Isle of Wight Festival Ends, Organisers Apologise for Chaos

The Isle of Wight music festival has come to an end and despite the torrential rain and mud slides aside, music fans have gone away relatively happy with the weekend's festivities. As the weekend wound up, the BBC reported additional cross-Solent ferries had been provided to help people leave and arrangements had also been made to allow people different travel schedules in case they missed the one they were booked on.

Meanwhile, considering the raft of problems, mostly weather-related, the organisers and the guests had to face, the former have issued an apology to the latter.

"I am really sorry to everyone who had problems as they arrived at the festival but I hope that I have made up for it by providing one of the best weekends of music ever. I have to look at it very closely with the police and the council so that it doesn't happen again. We knew it was going to happen, we were prepared, we knew there would be adverse weather conditions, it was just slow and we caused a great traffic jam and I am sorry to all those who got stuck in it," festival organiser John Giddings said.

According to the Independent, Giddings was amazed by the resilience of the 55,000-strong crowd, who overcame the mud slides to enjoy concerts headlined by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Pearl Jam and Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band and was all praise for them.

"There is something about adverse conditions that make people enjoy themselves. It's a British spirit, there's something about British people - they are going to have a good time whatever and I love them for it," he said.

Stewart Love, of the Isle of Wight Council, said lessons would be learnt from the disaster.

"There will be a very strong focus on learning lessons over the difficulties we had with car parks on Thursday. We are aware residents and visitors had a tough time. This is the 11th year after 10 successful years of the festival," Love said, adding they were working hard to make exit for the attendees easier. Reports also state the local police are working to clear traffic routes.

"Getting people home safely and returning the local roads and community to normality as quickly as we can is our priority. We have extra officers drafted in from the mainland today to work with marshals to keep traffic moving. We are working very closely with the organisers, the council and other agencies to minimise disruption, and have every resource available doing everything possible to keep people safe and moving," Chief Inspector Nick Heelan, of Hampshire and Isle of Wight police, said.