Reading And Leeds Festival Organisers Have 'Emergency Plans' To Cope With Severe Weather

Reading and Leeds festival organisers have 'emergency plans' in place to cope with severe weather conditions at the event this weekend.

The move comes after the recent Pukkelpop festival disaster where five people were killed and 100's injured as stormy weather conditions caused a number of stages to collapse.

Staging collapsed as well as stage screens and trees were uprooted at the Pukkelpop festival last week.

Melvin Benn, organiser of Reading and Leeds festival, The Big Chill and Latitude, said UK festivals have an "exemplary safety record".

Speaking to BBC Newsbeat, Benn commented on the Pukkelpop festival: "If we had something similar [to Pukkelpop] I know what actions I would take in order to make sure people were safe," he said.

"I have to table top exercises with the emergency services about the actions I would take in the event of all of those things.Believe me, there is no scenario of an eventuality that I have not looked at, including freak storms. I know how I would deal with it to ensure peoples' safety. The level of effort over safety is immense. It's the thing which keeps me awake at night."

He added: ''It's difficult to comment how freakish the weather was. Whether the weather was with or without warning. It's virtually impossible to deal with things that are of that intensity without warning.''

"Here in the UK, I would like to think, and certainly history has always suggested, that we've always had warning and that we're able to prepare.''

"The UK has an exemplary record in terms of safety at festivals. The festivals are all governed by very strict licensing. There has to be sign off of everything."

Reading and Leeds festival 2011 will be headlined by My Chemical Romance , The Strokes and Muse, with other performances from Elbow, Interpol, 30 Seconds To Mars, The Streets and Pulp.

For more details about Reading and Leeds and all this summer's festivals, check out the Gigwise Festival Guide.

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