Glastonbury Festival

Glastonbury Festival is the largest greenfield music and performing arts festival in the world and a template for all the festivals that have come after it. The difference is that Glastonbury has all the best aspects of being at a Festival in one astonishing bundle. The Festival site has distinct
socio-geographic regions. The more commercial aspects are around the Pyramid, Other and Dance stages, which feels as if the West End of London a Saturday night has been removed to a field and thoroughly beautified. Unlike the West End, visitors are on every guest list, from the night time cinemas to the biggest gigs.
Glastonbury was heavily influenced by hippie ethics and the free festival movement in the early 1970s, beginning with the Isle of Wight Festival, which featured performances by The Who, amongst other artists. Afterward, organiser Michael Eavis stated that he decided to host the first festival, then called Pilton Festival, after seeing an open air Led Zeppelin concert at the Bath Festival of Blues and Progressive Music 1970 at the nearby Bath and West Showground in 1970 The festival retains vestiges of this tradition such as the Green Fields area which includes the Green Futures and Healing Field.
Here is some of the history of the glastonbury festival going way back to 1970

1970(19th september):

The first Festival was held on the day after Jimi Hendrix died, over a two day period and before long “word had got around”. It was the Blues festival at the Bath & West Showground that had inspired Michael Eavis to begin a festival of his own although on a smaller scale.

Acts included: Marc Bolan, Keith Christmas, Stackridge, Al Stewart, Quintessence
Attendance: 1,500.
Price: £1 including free milk from the farm.

1987 (19th 21st june)

The council’s decision to refuse the licence was overturned in court only in May. 1987 saw the introduction of the Womad stage to the Festival. £130,000 was raised for CND and local charities.

Acts included: Elvis Costello, Robert Cray, New Order, Paul Brady, Michelle Shocked and Van Morrison.
Attendance: 60,000.

Tickets: £21.

You can see that in 17 years so much has changed at first the attendance was 1,500 and in 1987 it went up to 60,000 even the price to get in to the festival had went up to alot so the festival was getting noticed more and more people wanted to go and see the acts that were playing.

Now a days to go the festival last year in 2009 it would of cost you in the hundreds now and the attendance was 135,000 it just shows how popular went from so small and only costing £1 to now where everyone wants to go there because it is the ultimate festival to go to.

The Glastonbury Festival 2009 took place between 24 and 28 June 2009. In marked contrast with previous years, the 137,500 tickets went on sale on 5 October 2008, earlier than ever before, with pre-registered customers able either to pay in full, or place a £50 reserve deposit to be paid by 1 February. Tickets for the festival sold out. The full line up was released on 25

and included headliners Blur, The Dead Weather, Bruce Springsteen and Neil Young on the Pyramid stage. The Other stage was headlined by The Prodigy, Pendulum, Maxïmo Park, Bloc Party and Franz Ferdinand.Other notable performers included Jarvis Cocker, Rolf Harris, Fairport Convention (who played at the very first Glastonbury Festival), Steel Pulse, Doves, Lady Gaga, Jason Mraz, Nick Cave, Pete Doherty, Hugh Cornwell, Status Quo, The Gaslight Anthem (in which Springsteen appeared on stage during their song "The '59 Sound"), Madness, Dizzee Rascal, Crosby, Stills & Nash, Lily Allen, Kasabian, Florence and the Machine, Alejandro Toledo and the Magic Tombolinos. Spinal Tap one of a total of two shows worldwide on their Back From The Dead "World Tour"