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The Glastonbury festival is a music festival that has been called a British Woodstock. Focussing mostly on contemporary rock, the festival also features folk, world music, dance and comedy performances, theatre and circus.
Originally Glastonbury was heavily influenced by hippy ethics and the free festival movement in the 1970s. Organiser Michael Eavis claims he decided to host the first festival, then called Pilton Festival, after seeing an open air Led Zeppelin concert at the nearby Bath and West showground. The festival retains vestiges of this tradition, including the Green Futures/Healing Fields area and the reputation for drug taking. The festival site also has a megalith circle similar to Stonehenge, although this was constructed specifically for the festival and has no historic interest.
The festival takes place at Worthy Farm near the small village of Pilton, but since Glastonbury is a nearby town already associated with mystical happenings it has lent its name to the event. The nearest town to the festival site is Shepton Mallet but there continues to be interaction between the people espousing alternative lifestyles living in Glastonbury and the festival itself.
The festival is organised by local farmer Michael Eavis, who has hosted the event since its inception.
The first festival, a smallscale event of 1,500 people called the Pilton Festival, was in 1970, followed by the larger scale Glastonbury Fayre of 1971. The festival was not held again until 1979, and has been an annual fixture since 1981 (albeit with breaks in 1988, 1991, 1996 and 2001).
In the 1980s the children's area of the festival (which had been organized by Arabella Churchill and others) became the starting point for a new children's charity called Children's World. The festival makes significant donations to a number of organisations. The main beneficiaries are currently Oxfam, Greenpeace, and WaterAid who all contribute towards the festival by providing features and volunteers who work at the festival in exchange for free entrance. In 2003 these three organisations received around half of more than £1million donated by the festival to "good causes".
In recent years the festival has grown with new tents and stages included a Dance music tent, Jazz and World music stage, The Glade which has now become an independent festival and The Leftfield, a tent organised by Trade unions which appears at a number of british festivals.
During the 90's the festival suffered from increased overcrowding and crime due to a culture of gate-crashing. By 2000, a significant proportion of those at the festival gained entrance to the site 'unofficially'. In 2002 the festival returned after a break with a substantial surrounding fence that reduced numbers to the levels of a decade earlier. By 2003 people got the idea that it was no longer possible to crash the festival and hence it is recognised as one of the most successful years to date as well as selling out within 20 hours of tickets being available.
In 2004 tickets sold out within 24 hours amid much controvesy over the ticket ordering process, which left many potential festival goers trying for hours to connect to the overloaded telephone and internet sites.
The website got two million attempted connections within the first five minutes of the tickets going on sale and an average of 2,500 people on the phone lines every minute.
The lineup for the 2004 Festival was officially announced on the 1st June 2004. Oasis, Paul McCartney and Muse headlined the Pyramid Stage on Friday, Saturday and Sunday respectively, whilst the Chemical Brothers, Basement Jaxx and Orbital headlined the Other Stage. Other bands appearing included the Raveonettes (New Bands Tent), Simple Kid (Acoustic Tent), Baghdaddies (Avalon Stage) and Sister Sledge (Dance Tent).
Michael Eavis has already begun talking about plans to stage the festival again in 2005, and there are rumours that U2 will headline the festival if it goes ahead.
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