Leeds Festival preview with The Libertines and debut bands from Yorkshire (Video)

Melvin Benn, organiser of the Leeds and Reading festival, said the incident at Germany's Love Parade in which 19 people died and 342 were injured in a panicked crush of partygoers in an overcrowded tunnel, as well as a 19-year-old woman's allegation that she was raped at the Latitude Festival in Southwold, Suffolk, were both rare occurrences.

"One cannot regulate against monsters prowling," Mr Benn said.

"It's very serious: let me be clear that it's incredibly serious, but UK festivals are amazingly safe places to be.

"They are surrounded by community. People that come to the festival look after each other, it's why the festivals work so well because actually when you get here you realise that you're surrounded by like minded people so occurrences like that are incredibly rare."

He also said that because of UK licensing laws surrounding festivals, as well as audits by local authorities and police forces, safety issues such as those seen at Love Parade were not a concern.

"The key is it is only ticket holders that attend," he said, "and we know that we have the capacity for those ticket holders because we work it out - at Love Parade they had no idea how many people were coming."

Mr Benn also said this year's Leeds and Reading festival on August Bank Holiday weekend would be one to remember thanks to the calibre of musicians performing, some of which include headliners Guns N' Roses, The Libertines, Arcade Fire and Blink 182.

Discussing the infamous 2002 Leeds Festival when Guns N' Roses frontman Axl Rose kept fans waiting for three hours before he arrived on stage, Mr Benn said his anger reached such a level that "steam was coming out of my ears".

But he added he was confident the notorious rocker would behave better this year.

This year's festival takes place as usual at Bramham Park on the outskirts of the city.