Charli XCX, Dave, Florence And The Machine and RAYE are set to headline Reading and Leeds 2026

by

Reading and Leeds Festivals have announced their 2026 headliners: Charli XCX, Chase And Status, Dave, Florence And The Machine, Fontaines D.C., and RAYE.

The popular event is coming back next August Bank Holiday (August 27th to 30th) and will be held at two locations: Little John’s Farm in Reading and Bramham Park in Leeds.

This announcement is a big deal for the music festival – for the first time in a quarter-century, all the headlining performers will be from Britain and Ireland.

For the first time ever, Leeds Festival will kick off with a headliner on Thursday. This year, Kasabian will be the first band to take the Main Stage at Bramham Park.

The weekend’s lineup isn’t just about the headliners – you can also catch performances from a wide range of artists like Skepta, Sombr, Role Model, Jade, Josh Baker, Kneecap, Kettama, Chris Stussy (who’s only playing the Reading show), Geese, Skye Newman, Adéla, and Keo.

Tickets for the Festival go on sale early at 9am on Tuesday. Make sure to register for access first at either www.readingfestival.com or www.leedsfestival.com.

Tickets go on general sale at 12pm on Wednesday.

In 2024, RAYE finally achieved a dream she’d had since she was a teenager: performing at the Reading and Leeds festivals.

Speaking on stage, she shared how she first came to Reading and Leeds Festival at 16, right after finishing her exams. She remembered having an amazing time in the dance tent and said she had a dream back then. Now, looking at her success, she wants everyone to know that anything is possible.

The festival lineup this year included headlining sets by Chappell Roan, Travis Scott, Bring Me The Horizon, and Hozier.

I’ve been a huge fan of Charli XCX for ages, and I wasn’t surprised at all to hear her Glastonbury set pulled in one of the biggest crowds of the whole festival! She’s really proven herself as a major headliner now.

In her first blog post for Substack, she openly shared the extreme ups and downs of being a pop star, being remarkably honest about her experiences.

After releasing her first album, True Romance, in 2013, the British singer gained a dedicated and passionate fanbase.

Her sixth album, BRAT, became a huge commercial hit in the summer of 2024, gaining her many new fans and establishing her among pop’s biggest stars like Taylor Swift and Adele.

Charli, 33, who recently married The 1975’s drummer George Daniel in July, says being famous worldwide has both good and bad sides.

She started her new Substack newsletter by honestly describing life as a pop star, saying that at a certain point, it’s genuinely a lot of fun.

You’ll experience the typical rockstar lifestyle – riding in a fancy SUV, smoking, and yelling from the sunroof – all the usual clichés.

You often meet fascinating people at parties, and surprisingly, they’re usually eager to connect with you too.

The job involves wearing amazing clothes, shoes, and jewelry – sometimes with a security guard following you around events. They need to make sure you don’t lose any incredibly expensive pieces, or let strangers try them on!

She describes the experience of being a food critic as being able to bypass the usual wait and enter restaurants directly through the kitchen, offering a polite but likely insincere greeting to the busy and possibly resentful chefs and servers who are actually doing the work, all while being accompanied by a group of friends.

The star, originally from Cambridge, says that the benefits of being famous often create the most difficult challenges.

She explains that her job comes with a strange mix of feelings: sometimes it makes her feel important, and other times she’s acutely aware of how silly it all is. This feeling is strongest, she says, when she’s with people who’ve known her for a long time.

She explains that being a pop star can be awkward, particularly when encountering people who’ve known her since childhood, like old friends or family.

As you achieve greater success, especially if it comes with increased worry, the difference between your life and the lives of others tends to become much more significant.

Living in Los Angeles for a long time can make it easy to lose perspective, especially for someone from Britain. But being a pop star can also be a grounding experience, particularly when friends back home tease you for getting worked up over trivial matters.

Even though Charli has achieved great success, she says being a woman in the public spotlight is difficult, because some people are determined to believe she’s unintelligent.

She’s noticed that some people get upset when others succeed, and believes this is likely due to the way society has been structured to discourage us from celebrating each other’s achievements.

Society still teaches us to dislike women, to feel negatively about ourselves, and to resent women who don’t conform to traditional expectations.

I believe people still secretly expect women to fit into a narrow definition of who they should be, and get upset if a woman tries to grow, change, or become something different than what’s expected of her.

Read More

2025-12-01 18:23