I now live in Somerset, close enough to Glastonbury to hear the music from the Festival when it is on. By chance we drove past the site two days ago, when already road signage, barriers, and most of the infrastructure were in place. All access points were staffed and many of the operators were on site.
The Festival website provides some great insights into the magnitude and sophistication of the operation. Here are just a few snippets of information I thought interesting:
- 175,000 visitors are expected
- hundreds of ‘traders’ apply to operate on the site – they have to apply by December of the preceding year and are selected on “merit” – one of the traders is blogging about their experience here
- festival-goers can stay on site for five nights in ‘Tipis’, each of which holds six people for a price of £950 – most bring their own tents
- the site become a town for five days – although the Pyramid Stage is where the main acts appear, there are 24 other ‘areas’ for people to enjoy
Finally on a personal note, in 1969 I was at the Bath Blues Festival and so apparently was Michael Eavis – it was this that inspired him to start a festival on his farm in 1970. And yes, it started raining hard just an hour ago – for the first time in weeks…
Jones and Robinson 