WHAT a difference a year makes!

Twelve months ago the roads of the Isle of Wight were gridlocked, the heavens had opened with a vengeance and thousands of festival goers were stranded in cars and on board ferries in the Solent.

  • We'll have live coverage of the festival over the weekend, starting later this morning.

But as the gates prepare to open to more than 60,000 revellers attending Isle of Wight Festival 2013 the scenes that marred the build up to last year's event are a long and distant memory.

Yesterday afternoon traffic was flowing freely into Seaclose Park in Newport as festival goers descended in their hundreds to get a good spot on the sprawling campsites.

Those who had chosen to make an early sail across the Solent found themselves greeted with bursts of sunshine before darkness fell and campers were treated to a special performance from acts including The Farm, Happy Mondays and Jaguar Skills.

The short journey to the site was made all the easier this year thanks to a quarter of a million pound investment by festival organiser John Giddings to lay new roads into the car parks and campsites.

Last year the tracks were at the heart of the problems causing traffic chaos on the island when they were submerged under a deluge of unprecedented rainfall making it near on impossible for vehicles to get on to the site quickly.

Permanent entry and exit routes have also been created while specific gates for traffic from Red Funnel ferries in Cowes and Wightlink from Lymington and Portsmouth sailing routes have been segregated to prevent any traffic jams.

It's all helped to secure a happy start to the UK's first big festival of the summer which will see The Stone Roses, The Killers and Bon Jovi headlining.

John Giddings said: "We've opened the gates for the 12th annual Isle of Wight festival and I've been speaking to some of the festival goers and it's great to see they're as excited as I am. We're looking forward to a fantastic weekend of music, fun and great entertainment."

All important weather forecast...

The sun may have been shining for the start of the festival but don't forget to bring your willies as rain is on the way.

The Met office is forecasting sunny spells for today but rain moves in over night to leave a mixture of sunny spells and showers with highs of 15 degrees tomorrow.

Sunday is when the mud-bath could start however with rain predicted to fall throughout the day. Temperatures could struggle to get above 13 degrees.