So why haven’t Reading and Leeds Festivals sold out? We’ve spent the last week looking at the four reasons, that when asked, Reading and Leeds Festival fans point to again and again and again. I can’t count the number of times that I’ve been told that the line up sucks, that other festivals are better, that it’s too damn expensive or that Reading and Leeds don’t feel like Reading or Leeds anymore.

Ultimately, each reason is entirely valid, there is no magic bullet, no one reason why Sally from Sidcup and Harry from Harlow didn’t purchase tickets this year. Instead a dangerous cocktail has been slowly mixing over the past five years. Resentment was allowed to foster and mistakes were being made while Reading and Leeds Festivals were enjoying unparalleled success.

Simply put: Reading and Leeds have become victims of their own success. Festival Republic and Melvin Benn haven’t had to worry about ticket sales or keeping their customers sweet, and they’ve become complacent because of it.

Reading and Leeds have always celebrated the now, whether it was Nirvana and the alt-rock craze of the early nineties or Nu-Metal and the Indie revolution in the early 2000s. Reading and Leeds celebrate and reflect the quirks of pop culture, neither one step ahead nor one step behind, Reading and Leeds are, and have always been, decidedly now.

This commitment to the moment and to the latest scene inevitably draws a younger and trendier crowd. I have no malice in saying this, it’s simply a fact, Reading is still the festival where more youngsters pop their festival cherry than at any other. It’s nothing to be ashamed of, but it’s not the sturdiest business model either.

The festivals are slave to the day’s trends in rock and indie, and combined with Festival Republic’s admirable commitment to new (or at least fresh) headliners, Reading and Leeds have always been teetering on the edge of disaster. Today, indie music is at its lowest point since 1999; there is no new headliner, no new Arctic Monkeys, and innovation is sorely lacking in the mainstream.

Music Sales aren't fairing too well overall but Rock sales plummeted in 2010 and show no signs of picking up in 2011.

Rock is faring no better; the standard bearers and festival headliners are still the same, Muse remain ever present and the Foo Fighters are still the default festival headliner of choice. Sales of rock music are in the toilet, sales of new rock music are even worse off, and the radio and music television simply aren’t creating new stars in the way they once were.

New music is alive and kicking of course, and the artistic niche is flourishing like never before, but while the awkward corners and specialist sounds may create fantastic music they don’t create bands that draw fans in their hundreds of thousands.

The Vaccines are a nice enough little band, they’re having moderate success on Radio One but they’re not Arctic Monkeys and they’re certainly not The Killers, they’re not even Felt, the next generation just isn’t that big (yet). We still await the next big thing.

While you might think this would lead all the major festivals to struggle you’d be wrong. Isle Of Wight, V Festival, Bestival, Sonisphere and Glastonbury (not so much Download) have all cultivated their respective niches, built a sense of community and are now reaping the benefit of letting Reading and Leeds go first.

Isle Of Wight can call upon Kings Of Leon, Foo Fighters and Kasabian because they’re new to the festival but also because they don’t care in the slightest about repeats (and nor does their audience). While Reading and Leeds were being cutting edge in 2000 and 2006/9 V can now play catch up booking the world straddling Eminem and UK  festival favourites Arctic Monkeys. These festivals are profiting from letting Reading and Leeds take the lead, and take the risks.

Glastonbury looked it’s own demise in the face in 2008, it’s audience was aging, getting a year older with every passing festival and they decided to reinvent themselves with Jay-Z and the Kings Of Leon. Drawing a younger crowd, looking cool on TV and most importantly opening their church to superstar rappers, pop phenomenons, dance superstars and soul legends.

Reading meanwhile lurched towards an inevitable failure when the Arcade Fires, Kings Of Leons and Rage Against The Machine reunions ran out. Today, they’re left with The Strokes who are returning with a hit and miss album having already had their moment in the sun at Isle Of Wight last year, Wireless headliners Pulp who are already playing a sold out Isle Of Wight Festival, Muse who have headlined three festivals and sold out four dates at Wembley Stadium since they last played Reading in 2006, and then there’s My Chemical Romance.

The sad thing about My Chemical Romance is despite what you may have heard; they are not a risk, not at all. We know exactly how big and how hot a band My Chemical Romance are in 2011. We know that Danger Days was quite successful; we know that their tour while impressive wasn’t mammoth and we know that they aren’t the most talked about band in the world. In 2008 they were. They would have been huge risk; The Black Parade was conquering the world and selling out the O2 Arena, they were in the news, they were everywhere, they were it. They might have flopped, but it would have been a huge cutting edge media spectacle. Today they’re just another headliner of dubious credibility and size lined up alongside another headliner of dubious size, if not credibility (The Strokes).

Then there’s the economy, times are tough, youth unemployment is at a record setting high and warranted or not 17 and 18-year-olds are concerned about the cost of higher education. To be under the age of 30 quite frankly sucks. So for most people the idea of going to two or more festivals is not an option, this year more than ever. So Reading’s minimal hype and decision to launch its line up last (again) seems baffling. For a Festival that prides itself on living in the here and now they sure seem to misunderstand the times in which we live.

Isle Of Wight, T in The Park, V, Glastonbury and Foo Fighters at Milton Keynes bowl were all sold out in advance of the Reading and Leeds line up launch. Lattitude, Sonisphere, Download, Arcade Fire at Hyde Park, Iron Maiden’s arena tour, Blink-182’s arena tour, were all announced before Reading and Leeds (some announced before the VAT rise). In this economic climate the idea that Reading and Leeds without so much as whimper let those festivals announce first, knowing full well they had a weak line up, is simply lunacy.

Finally, we come to community. It’s often laughed at: who needs to cultivate a community when the festival sells out instantly every year? Well the fact is it does not sell out every year. This is a recent phenomenon that coincides with rock music enjoying a post-Strokes hot streak and a reunion craze.

Today the market is a deflated and the bands who are doing well (Arcade Fire @Hyde Park, The National @Brixton, Elbow @The O2) are acts who appeal to an older demographic. The exact demographic Reading has driven away over the last four years. I’m a moderator on the Reading Forum, I know how little community Reading has, and how disenfranchised it’s veterans are.

Sonisphere may be mocked for buying loyalty with prizes, free tickets and competitions but in reality they are doing the right thing. They’re not bribing their fans, they are including them, making them feel wanted, making them feel apart of something to the point where, when the line up does suck, those fans will say: “this is my festival, this is where I want to be”.

It’s sounds silly and it sounds abstract but getting fans to buy into the festival as a place and as a concept is crucial. Right now Reading and Leeds are festivals that you grow out of, that leave you behind, that make you feel more excluded the older you get. Cultivating a community doesn’t ensure sell outs, far from it, but it gives your festival a crucial safety net for when rock music isn’t the hottest ticket in town. Most importantly it ensures an ethos and an aura, making a festival lovable rather than cool. It’s a vital insurance policy, because fashions change and coolness is transient: Reading and Leeds are learning that the hard way in 2011.