This year is no different from the last, seeing a star-studded selection of rappers from both sides of the Atlantic. Phase one of Wireless’ line up was announced today via the festival’s official Instagram. 2024’s event poster gives considerable weight to female rappers, both new and old. After exploding in popularity in 2022 after her single ‘Munch’, Bronx rapper, Ice Spice will be playing on the festival’s opening night alongside Trinidadian mega-star Nicki Minaj.

Known for her risqué lyrics, Up-and-coming Missourian rapper Sexyy Red will also be performing at Wireless. Finding her audience after Cardi B’s and Megan Thee Stallion’s WAP created an industry niche for tongue-in-cheek, sexually charged, female-led, rap music, Sexxy Red capitalised on this sub-genre, finding success with her 2023 single ‘Pound Town’.

Saturday the 14th of July will see LA rapper and singer Doja Cat headline the night. After her breakout YouTube single ‘Mooo!’, which currently has 129m views, Doja Cat has continued to make a name for herself through a steady stream of popular releases and her outlandish costume designs. Off the back of her fourth studio album, Scarlet, released in November of last year, Doja Cat has secured herself a top spot at London’s biggest music festival.

Wireless’ Saturday will be host to British-born Atlanta rapper 21 Savage. 21 Savage became widely known after his 2016 feature on XXL Magazine’s freshman cypher alongside, then upcoming rappers, Lil Uzi Vert, Lil Yachty, Kodak Black, and Denzel Curry. Since his 2016 breakout, 21 Savage has gone on to release three studio albums, as well as three collaborative albums with Offset, Metro Boomin, and Drake. Fellow Atlanta rapper, Future will also be performing on the event’s Friday show. Known for his pioneering contributions to the American trap scene, Future remains one of the biggest names in the genre.

Although the setlist features only a couple of UK artists so far, with Digga D and J Hus joining the line up, Festival Republic is yet to announce the full line up, the second phase of which will be released next week. Early bird tickets for the festival will go live on January 31st at 10am. For those with either a Three Mobile or Barclay Card rewards scheme, a special pre-sale is currently available until an hour before the general ticket sale date.

If successful with their filing, Festival Republic would host a new three-day event in Luton’s Stockwood Park. The proposed dates for the new event would fall on the spring bank holiday, Saturday, May 25th to Monday, May 27th. As well as performances, Benn’s application has been reported to propose “a funfair and sponsor activations”. Mirroring the format of the company’s other festivals, the proposed event will likely include the all the bells and whistles associated with their mainline stage shows.

Although Luton Council has already discussed this application, their decision has not yet been made public. For many, festivals can be seen as great economic boost to an area, especially if the event does not provide camping facilities. Large numbers of festivalgoers need accommodation and food which can be provided by local businesses after the day’s shows have come to a close. However, this benefit can often come at the cost of residents, as noise levels will be elevated by both the event itself and by its sometimes-rowdy participants. It doesn’t seem likely that the proposed festival will be a camping affair as the documentation filed does not imply nor mention overnight accommodation.

Other factors to be considered in the council’s decision are the effects that a large-scale event, like this one, would have on Luton’s public transport infrastructure. This is especially relevant, as Stockwood Park is only 1.5 miles from the town’s centre. Either way, the final decision from Luton Council will likely be announced within the week.

This year is looking promising for Festival Republic, as Finsbury Park’s Wireless is set to announce its 2024 line up next week, and Reading/Leeds has already teased the first ten acts for this year’s extravaganza. Among those performing at Reading’s and Leeds’ 2024 incarnation, are DJ and producer Fred Again.., Lana Del Rey, and Liam Gallagher.

Update: As of January 22nd, Luton Council said that Melvin Benn’s “application was granted with minor amendments“. Due to residents’ concerns of increased noise, congestion, and anti-social behaviour, Luton Council has arranged for noise to be monitored during the event as well as a noise hotline that would allow locals to complain about disruption in residential areas.

Benn, in referencing the stage changes, told NME, “There are always changes in the artists, but there will be to the stages as well. It’s a mix of all sorts of things, really. I’m not quite ready to announce it yet, but I’m really very excited about it.”

As for the possible headliners for next year’s Reading & Leeds festival, Benn was quick to rule out the likes of Yungblud, Paramore, Dua Lipa, Drake and Queens Of The Stone Age, lightheartedly replying, “You’ve lost a lot of money” in response to the interviewer’s claim of betting on the aforementioned acts to perform at next year’s event.

Others, though, may be well in the mix, including Central Cee, whom Benn has said of, “The trajectory of Central Cee is just incredible. He played Wireless Festival last year and it was an explosion in that sense with a really big crowd compared to what he’d been having. He’s really worked it since then. He’s getting breakthroughs in the US and working with some really important artists, and it just feels like he’s got a great future. I’m not going to say he’s going to be a future headliner because I don’t want to give anyone that burden. I felt like it was a burden I’d given to Foals. They came through with it, but I don’t want to do that again.”

Lewis Calpaldi, who unfortunately had to pull out of this year’s festival, and who was ultimately replaced by The 1975, is always welcome back to perform a headline show at Reading & Leeds, with Benn stating, “I think there will always be an open offer, but at the same time the only thing that needs to be thought about is Lewis’ health. We certainly wouldn’t be having a discussion prior to Lewis’ health being right.”

Rage Against The Machine, however, are a band that are unlikely to feature after cancelling last year, as Benn spoke about their potential return, “It’s not an agenda item at the moment, let’s put it that way. Rage are a US-based act and would very rarely do one-off shows, so it would need to fit in to a lot more scheduling.”

Additionally, Benn has also confirmed that a headliner has in fact been chosen for 2024 already, stating, “We have one of the headliners confirmed, and have had them confirmed for a little while actually. They’ve headlined in the past so we know their strength with it and we’re pleased with that.”

‘While the club shows and the Sefton Park pilot were effectively events that were designed to ensure the enablement of reopening on June 21, the camping event, because it’s three or four days, will actually be about testing the protocol of how to deal with anyone that might have Covid at the event. It’s about testing the protocols around using Covid certification on the NHS app, and it’s also around testing the protocols of what the SAGE [Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies] scientists here in the UK want, which is at-home testing for all attendees that don’t have the vaccination and that are not immune.’ The organiser explains.

The area that could cause potential trouble is not the venue itself, because the organisers will know how to look after the crowd while respecting the guidelines, but public transports: ‘It’s large amounts of people squashed, with no circulation, on buses coming into Glasgow city centre, or coming on tubes into Wembley Stadium,’ he stated. ‘I believe that’s the area they are more concerned about, compared to the actual venues themselves – particularly outdoor venues.’

Benn hopes that the event could potentially take place in mid-June. While being aware that politicians are ‘are a little more reticent’ about this proposal, he is sure that ‘the scientists will persuade them, because [home testing] is the only practical way forward’ he stated, admitting that enough of the UK population is vaccinated. ‘Remarkably, the UK Government appears to have a coherent plan, and it seems like we’re going in a good direction.’

@FRfestivals How do I go about getting a refund for Friday's monstrosity at Finsbury Park? The worst event I've ever been to – and that's no fault of @liamgallagher . The organisation from your company was just terrible, and the sound system was nonexistent. You're conning people pic.twitter.com/xNyi1xjpsg

— Joe (@JoeSki7) July 2, 2018

According to fans who paid to see Liam Gallagher and Queens of the Stone Age- on July 29 and July 1 respectively- there were excessive amounts of organisational issues, including long queues for both bars and toilets, as well as sound quality issues, and overcrowding. Many fans reported that they felt ‘unsafe’ in the concert environment, missing entire sets from artists as they lined up for hydration on two of the hottest days of the year in the UK.

@seetickets I purchased tickets for #qotsa at #Finsburypark and would like to know how to get a refund. Absolutely shambolic organisation from @FRfestivals meant I barely saw or heard anything. The queues were ludicrous and the crowds were dangerous and something needs to be done

— Natalie Harris (@ChatterlyBarris) July 1, 2018

Absolute shambles today. I’ve never experienced such a poorly run festival. That’s the first and last time I’ll be attending one of your events. #FinsburyPark

— Tim Callcott (@Tim1989Callcott) June 30, 2018

The petition has been drawn up now to demand that the managing directors of Festival Rebublic, and Melvin Benn, issues refunds to people who attended the events.

Seena Shah who set up the petition described the gigs as “a terrible and frightening experience.”

She said: “This petition is for anyone who attended the Liam Gallagher or Queen of the Stone Ages Concerts in Finsbury Park on 29 or 30 June, who would have found queues that were far beyond acceptable for the bars, water fountains, and toilets; overcrowding and dangerous crowd management; extremely poor sound quality.”

“Festival Republic are the organisers of these concerts and are ultimately responsible for ensuring the concerts deliver what was advertised, attendees’ safety and welfare. However, it was clear that the organisers had not properly prepared for the amount of people who attended resulting in a series of highly concerning issues.”

Shah went on to portray how attendees “were subjected to hours” of queuing to get to the bars or water fountains. She also added that “the toilet facilities were insufficient and again commanded excessive queues.”

Shah also aimed further criticism towards the “dangerous” exit procedures run by the event, describing how ” The only (very small) exit that you planned to channel all crowds through was clearly not appropriate and this proved true with crowd control issues, trampling, just overall dangerous crowd management.”

“These concerts were dangerous, wholly inadequate and issues still have not been addressed. We demand a refund in compensation for such a terrible and frightening experience.”

Festival Republic have responded to the complaints via Twitter (see below), writing that “Fans on Friday and Saturday deserved a better bar service, before including a statement from the Workers Beer Company in the link of their apology.

Fans on Friday and Saturday deserved a better bar service. In light of this, Workers Beer Company have issued the following statement. https://t.co/Zf6sFDJJak

— Festival Republic (@FRfestivals) July 1, 2018

The statement from the bar company, to explain that there was an “unprecedented failure of up to 40% of our staff to turn up.

“As a consequence people had to wait an unnecessarily long time to be served.” Before adding “For this we unreservedly apologise.”

This has managed to create further anger amongst customers, who are now accusing Festival Republic- who run a huge festival separately in Reading and Leeds- of failing to properly take responsibility for the overall poor organisation of the event as a whole. Festival Republic have not made any further comment at this time.