Thursday night at Isle of Wight FEstival 2023

Early arrivals at the Isle of Wight Festival 2023

Thursday has traditionally been seen as the 'campers' night at the Isle of Wight Festival. The main stage is still being tidied up for Friday but the Big Top is ready. It's a clever way of encouraging people to arrive across two days rather than trying to cram everyone onto the ferries in one day.

By my reckoning, 2008 was the first year that the Isle of Wight Festival offered four nights of music.

Over the years we've had some pretty big names headlining on Thursday night including The Human League (2009), Boy George (2011), Primal Scream (2012), Razorlight (2017) and one of my favourites - Wombats - in 2018.

This year, Thursday night was headlined with a Groove Armada DJ Set with other acts including LF System, Oh My God! It's The Church and Lottery Winners. The final act on that list is particularly impressive since they had a number one album about six weeks ago.

Anyway, here are some photos from Thursday, used with permission from Isle of Wight Festival 2023.

Lottery Winners kicked off the Isle of Wight Festival 2023

LF System

Groove Armada in the Big Top at the Isle of Wight Festival 2023