Canterbury Fayre vs Carling Weekend

United Kingdom | by John Bownas | 27 August 2003

A collection of hippies down in Kent went up against the Double-Headed Goliath might of the Mean Fiddler's Carling Weekend at Reading and Leeds...who won really depends upon your perspective!

Carling vs. Canterbury

You've got to hand it to the Canterbury Fayre organisers - they must have balls of solid steel to organise a three day music festival over the same weekend as the Carling double bill of Reading and Leeds! And of course if that wasn't enough, the minnow also had to contend with the hundreds of thousands who flock to the Notting Hill Carnival every year.

But how do you compare these events? Putting Notting Hill to one side (it is, after all, a bit of a special case), are Canterbury and Carling are really competitors, or do they simply compliment one another by providing two very different propositions for the discerning festival goer?

You'll only ever answer this question by going to both - and that's exactly what VF did.

So for the tens of thousands who did the Carling thing, the few thousand who spent a weekend at Mount Ephraim in the Kent countryside and the millions who just did something else entirely, we're please to bring you the most comprehensive photo galleries that you'll find anywhere of these two bank holiday events.

Leeds Photo Gallery

Canterbury Fayre Photo Gallery

Our Reading gallery is coming soon, and as soon as the Carling Weekend Team have recovered sufficiently to put pen to paper we will have a full review of the Reading and Leeds extravaganzas. In the meantime, here is a short synopsis of what went on at Canterbury:-

Canterbury Fayre Review