T in the Park is a major Scottish music festival, held annually since 1994. It is named after its main sponsor, Tennents. It was originally held at Strathclyde Park, and since 1997 has been held at Balado, near Kinross.
Acts appearing in the opening year included Primal Scream, Oasis, Blur and The Manic Street Preachers.
The following year the festival sold out, with Kylie Minogue, Nick Cave, Alanis Morissette, Black Grape and Supergrass playing in blazing sunshine and high temperatures.
In 1996 Radiohead, Pulp and No Doubt played. In 1997 it moved to its present site of Balado, Kinross when local developers wanted to use Strathclyde Park for other purposes.
Since moving it has expanded in size with a mix of bands such as Travis, Texas, Garbage, Moby, Iggy Pop, Stereophonics, REM, The Proclaimers, The Darkness, Muse, The Polyphonic Spree, and The Chemical Brothers.
In recent years, the festival has shared much of its lineup with Oxegen, which is on the same weekend, but in County Kildare, Ireland. Acts usually play T in the Park one day and Oxegen the next, or vice versa.
The 2002 festival saw a return to Balado for Oasis, who headlined the Saturday night. The Sunday saw US pop-punk giants Green Day take the stage followed by Dave Grohl's Foo Fighters. The night was closed by a performance by The Chemical Brothers. Also playing that weekend were Primal Scream, Less than Jake and Hoobastank.
The 2004 edition attracted approximately 60,000 people on both the Saturday and Sunday. The two biggest stages being the Main Stage and the NME Stage, along with four tents which included the Slam Tent and the King Tuts Tent.
British acts performing at 2004 included Muse, Franz Ferdinand, Chemical Brothers, The Complete Stone Roses,The Libertines, along with such international acts as The Strokes, Kings of Leon, Scissor Sisters and The Pixies
Originally David Bowie was supposed to headline the main stage on the Sunday evening, but had to pull out due to illness. The Darkness were promoted to headline the main stage, and had a comparatively small crowd, with many music fans going to see Muse on the NME stage instead.
Tickets for the 2005 event sold out in record time just 4 days after going sale, 5 months in advance of the festival. This edition of T in The Park saw around 69,000 people a day watching more than 170 bands over 10 stages.
Some of the bands performing included Green Day, who headlined Sunday night, Travis, The Killers, Keane, El Presidente, The Prodigy, New Order, Audioslave, Queens of the Stone Age and Ian Brown. The Saturday saw the return of the Foo Fighters, who came back to Scotland in dramatic style headlining the main stage, their stage set was impressive and their set list included classics such as My Hero, Best of You and Big Me.
T in the Park was the first UK festival to sell some limited amount of tickets for the following year when that year's festival had finished.
The organisers are now considering expanding the festival's capacity so it can seriously challenge Glastonbury Festival.
Acts for this year included The Who, who headlined on Sunday 9 July, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, who headlined on the Saturday evening. Other acts that performed included Kaiser Chiefs, The Ordinary Boys, Sigur Ros, Slam, Felix Da Housecat, Placebo, Arctic Monkeys, Franz Ferdinand, The Strokes, Primal Scream, Maximo Park, Manu Chao, El Presidente, Paul Weller, Goldfrapp, Pharrel Williams, The Kooks, The Feeling, Coheed and Cambria, The Cribs, Wolfmother, The Go! Team, Richard Ashcroft, Editors, Feeder, Kula Shaker, Dirty Pretty Things, The Proclaimers, The Automatic, Jeff Mills, Bedouin Soundclash, Gomez, Divine Comedy, Fightstar, Lily Allen and Regina Spektor.
Tickets for T in the Park 2006 sold out in under an hourNETQUOTEVAR:1. It is believed that the unprecedented speed of these sales was largely due to Glastonbury not being held in 2006 as well as ticket touts' increasing use of internet auction sites such as eBay.
An extra 12,000 tickets were put on sale on the internet and by phone on 3 June 2006 at 9.00am, and they sold out in just under 10 minutesNETQUOTEVAR:2, further emphasising the festival's growing popularity.
The 2007 festival's initial "early bird" offer of 35,000 tickets, went on sale and sold out on 11 July 2006, in just 70 minutes. No line-up has been announced as yet, but many sources state that the festival is to become even bigger in 2007
