A rundown of all the utterly disastrous chaos that plagued Reading and Leeds festival 2024

A huge downpour of water from the stage roof soaked Reneé Rapp

3 months ago | UPDATED 2 weeks ago

Reading and Leeds festival took place over the August bank holiday weekend, and perhaps more than ever before it was plagued by sheer chaos. This was most notably down to the weather, where Storm Lilian rampaged through the UK and disrupted both sites of the festival in the south and in the north. Because of the strength of the winds and the downpour of the rain, Reading and Leeds festival – which is notably chaos at the best of times – was sent into turmoil and went viral constantly over the weekend for disaster after disaster. Here’s a rundown of all that happened.

21 Savage came on for 12 minutes

The rapper was set to be a special guest at the festival, but after he turned up late at Leeds he only performed a few songs and was on stage for just 12 minutes.

Reneé Rapp got a load of water dumped on her from the roof

This is disgraceful!! @OfficialRandL you need to do better
Renee and her team better be fucking suing because wtf
The amount of water that came down for a second time!!

Do you not do health and safety or ???@reneerapp hope ur okay bby pic.twitter.com/LKaxK1ME6W

— courtney (@CourtneyHayesx) August 25, 2024

An insane downpour of water from the roof at Reading following heavy rain soaked Reneé and her equipment. She was unable to finish her set. Equipment was seen smoking.

Rapp posted a picture on Instagram with her middle finger up after, saying “wtf was that”.

Noel Gallagher causing an Oasis frenzy

Okay this one is chaos but in a positive way. At the end of Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds set, the legendary Oasis songwriter teased the date of the Oasis reunion that was rumoured over the weekend and has now been confirmed. A huge music moment.

Lana Del Rey getting her mic cut off and then getting an apology

Reading & Leeds Festival have issued an apology to fans of Lana Del Rey after cutting her set short.

The singer had a firework show planned for the final song of her set. She instead sat and watched the fireworks with fans as her microphone feed was cut. pic.twitter.com/tFg9D93YtV

— Pop Base (@PopBase) August 25, 2024

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Lana Del Rey was 10 minutes late for both her Reading and Leeds sets, which is annoying but obviously nothing on her infamous 45 minutes late Glastonbury issue last year. At her Reading set, Lana Del Rey was cut off at the end and had to just sit on stage near fans and watch as her planned fireworks went off. This didn’t happen at Leeds, and the singer got an apology from the festival that read “Due to an error by the Reading production team, we accidentally cut Lana Del Rey’s incredible set short by 5 minutes. We apologise unreservedly to Lana and her fans.”

Yikes. Not great, because it made a lot of angry Twitter people blame Lana’s lateness for the error and say it was her own fault.

Tents seen flying through the air

leeds fest off to a great start. #leeds #storm pic.twitter.com/lpj7gp642x

— declan (@decomcfc) August 23, 2024

In the midst of Storm Lilian, tents were seen flying extremely high through the air as campers dealt with the disaster. The way this is meant to be a scorching August summer festival!

Two stages were ‘lost’

LEEDS WEATHER UPDATE 🚨

We can see an end in sight to the high winds. We definitely won't be opening the arena at 11am, but we are targeting as soon as possible after that and we will update you further. However, we have definitely lost the BBC Radio 1 stage today, and there…

— Reading & Leeds Fest (@OfficialRandL) August 23, 2024

Reading and Leeds festival announced in the most dramatic of all the chaos this weekend, and the most impactful, that the weather had caused the Radio 1 stage and the Aux stage were “lost” to the weather. The damage permanently closed the stages not just on the Friday but for the entire weekend, resulting in loads of artists being scrapped from the lineup completely or having to be moved elsewhere – causing logistical chaos.

Same again next year?