Wight's big business

Isle of Wight festival generates £15 million boost to local ecomony

16 June 2009 - The Isle of Wight festival at Seaclose Park has proved significant to Newport’s cash flow.

With 55,000 punters, it’s been revealed that the annual music festival invests, “at least £15m to the island's economy”, says John Metcalfe, the assistant director for economic development and tourism.

This year’s event saw final night headliners from Pixies and Neil Young on Sunday (14 June).

The council, which is backing the decision to secure the music festival site for the next 10 years, believes eight years of the event has also boosted the island’s image.

Festival season is now well under way after last weekend when Download took place in the Midlands, Rockness kicked off near Inverness and the Isle of Wight Festival hit the south coast.

Review: 6 Music’s Alva White reports

After being brought back to life in 2002, the Isle of Wight Festival is well on its way to re-creating the image it once held withthathistorical Jimi Hendrix performance of 1970.

Friday night ended with The Prodigy delivering their trade mark aggression and psychedelic show and the crowd embraced Keith, Liam and Maxim Reality's brand of intense dance and infectious energy.

Saturday night headliners were Isle of Wight old timers, Stereophonics, who took time out of recording their new album (due out later this year) to give a crowd pleasing set of chart hits and old favourites.

For some, this was the highlight of the weekend as it was their only UK festival performance this summer.

"We've now got to get Bob Dylan to come back, that’s one of my ambitions."

Isle of White festival promoter

Isle of Wight promoter, John Giddings, responsible for resurrecting the festival told 6 Music he was really chuffed to book Neil Young.

He said he had been trying for the last eight years: “We’ve now got to get Bob Dylan to come back, that’s one of my ambitions.”

And it was worth the wait – in a lumberjack shirt Neil Young stunned punters into frenzied cheers.

Starting out with mellow country classics like Old Man, he fed off the crowd building into the rambling powerhouse of Rockin’ the Free World, closing with a cover of The Beatles’ Day In The Life.

Sunday also saw The Charlatans in the Big Top tent blast out a mixed bag of new and old as the final act on a bill curated by frontman Tim Burgess himself.

The singer lined up Killing Joke to perform, which he said was nostalgic for him: “They were actually the first band that I ever saw live when I was a kid, so it kind of made it really personal.”

The three days of endless sunshine fuelled an intimate and chilled atmosphere with an eclectic mix of festival-goers from the seasoned reveller to local teenagers and families.

Other performances that attracted attention were The View, with lead singer Kyle Falconer leaving a lot of fans wondering why he was sporting what looked like a drawn on pirate patch, and The Pixies who although a bit raw combined their cool, laid back attitude with a familiar post-punk sound to draw a massive crowd.

The Isle of Wight festival boasts a heritage many would envy but still manages to strike the balance of the smaller bespoke festivals with the adrenaline highs of the bigger capacity venues.

This year it served as the perfect start of the festival season looking ahead to Glastonbury and T in the Park.

Georgie Rogers / Alva White