Reading and Leeds boss says festival-goers will "almost certainly" need COVID-19 vaccine passport

Last month Reading and Leeds organisers announced via socials that this year's festivals will be going ahead, shortly after the UK government presented its COVID-19 recovery roadmap, which saw Boris Johnson say he hopes to see the end of all "legal limits on social contact" by 21 June.

In a new interview with BBC, Festival Republic Managing Director Melvin Benn has revealed that attendees will "almost certainly" need a form of COVID-19 vaccine passport to attend the festivals.

Although the COVID-19 vaccine isn't mandatory, Benn stated that festival-goers will either have to prove their vaccination or receive a negative test result before being allowed in.

Benn said that in "an ideal world" we would be able to go about "our daily business" as though it was pre-March 2020. He added, "Whether we get to that I don't know."

He continued, "If it is cancelled everyone gets a refund - that's pretty normal - but I'm certainly anticipating it going ahead."

Post Malone, Stormzy and Liam Gallagher are among the headliners for Reading and Leeds 2021.

At the start of the month, Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino revealed the company sold a staggering 170,000 tickets for UK festivals in the three days after the recovery roadmap announcement.