Leeds Reading Festival has replaced Introducing with the Canopy stage after almost 20 years, cutting a route that helped unsigned acts break through. Juliette Jackson, who played the Introducing stage in 2015, called it “a really big deal to play that as a new band with no money.”
Canopy at Leeds Reading Festival
Festival Republic said the new stage is for new and breaking acts and is open to emerging artists from all backgrounds at different stages of development. Its statement said artists can be independent or signed and can come through a variety of routes into the industry, a wider booking model than the old system that relied on selection.
That shift matters because Introducing had been part of Reading and Leeds for almost 20 years before it was scrapped last month. Jason Carter founded Introducing in 2007 and built the live links with festivals, so the removal of the stage is not just a name change but the loss of a long-running route into a major summer bill.
Jackson, Betts and 2015
“It’s a loss,” Jackson said. “It was a really big deal to play that as a new band with no money.” She added: “It’s huge when you’re starting out – it gives you an opportunity and puts you on a platform.”
Kelly Betts said: “We will miss being at Reading and Leeds for this year.” She also said programming decisions for that stage are made by the festival organisers, so “it’s not really for me to comment on how they choose to curate it.”
Introducing’s track record gives that absence weight. The platform helped launch Ed Sheeran, Charli xcx, the 1975 and Sam Fender, and the festival says at least 70% of the acts mentioned had early support from Introducing. Removing that stage narrows a path that once linked grassroots artists to a much larger audience.
Criticism of the new bookings
The Canopy line-up has already drawn criticism because fans highlighted Violet Grohl, Cruz Beckham and Gene Gallagher as acts with famous family connections. December 10 were also on the stage after forming on Simon Cowell’s Netflix series The Next Act, which fed the complaint that a stage billed for emerging talent is not being used evenly.
Festival Republic’s argument is straightforward: opening the stage to a wider pool should mean more routes in, not fewer. But the criticism lands because the old Introducing model was built around selection and grassroots credibility, while the new booking mix already looks more open to artists who arrive with recognition before they arrive with a catalogue.
Festival Republic was already planning its 2026 Reading and Leeds lineup when Introducing was removed, and that means the booking shift is not a one-off branding tweak. It is a change in who gets access first, and after 20 years of Introducing on the bill, the next test is whether Canopy actually broadens entry for the unsigned artists it says it is for.
