Reading festival leaves town for good

Not the Reading Festival, but Reading's other festival: WOMAD has decided it's outgrown the town - after all, it's a little tricky trying to pour 40,000 people into a city centre for a music festival at the best of times.

Reading say they'll miss their money ("them"):

Thomas Broonan, a Womad director, said: "We are intensely proud of our achievement together in Reading and all that Womad has achieved in this context has been with the support and endorsement of both the council and the people of Reading since 1990."

Reading Borough Council acknowledged the town does not have a venue large enough to accommodate the festival.

David Sutton, council leader, said: "My first feelings once the decision was finalised, were of great sadness, something like the sadness parents feel when their children leave home perhaps.

"But we have to accept that there are commercial pressures on Womad and also, simply, things move on."

The "commercial pressures" was a bit of a sly jibe - hardly fair to accuse a festival which has a nose-flute stage and often ends with headliners who don't sing in English as being motivated by cash considerations.

Womad is planning to announce a new home in Wiltshire.

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