Rival promoters are squaring up for the right to stage a major rock festival in West Yorkshire.

Temple Newsam Park in Leeds has rapidly established itself as one of Britain's premier venues for open-air events.

Last year it hosted V98, the country's fastest-growing festival, which attracted the likes of The Verve, James Brown, All Saints and Robbie Williams.

But V99, this year's follow-up event, could be in jeopardy if plans to bring another famous festival to the North are successful.

The battle lines are being drawn up between Vince Power, the man who runs the long-running Reading Festival, and Metropolis, which is promoting V99.

Gig-goers had already been gearing up for the V event, sponsored by Virgin, on August 21 and 22 - but Power has thrown the cat among the pigeons by announcing he aims to bring Reading to Leeds as well.

The promoter, whose London-based Mean Fiddler Organisation runs the annual extravaganza, wants to turn Reading into a split-site event, using Temple Newsam as its base.

Reading traditionally takes place over the August Bank Holiday Weekend and in 1998 featured performances by the Beastie Boys and Prodigy.

But Leeds Council, which will have to decide whether to grant a licence to either Metropolis or the Mean Fiddler, is remaining tight-lipped over which event it is likely to favour.

A spokesman refused to say when a decision would be made on either the V99 or Reading application.

But Manchester-based SJM Concerts, which deals with publicity for V99, says an announcement should be expected in late February or late March.

Music industry observers feel 1999 could be a thriving year for open-air music events. Regular festivals such as Glastonbury, T In The Park in Scotland and Phoenix in Stratford-upon-Avon are likely to be staged again, as well as a massive ten-day event in Cornwall to mark the solar eclipse.

Simon Ashberry

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.