In 2008, the festival was held over the weekend of Saturday 10 May and Sunday 11 May, at Mote Park in Maidstone, which can hold up to 20,000 people. 85% of tickets went to people living in Kent, 10% went to those living in areas bordering Kent, including parts of Sussex, Surrey, Essex and London, and the other 5% were handed to others living across the United Kingdom. Concern was raised after a large number of locals commented that even those living within the close vicinity of the park did not receive tickets, with some in the Medway towns winning multiple times.
Radio 1's Big Weekend (previously known as One Big Weekend) is a music festival run by BBC Radio 1. It is held once a year, in a different location within the United Kingdom each time. It is the biggest free ticketed music event in Europe and always includes a host of new artists.
The festival was a spin-off of Radio 1's touring summer roadshow, "One Big Sunday", where every Sunday during July and August, a different town would host the roadshow, usually next to a beach or in a large park. These were also free, but non-ticketed. A show in Falkirk in 1999 attracted in excess of 500,000 people, ten times the expected amount. People eventually had to be turned away.
Originally a 'One Big Weekend' would run twice a year. The Saturday was dedicated to dance music and the Sunday to bands. But since 2005 the dance day has been replaced by a second day of bands. In 2005 the dance music took place on a second stage on the Saturday only and in 2006 it took place off site at a club on the Saturday night.