Ed Sheeran (Photo: Paul Bachmann for Live4ever)
Ed Giddings, the man who brought the Isle Of Wight festival out of retirement a decade ago, has laid bare the struggles being faced by organisers in the current climate during a speech at the Live UK Summit 2014.
Giddings is quoted as saying, ‘If boring acts like Ed Sheeran are the future then we’re all screwed!’, by Virtual Festivals – comments he’s subsequently told NME were ‘tongue in cheek’ – but on a more serious note added that the music industry is not investing enough time and effort in building a band up to headline status.
“The council lost £500,000 on that first one and I put on the second year myself and lost another half million,” he continued on his first Isle Of Wight in 2002. “It was only when someone said, ‘Look, this is a holiday place, you need to make it longer’, and I realised they were right, that we really started to sell tickets.”
Giddings recently picked out Oasis, Blur and Fleetwood Mac as his dream future headliners for the event.