Glastonbury Festival
Every summer, music lovers get excited about the UK's biggest music festival! Find
out all about it in this article.
What is Glastonbury Festival?
It's a huge festival that takes place at
Worthy Farm, in the countryside near the
town of Glastonbury in south-west England.
It began in 1970 when Michael Eavis, a
local farmer, organised a small music
festival on his farm. Back then, tickets cost
£1 and they included free milk from the
farm! Today, the festival is run by Eavis's
youngest daughter, Emily Eavis, and it has
grown into a five-day festival with around
200,000 people attending. Tickets normally
sell out minutes after going on sale, but if
you can't get a ticket, you can still watch the
performances live on television. The
festival staff are volunteers, and every year
it raises millions of pounds for charity.
What is the festival experience like?
The festival site is enormous, the size of over 500 football pitches. Festival-goers
camp on the festival site and they can choose from different areas with different
atmospheres. Some are quiet, some are lively and some are for families. The site has
food stalls, bars, toilets, a medical centre, a church, a cinema, recycling facilities and
much more. Glastonbury even has its own newspaper printed on the site!
Different areas with different atmospheres
Food stalls, bars, medical centre,...
Own newspaper
What kind of music is there?
You can hear rock, pop, hip-hop and many other kinds of music. The biggest stage is
called the Pyramid Stage, and that is where the most famous bands and singers play,
which have included the Rolling Stones, Shakira, Beyoncé and Coldplay. On smaller
stages you can see less famous artists. In total there are thousands of performances
over the five days of the festival, on over a hundred stages. Apart from music, you can
also see comedy, theatre and circus performances.
How about the festival's environmental impact?
Glastonbury promotes environmental
protection. The festival site uses solar
power, wind power and other renewable
energies to reduce its environmental
impact, and power generators on the site
use fuel made from waste cooking oil. To
reduce waste on the site, reusable or
compostable plates and cups are used
instead of plastic ones, and single-use
plastic bottles aren't allowed. The festival
even takes a break once every five or six
years to let the land and local people recover from the huge festival.
How about the weather?
We can't talk about Glastonbury without talking about the weather. The festival is in
June, but the weather is unpredictable, with rain and storms sometimes. People still
have fun by splashing around in the water and mud!
111. Monday: 20oC
112. Tuesday: 20oC
113. Wednesday: 16oC
114. Thursday: 17oC
115. Friday: 18oC
116. Saturday: 18oC
117. Sunday: 21oC
Festival
Glastonbury Festival.................................................................................................................................1
What is Glastonbury Festival?.....................................................................................................................1
What is the festival experience like?...........................................................................................................2
How about the weather?..............................................................................................................................3