Caught in the flashing lights and summer sun, large flags and banners are as much a part of music festivals as mud, tents and hangovers. But they will be banned from the main stage areas at this weekend’s Reading and Leeds festivals so that they do not block the view of the bands.

Melvin Benn, chief executive of Festival Republic, which runs the two events, said that he was discussing a similar ban with Glastonbury after a number of complaints were made at this year’s festival in Somerset.

Mr Benn said: “I’m doing everything I can to ban flags this year. For some reason those that buy a flag want to be closest to the stage.”

Glastonbury’s organisers received complaints that certain sets, including Bruce Springsteen’s 2½-hour epic on the Saturday night, were almost totally obscured by fans near the front holding large flags on tall poles.

Mr Benn, whose company helps to organise Glastonbury, described the situation as a nightmare and said: “You couldn’t see the acts — the flags were everywhere. There have always been flags but not to the level that there has been [recently]. And the flags have become very long and tall.”

He said that some of the banners were being used to advertise goods and services at what is, traditionally, an anti-corporate festival.

A spokesman for Glastonbury said: “This is a liberal festival and flags are an expression of people’s individuality, but there are other ways of doing it — people wear crazy clothes, for example. Flags are becoming very competitive and are getting very big.

“The proposal being considered at the moment is to not allow flags within a roughly triangular area between the mixing desk and the front of the stage. This would ensure that they didn’t get in the way of the sightlines of television cameras covering the event, so people at the back of the crowd would be able to see all the action on the big screens on either side of the stage.”

Flags on sale around the Leeds and Reading festival sites tend to be national flags or the emblems of regions, such as the Cornish crosses and Yorkshire roses seen this year at Glastonbury.

Other flags seen there included hastily drawn tributes to Michael Jackson — who died during the festival — while some simply bore mobile telephone numbers with no suggestion of who should contact them or why. A fake pigeon on a pole pecked at the beach balls that bounced around the crowd, and one festivalgoer bore a large onion on a stick.

Flag-bearers at Reading, Leeds and Glastonbury know that a prominent position in front of the stage will guarantee their home-made banners an appearance on television and this leads to a jostle for the prime spots.

One festivalgoer, Anne McKechnie, welcomed the proposals: “It would be nice if people realised themselves that flags are pointless and antisocial. But as they don’t, banning is logical.”

Tony Withers, who sells flags, disagreed and told the BBC: “People use them as a tent marker and then, as the show goes on, they lift them off the ground and take them to the stage. They want to get on TV — that’s the big thing now. To many people, it makes the event.”

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