Leeds Festival 2024: When did the festival move to Bramham Park, and what led to it leaving Temple Newsam?

• Leeds Festival once again returns to Bramham Park for another year of live music during the summer
• But Bramham Park was never its original location, and only moved after a large incident took place in 2002.
• Here’s why Leeds Festival moved from Temple Newsam, it’s home from 1999, to Bramham Park in 2003.

The annual decision of how to get to Leeds Festival is dawning upon many of us, including myself, as music fans make the pilgrimage to Bramham Park this August Bank Holiday.

The location has been the home of the music festival for 11 years, and by all accounts has been a raging success despite the odd bit of trouble that happens to take place at a number of festivals across the UK. 

But Bramham Park wasn’t always the destination those further north of the Reading Festival site would head to; that would be the historic grounds of Temple Newsam, which held the very first Leeds Festival in 1999.

Many festival goers know the reasons for the move after the trouble that took place on the final night of the 2002 festival - I, being one of them, recall hearing large noises emanating from another campsite and climbing out of my tent to see what was going on.

As did many other people, who just stared in disbelief as a glow emerged from elsewhere at Temple Newsam which only got brighter, helicopters began flying overhead and an audible warning to many could be heard over a megaphone.

This, sadly, is why Leeds Festival moved from Temple Newsam to Bramham Park, and should serve as a cautionary tale for those heading to this year’s event. 

When did Leeds Festival move from Temple Newsam to Bramham Park?

After four years at Temple Newsam, the festival moved to Bramham Park for its 2003 edition, which was headlined that year by Metallica, Linkin Park and Blur.

Why did Leeds Festival move locations after 2002?

That would be due to the rioting that took place on the final night of the festival across several campgrounds at Temple Newsam. Thankfully - not one of them I was camping on, from personal experience.

As always, the last night of the festival is fuelled by a lot of alcohol being finished before revellers started thinking about packing the next day, and I’m sure many will attest that there’s a awful lot of empty or almost-empty gas canisters that get thrown into the fires themselves. 

A similar situation happened in 2005, though not to the extent it happened in 2002.

But there was something particularly nasty about the riots in 2002; though across the festival there had been reports of anti-social behaviour, the large scale fires and confrontations blew up on the final night. Attendees would engage in confrontations with the police, with several acts of vandalism occurring across the festival's campsites. 

West Yorkshire Police sent 200 officers to deal with the chaos, which resulted in a large block of portaloos being set on fire, extensive damage to the festival grounds and several assaults throughout the night of infamy at Temple Newsam.

Mean Fiddler’s Managing Director, Melvin Benn, confirmed after the event that "There were a series of incidents involving up to 500 people in which 71 toilets were damaged by fire. No festival goers were injured.”

However, a BBC report later confirmed during the court cases of those who were arrested that 44 people were injured after the riot, with £250,000 worth of damages caused and the riots lasting 10 hours before order was restored. 

Owing to the heritage status of Temple Newsam, it was a huge black mark for the festival, and led to increased scrutiny on organisers and Leeds Council on how to best proceed after merely four years at the location now in jeopardy. 

What happened after the riots at Leeds Festival 2002?

The riots added more weight to residents and the local council in the area, who were not happy that the Temple Newsam was chosen as the location for the music festival, to push for the event to move from that location. 

Then councillor Lee Benson revealed that those living around the Temple Newsam estate were “disgusted” by the trouble. He said the battle against holding the festival in future would have gone on anyway, but the latest violence strengthened the objectors’ case - the festival was only given the green light to go ahead weeks before the site opened once again.

The cases held at Leeds Crown Court saw 19 people in total, mainly young adults, charged with violent disorder, with Benn stating that "The safety of festival-goers, the local community, and the welfare of Temple Newsam are paramount.” 

“We have to ensure that the festival is not only a great event for music lovers but also sustainable for the future."

But that wasn’t enough to keep the festival at its original location, with plans set in motion to see the festival move from Temple Newsam to Bramham Park for 2003’s event. 

What steps did promoters take to ensure riots did not occur in 2003?

Though the idea of choosing Bramham Park was due to its more remote location, reducing the impact on local residents and creating a better-controlled environment for the festival, those around the area were not too thrilled with the prospect after the incident that took place the year before.

Mean Fiddler would work closely with the West Yorkshire Police ahead of the move, ensuring that more security personnel would be available and the addition of police officers throughout the festival grounds - in particular, around the campsite areas. 

Security checks were also tightened up, with more thorough searches taking place to avoid flammable materials that could be used to start fires being smuggled in. Stricter curfews were imposed on the campgrounds, with loud music and activities being curtailed at specific times to prevent late-night disturbances.

Organisers then implemented better crowd management strategies to prevent large groups from congregating and potentially inciting violence; this included redesigning the layout of the festival grounds to facilitate smoother movement of people and reducing the density of attendees in specific areas, particularly the campgrounds.

It paid off - and despite the odd moment at the end of the festival when those “over-exuberant” revellers act, for lack of a better word, “silly” during the closing hours of the event, Bramham Park has become the home to the Leeds Festival that we know and love - and are heading to at the end of the month.

Were you at Leeds Festival 2002 when the riots occurred? Did you think that the festival would remain in Leeds after the unrest that occurred that year? Share your thoughts or memories of that year's event by leaving a comment down below.