Glastonbury Festival
Glastonbury festival isn't just a music festival but it is also a contemporary Performing Arts festival too, and it is the largest festival of its kind in the world. Glastonbury takes place at Worthy Farm in the South West of England on the Isle of Wright, and is known for its hippy following. The music doesn't just showcase the latest line-up of bands, but it contains comedy, dance, circus, cabaret and theatre performers. Glastonbury has gotten bigger and bigger over the years with over 15,000 people going last year and 385 acts on the bill it was the biggest one yet, and Glastonbury 2010 is set to be just as big with tickets selling out on the same day as they were released.
Glastonbury started in 1970 after a man called Michael Eavis came up with the idea after watching an outdoor concert of Led Zeppelin, he then set about organising a similar event for a larger audience. The Festival was first known as the Pilton Festival, due to its location between the villages of Pilton and Pylle. Eavis is a local farmer and site owner, he ran the festival with his wife until her death in 1999, he now runs it alongside his daughter, his company Glastonbury Festival Ltd gives the majority of their profits from the festival to charities.
As Glastonbury is such a massive festival parts of it are run separately, for example the left field area is run by 3 other companies and by the Greenpeace people. The beer tents, drink vans and food areas are also run by separate companies, that have the sponsorship of some larger brands, these all hire their own staff from charities, local towns etc. On the whole apart from the technical people that are required to run such a huge festival, all the other staff are volunteers, many of which who are from Oxfam, who receive a great donation for their work.
Glastonbury Festival became the biggest annual festival in 1990 although they had to miss out on having a festival in 1991 due to fighting at the end of the festival in the previous year. When the festival came back in 1992 it was the first year that new age travellers had to pay for the festival and the structure was also changed, stronger fencing was put in place as well as stages being made stronger. Just a few weeks before the 1994 festival the main stage burnt down and had to be replaced, the festival went ahead and even set a world record during its run with 826 people all juggled at least 3 objects at the same time and it was the first year that it was shown on television.
The 1995 was even bigger although unfortunately the fence got jumped which meant thousands of people got into the festival who shouldn't have, however the festival was a hit with the likes of Oasis, Jeff Buckley and The Cure taking to the stage. This was also the first year the festival featured a dance music tent. The following year the organisers took a break, during this time Glastonbury the Movie was released, and a local artist names Paul Branson started his Glastonbury Arts Festival to give classical music the chance to perform.
The festival in 1997 was the biggest, it was now on BBC, and it was the first year of the mud, that has become linked to Glastonbury. The site was hit by heavy rain which left it completely muddy, ssdly a lot people left early or didn't attend however it was the year Radiohead performed which has been said to be the best every performance at Glastonbury. The weather followed in 1998 and again some people left, but the amount of people that stay hit over 100,000 and they saw the likes of Pulp, Blur and Robbie Williams. The 1998 festival was a sunny one, but again saw fence jumpers, which wasn't a massive problem until 1999 when it was estimated that over 250,000 were on the site.
2000 saw again over 250,000 people of site due to fence jumpers, but it also saw a wedding on the main stage. The festival was back in 2002 with more security that resulted in a relaxed and calm festival vibe. In 2003 more tickets were available and sold out before a full line-up was released, Radiohead returned and the concert rose over 1 million. The festival got even bigger in 2004, tickets sold out in 24 hours, acts included Sir Paul McCartney, Oasis and Muse. However in 2005 tickets sold out in less than 4 hours, headliner Kylie Minogue sadly had to pull out due to becoming ill with breast cancer, Basement Jaxx took over and along with Coldplay they did a version of Kylie's Can't Get You Out of My Head .
Last year the festival was bigger than ever, tickets went on sale and all 137,500 tickets sold out after being released at the earliest every date. The Festival was on between 24th-28th June, with the likes of Lilly Allen, Jason Mraz, Bloc Party, Blur, Lady Gaga, Pete Doherty, Madness, Kasabian, Rolf Harris, Florence and the Machine and Status Quo tipping the bill.
This year the festival is on from the 23rd to the 27th June with tickets selling out in less than 24 hours. The acts that are set to be headlining are U2, Muse and Stevie Wonder. Other acts that are set to play are Jack Johnson, Andy Williams, Coldplay, Green Day, Bon Jovi and Kanye West to name a few.
