Bumper year for festivals as rock drives ticket sales. (News).

Leading music festivals are reporting their fastest-yet tickets sales this year, largely thanks to interest in rock-dominated line-ups headlined by the likes of Metallica and Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Reading weekend's 47,500 tickets have sold out in a record two weeks and Leeds is looking on course to shift its highest ticket numbers yet as Glastonbury headliners REM and Radiohead helped 100,000 tickets to be sold in 24 hours, with the June 27-29 festival selling all 112,500 tickets shortly afterwards.

The Reading and Leeds festivals, which take place from August 22-24, will mark the return of Metallica to the UK summer festivals stage. It is their only solo UK performance scheduled so far this year.

Mean Fiddler's Neil Pengelly says, "There are a lot of big bands who have not done stuff for a while--including Metallica and Blur--and rock is where much of the live scene is now."

Metropolis's managing director Bob Angus says strong line-ups, including Coldplay, Foo Fighters and Red Hot Chili Peppers, and the end of free festival culture, have all contributed to the fastest-yet sell-out for V Festival this year on August 16-17, with 65,000 tickets already snapped up for the two-day stint at Chelmsford and Staffordshire.

Glastonbury founder Michael Eavis says, "There is a huge knock-on effect where, if people haven't got tickets for Glastonbury, they do buy into other festivals. There is a huge enthusiasm this year having nearly lost the licence and, with all the best bands like Radiohead and REM, we are hoping to give people a good show."

Pengelly believes a successful Glastonbury last year ...