John Giddings on his Isle of Wight Fest ‘gamble’

Legendary promoter John Giddings has spoken to IQ about the “gamble” of booking the Isle of Wight Festival ahead of next month’s instalment.

Set for Seaclose Park in Newport from 19-22 June, IoW 2025 will be headlined by Sting, Stereophonics and Justin Timberlake. The bill also includes Faithless, The Script, Jess Glynne, Supergrass, The Corrs, Busted, Olly Murs, Lottery Winners, Razorlight, Yard Act, Pale Waves and Remember Monday.

With 15 stages and an audience that ranges from 15 years old to 70, Giddings says that booking each edition is a “jigsaw puzzle”.

“It depends on who’s available, how much they cost and who’s touring,” he explains. “Then you’ve got to work out who is capable of selling that many tickets, who can command 50,000 people for an hour and a half, even if it’s raining. The music business has changed, but popularity on TikTok doesn’t necessarily transfer to selling tickets and being a live performer – you still need acts of stature who’ve had success with hits.”

Though an increasing number of A-list stars are opting for stadium shows over festivals, Giddings says that IoW’s location continues to work in its favour.

“When the festival costs over £10 million, you’ve got to gamble a bit as a promoter”

“I’m lucky in some ways, because there’s not a decent stadium on the South Coast,” he says. “So when an artist plays a stadium in Manchester or London, I always argue that there’s nowhere to play in the south except for the Isle of Wight. Plus, it’s the sunniest place in the UK.”

However, Giddings concedes that headliners of that calibre are still determined to bring stadium-level production to the festival, which can be both costly and complicated.

“When we had the Rolling Stones, I found out they were bringing their B-show, which meant they weren’t bringing the B-stage to perform the acoustic songs,” he recalls. “And I paid an extra £100,000 to put the B-stage in Seaclose Park. I think you have to make it perfect for the artist. When P!nk played, she went up in that box and came out 100ft in the air. But if the wind gets to a certain level, you can’t go up there. And it was touch and go.”

With ‘rising production costs’ and ‘booking artists’ named as the top concerns for festival organisers in 2025, the stakes with billing have never been so high.

“When the festival costs over £10 million, you’ve got to gamble a bit as a promoter,” says Giddings. “It’s luck and judgment. I don’t reckon I could have done it if I hadn’t been in the music business already for 20-odd years, because I know some of the artists just by working with them. They trust me to look after them and pay them.

“If I hadn’t had Solo Agency, I would have been bankrupt”

“If I hadn’t had Solo Agency, I would have been bankrupt. You can’t organise a festival to make money because it takes up so much time and energy in your life. It’s a passion and it’s the most enjoyable thing I’ve ever done.”

Even as the post-pandemic live business continues, Giddings says that festivals still hold an important role in breaking and developing acts.

“We had Sabrina Carpenter at the Big Top stage in 2023, and this year she’s doing two sold-out British Summer Time,” he says. “So you feel proud that you might’ve helped someone make it. I was at the Reading Festival when AC/DC played at three o’clock in the afternoon, and they blew everybody away – it was obvious they were going to be a headline act in the future. If you’re good, you’re good, it doesn’t matter what time of day you’re on. But I think it takes time to develop that, and I think unfortunately, younger artists, get pushed too quickly into bigger things. The reason why artists like Elton John and Rod Stewart are still rock stars is because they’ve done it properly and at their own pace.”

Above all, keeping the audience happy and providing good value for money is king, says Giddings.

“The audience pays me to come, and I pay the artist to come,” he says. So the audience, in a sense, is more important than the artist. To keep guests happy, you have to make it a good, safe environment where everyone can enjoy themselves. We have things like a quiet field at the campsite now – that never existed in my life.”

He concludes: “There are 150 bands you could see for the cost of two bands at The O2, and music in the open air is a defining experience for people. It’s a shared experience where everybody is enjoying the same thing at the same time. Music brings people together.”

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