Vince Power hates BBC putting on live bands. Nowadays.

Vince Power is quite clear when he condemns the BBC for getting into the festival business:

The Hackney Weekend has been criticised by veteran festival promoter Vince Power, former prime mover of the Reading festival, and now running Hop Farm and Benicassim in Spain. Complaining that taxpayers' money should not be spent on a free festival in times of austerity, he went on to say: "If the BBC is giving something out for free, then we can't compete. It's really pissed me off."

Oddly, though, when Power was running Reading and Leeds, he was happy enough to have a Radio One stage as part of the events - curious that he seems to be relaxed about licence fee money being spent to subsidise his own operations, but not in competition with them. Oh, to have such principles.