Chappell Roan, the year’s breakout pop star, is to headline Reading and Leeds festival next year.
The drag-indebted US songwriter had one of the biggest songs of the year in Good Luck, Babe! and her debut album The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess, released in 2023, has spent 24 consecutive weeks in the UK Top 10. Her performance is an English headline exclusive.
She is joined by fellow Reading and Leeds first-time headliners Hozier, the Irish songwriter who scored his first UK No 1 album last year with Unreal Unearth, and US rapper Travis Scott, whose 2023 album Utopia is certified gold in the UK (100,000 units sold) and platinum (1,000,000) in the US. His performance is a European exclusive.
Sheffield metal band Bring Me the Horizon complete the lineup. They previously headlined the festival in 2022. Last year, member Jordan Fish quit the group to pursue a career in production. Their latest album, Post Human: Nex Gen, received a five-star review from the Guardian, which called it “a defining album of our digitally overloaded era”.
Both Hozier and Bring Me the Horizon are UK festival exclusives.
Further down the bill are the rappers AJ Tracey, Blanco, Trippie Redd, Antony Szmierek and Lancey Foux; rock bands Enter Shikari, Amyl and the Sniffers, Good Kid, Soft Play, High Vis, Wallows, Sea Girls, Royel Otis, the Linda Lindas, Lambrini Girls, the Chats and Mannequin Pussy; indie-pop acts Wunderhorse, Conan Gray, Sofia Isella, Alessi Rose, Bilmuri, Suki Waterhouse, Nieve Ella, Luvcat, Lola Young and Del Water Gap; dance stars Becky Hill, Sammy Virji, DJ EZ, Issey Cross, Girls Don’t Sync and Rudim3ntal; indie mainstays the Kooks and Bloc Party – plus indie sleaze revivalists the Dare and Snow Strippers; and K-pop band Balming Tiger.
Melvin Benn, the managing director of Festival Republic, which runs Reading and Leeds, said in a statement: “We’re witnessing an exciting wave of inspiring voices breaking through in pop culture, and this lineup captures that energy perfectly. This is one of the youngest average ages for headliners in years, and that’s very exciting in itself.”
Reading takes place at Richfield Avenue; Leeds at Bramham Park. Both events take place 21-24 August 2025. The general presale opens at noon on 7 December, and the general sale at noon on 9 December.
