy rain which is sweeping the country today (Friday).

According to sources at Glade, tents are being washed away and organisers have stopped ticket holders coming on the site for the time being. The Overkill Stage is apparently under two foot of water.

The local train station, Thatcham, has been closed due to the sudden flooding, meaning hundreds of festival goers are likely to be stranded en route. Traffic around the site has been described by local paper Newbury Today as "appalling".

A number of reports are coming back from the festival via text messages, which are being posted on online forums.

One post on Urban 75 reads: "Its bad apparently, worse than the Glasto flood of 2005. Two of their tents are gone, one of the dance tents is under 2 foot of water, Dreadzone didn't play cos they couldn't get on site.... power's on though, and the Glade tent and at least one other is working"

Forecasters are predicting more rain over the next 24 hours, as rain storms sweep throughout the Wales, The Midlands and southern England. A severe weather warning has been issued.

Another Glade goer told us: "My Tent got swept away, everything is totally wet...Glade clearly had no contingency planned for rain. They are letting nobody on-site at this time. I'm coming home now, no point in staying."

However, other posts have suggested that the worst is over, that the sun is out and people are out dancing at the Glade and Origin Stages.

Newbury Today also offered a ray of sunshine by claiming that the area drains relatively quickly, however that would depend on the rain holding off for some time.

We were unable to get any official word from Glade Festival. As far as we know the festival is still going ahead, however check with First Great Western if you are travelling by rail.

Other festivals that could be affected by the weather this weekend include Wakestock, Truck and Lovebox.

It is thought that Wickerman and Moor Music Festival could be spared, with weathermen predicting the worse of the weather to be in the southern half of the UK.

A spokeman for Lovebox said: "Everything's fine in Victoria Park and the festival will definitely be going ahead. In fact it's sunny at the moment. If you don't like a bit of mud you might want to consider wellies."