As I write this article a gorgeous bank holiday weekend of just the right amount of sun and light breeze has taken place. Being British you can’t help but wonder was that summer? I certainly hope not as for anyone visiting the Glastonbury Festival or any festival in the UK for that matter this year will know that it will be much better if the sun is shining and the ground is dry!
This year the festival takes place between 26th – 30th June, with headlining acts on each day – The Pyramid Stage headliners are the Arctic Monkeys (Friday), The Rolling Stones (Saturday) and Mumford & Sons (Sunday). But dozens of other acts will also play covering all genres ranging from artists like Rita Ora, Professor Green, Billy Bragg, Editors, Public Enemy, Palma Violets, Solange, Miles Kane, Gold Panda, Sinead O’Connor, Beverley Knight to name a few…
The music festival is now well known, but you may not be familiar with how it got started; the first event took place on the 19th September 1970, a Blues festival at the Bath & West Showground inspired Michael Eavis to begin an event albeit on a smaller scale, word got round and over 1500 people attended the day after Jimi Hendrix died. Back then the ticket cost was just £1 and even included free milk from the farm. Acts included: Marc Bolan, Keith Christmas, Stackridge, Al Stewart, Quintessence.
In 1971 the festival moved to Summer Solstice and became known as the Glastonbury Fair. This time the price was free and acts included: Hawkwind, Traffic, Melanie, David Bowie, Joan Baez, Fairport Convention and Quintessence. Around 12,000 people attended and it took on a medieval vibe, including music, dance, poetry, theatre etc. meant to rival what Andrew Kerr and Arabella Churchill (planners) felt was overly commercial events. It was this year that the Pyramid stage was built on a site above the Glastonbury-Stonehenge ley line.
There was then a long gap with the next event happening almost by accident in 1978, only 500 were in attendance – essentially travellers who were led to believe a festival was taking placed who washed out from Stonehenge. There was little organisation and few facilities laid on but somehow it did not matter – the stage was powered by an electric meter in a caravan with the cable running to the stage.
In 1979 Bill Harkin and Arabella Churchill turned to Michael Eavis for financial backing; he secured funding against the farm and a three day event took place with around 12,000 people in attendance. The concept of the Children’s World charity was born and still exists today. Unfortunately despite the numbers the event was a financial loss and so they did not want to risk another attempt in 1980.
In 1981 Michael Eavis took the helm and risked another event. The name was changed to Glastonbury Festival and the ticket price was now £8 and 18,000 attended. A permanent Pyramid stage was erected that doubled as a cow shed and food store! The event was in partnership with Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament; Michael managed to hand over £20,000 in profits to them proving it could be a financial success.
The festival has seen a lot of ups and downs since then from obtaining licences, dealing with road access, water supply, hygiene problems, and damage of property, arrests, drug problems and the weather and all that entails. With rising prices to eradicate problems including ticket touting many are now turning to festivals abroad.
But fast forward to 2011 and with a fallow year planned for 2012, tickets sold out the day they went on sale. 135,000 weekend tickets were sold, 37,500 passes for crew, stewards, traders and performers were issued and the ticket price was £195. Over £2 million was raised for WaterAid, Greenpeace, Oxfam as well as other local good causes.
2013 tickets sold out within 1hr and 40 mins, for the price of £205 with an estimated 140,000 tickets sold. For all information on the Festival visit http://www.glastonburyfestivals.co.uk/ if you do not have tickets then do not worry the BBC will be covering the event extensively, they have a website set up where information will be posted: http://www.bbc.co.uk/glastonbury
If you only remember one item – make it your wellies, enjoy!
Tweet