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Isle of Wight Rock Festival 2004

Friday 11th to Sunday 13th June 2004
Seaclose Park, Newport, Isle of Wight, PO30 2DN, England MAP
w/e £75 (£90 camping), £35 day, campervans £75. - SOLD OUT

Daily capacity: 17,500

This is for me anyway the most corporate rock festival I’ve ever been too or should I say remembering Monsters of Rock the most insidious one. Don’t get me wrong, we all have a great time all the time. With delights from Samba drums to the mighty Who to keep us going all day. Plenty to drink – if the choice is severely limited and a wide choice of foods on offer.

No it’s the planning the fact we are in a model. What do I mean? Well, there’s a long walk to the campsite, and why so we drink our beer by the time we reach our tent, so we buy more at the bars on the campsite (which do sell cider – punches air).

It’s even further to the shops and so we use the ones in the campsite. It has cooking areas which kind of put us off cooking our own. Don’t think I saw them ever being used. There’s a pot noodle stall - handy for the munchies and a Veggie Take Away stall (thankfully) as an alternative. But it’s the same vans for burgers etc as the arena (very corporate) and so all your food purchases are going to the same company.

No cans or alcohol on site means you can’t pick up a cheap can of Stella from a wandering punter and so your £3 goes on half a pint plastic bottle or a nearly a full pint of Carling. But there are plenty of taps and drinking water in arena so we don’t get thirsty. Bizarrely they don’t hand out water at the front barrier to drink/throw over us they just cover us in a fine mist from hand held spray bottles.

In the arena it’s clever too, we are a captive audience and with only one stage and half hour intervals between bands we have little else to do but spend money. Your not allowed inflatable sofas or chairs in the arena – but you can buy them in there. You see my point we are consumers and the money is pouring out of us.

But, then again Saturday’s music more than makes up for it. And even the eight year old is learning that we aren’t spending.

I take the time to notice that despite it being called the Nokia festival there’s actually very few mobiles ringing. A happy trend for festivals I feel.



The sun blazes all day and the sound quality of the speakers are top notch, no breeze causing drop outs in sound all the way up the slopping arena area. The crowds are relaxed on blankets covering the whole of the higher arena floor like a giant patchwork quilt. People are crashed out from the excesses of a vibrant campsite, or chilled or chatting. There’s a real good festie vibe not a single dark or edgy vibe. Everyone’s having a great time it’s a real happy festival.

There’s plenty of thrill seekers on the funfair and a wide age range, although I’d not really recommend it as a festival for kids (there’s nothing put on to keep them occupied) there are a few kids enjoying themselves and our ones happy just to be back at a festie.



We don’t see the shopping area and the food stalls are doing a roaring trade but we hang onto our money having already done the twenty minute walk to civilization and Somerfield to buy breakfast and soak up the town of Newport it was fairly busy with festival goers and older ones or students enjoying the café culture and early morning beers – the whole place is nice and we pledge to return to the IOW to holiday.

Back at the site queues are small and service fast and friendly. It’s very laid back and we enjoy the delights of some great rock music and unfortunately the Manics.