Glastonbury Festival history facts
The floods, music, mud, headliners, tickets, lifestyle & volunteers
Glasto, held in Pilton, Somerset, is Britain's biggest outdoor arts fest. Here are some facts and information on the event held at Michael Eavis' farm.
The Glastonbury Festival, held at Worthy Farm in Pilton, Somerset, is Britain’s most famous music festival. Despite over 100,000 tickets going on sale, demand far outstrips supply, and as soon as they go on sale, the phone lines are besieged. In 2007, over 300,000 people applied for tickets, despite increasingly rigorous security measures that involve photo ID needing to be provided. It is popular to such an extent that most of the workers are volunteers – people are happy to be stewards or bar staff in return for free entrance. But how did a humble arts get together held in a back-country farm ever get so big?
It all kicked off in 1970 when Michael Eavis, influenced by the growing hippy movement, decided to host his own gathering. The site is still a working dairy farm for most of the year, despite the festival being a huge money-spinner. Glasto, as the event is often known, started off small, with only 1,500 people attending its first incarnation, but things really started to take off in the 1990s.
During this decade, with the rise first of grunge and then of Britpop, there was huge enthusiasm for the idea of spending a weekend at a festival, listening to favourite bands and camping out in the open. Glasto, whilst still retaining its alternative lifestyle roots, had become bigger than anyone could have ever imagined.
It only became an annual event in 1981, although every five years, Eavis ensures that there is a “fallow year” where the festival is not held. This, he says, is to allow the fields to recover, and the local area to get some respite from the massive annual influx of revellers and music-lovers.
Memorable events in the history of the festival include:
- In 1990, police ended up battling with New Age travellers, casting a sour note on the end of the festival.
- In 1994, the main stage burned down just weeks before the festival, and a temporary stage had to be created at short notice.
- 1997 was possibly the most famous year, as heavy rain turned the site into a muddy bog. Images of revellers caked head to toe in muck, dancing in the rain, were beamed and published all over the world. The iconic moment, though, was the crowd singing along with headliners Radiohead to Paranoid Android. “Rain down, rain down on me,” was the cry.
