Glastonbury Festival is finally back after a three-year hiatus caused by the pandemic, when it was meant to celebrate its 50-year anniversary back in 2020. We will take a closer look at what it takes to create this iconic festival which draws thousands of music festival goers every year to the middle of a field in Pilton, Somerset, in southwest England.
The music festival actually had a rather humble beginning when it was first launched by founder Michael Eavis at Worthy Farm back in September 1970, with its original name ‘The Pilton Pop, Blues & Folk Festival’. Its initial 1,500 crowd was attended by hippies who paid £1 to enter the festival hoping to see The Kinks and Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders only to be later disappointed that they were not going to headline the festival after all. Nowadays, we live in a very different world that includes crypto currencies and social media with musicians coming to Somerset from all over the world just to take part in the annual Glastonbury Festival. It’s quite incredible to see how much had changed over the years.
When comparing Glastonbury to other well-known music festivals from around the world it’s astonishing to see that Glastonbury festival has over 100 stages and in second place is ‘Exit’ in Novi Sad, Serbia, having 40 stages. One of the fields within Glastonbury Festival is the Croissant Neuf field, which is one of the original festival areas which was launched back in 1986.
Indeed, it was 11 years ago, that Croissant Neuf field organiser, Sally Howel, was one of the first Glastonbury event organisers to give the then undiscovered 19-year-old, Ed Sheeran, his first gig at Glastonbury. She recalls in a recent interview with Betway Casino just before Glasto’s 50th year anniversary: “I can’t take the kudos for discovering him, he was a friend of a friend of people that I book. The first year he came to the festival and only did a couple of numbers on stage with his mate, which was amazing. She continues: “The following year, he came on his own and launched A Team on my stage, and after that he went sky high and we couldn’t afford him. We gave him an opportunity on the bottom rung of the ladder and that’s really what Croissant Neuf is about.”
Furthermore, when thinking of pop stars such as Ed Sheeran its who is now regarded as one of the most successful musicians of our era, with ticket prices to his concert alone on his tour around the world can easily set you a few hundred dollars. That is why many festival goers prefer to go to a music festival as they can easily justify the cost of their ticket by seeing many of their favourite musicians, while also camping out with friends. According to researchers at Betway Casino, a ticket to Glastonbury is cheaper than three other US based music festivals with an entry ticket priced at $352.
This year’s headline act is Billie Eilish, who at 20-years old will be performing on Friday night and by doing so will become the youngest ever Glastonbury headline act to date. She recently spoke with Apple Music 1’s Matt Wilkinson about becoming the youngest artist to headline the festival and said “it’s a serious once in a lifetime opportunity to be asked to go to and to do, and I’m constantly feeling like I’m undeserving of everything, and I think that’s a good thing. I would say that that’s a good thing for the most part. But first of all, it makes you doubt everybody because you’re like, ‘Why would you choose me?’”
