17 Facts About Glastonbury Festival

1.

Glastonbury Festival is a five-day festival of contemporary performing arts that takes place in Pilton, Somerset, England.

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2.

Glastonbury Festival is attended by around 200, 000 people, thus requiring extensive security, transport, water, and electricity-supply infrastructure.

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3.

Michael Eavis hosted the first festival, then called Pilton Glastonbury Festival, after seeing an open-air Led Zeppelin concert in 1970 at the Bath Glastonbury Festival of Blues and Progressive Music.

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4.

Glastonbury Festival was held intermittently from 1970 until 1981 and has been held most years since then, except for "fallow years" taken mostly at five-year intervals, intended to give the land, local population, and organisers a break.

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5.

Channel 4's 4 Goes to Glastonbury brought widely expanded televised coverage of the festival for the first time in 1994 and the following year.

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6.

Glastonbury Festival 2007 was headlined by Arctic Monkeys, The Killers, and The Who on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, respectively.

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7.

Glastonbury Festival's had suffered a short illness due to pancreatic cancer, for which she had refused chemotherapy and radiotherapy.

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8.

Glastonbury Festival's was a convert to Buddhism, and arrangements following her death respected her belief.

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9.

The Glastonbury Festival 2008 was held on 27, 28 and 29 June, headlined by Kings of Leon, Jay-Z and The Verve on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, respectively, with other notable acts including Neil Diamond, Shakin' Stevens, Levellers, and Stackridge, who opened the first festival in 1970.

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10.

The Glastonbury Festival had always pushed a green agenda and new initiatives in 2008 included biodegradable tent pegs handed out free to all campers and biotractors running on waste vegetable oil.

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11.

Glastonbury Festival 2011 took place from Wednesday 22 until Sunday 26 June 2011.

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12.

Glastonbury Festival was not held in 2012, giving the site and organisers a "fallow year" which originally would have been in 2011, in keeping with the tradition of taking a break every fifth year.

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13.

Glastonbury Festival had a "fallow year" in 2018 to allow the ground to recover.

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14.

Glastonbury Festival 2019 featured new stages, art installations and areas, including a giant crane purchased from Avonmouth Docks.

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15.

In 2021, Glastonbury Festival produced a film recorded on the Glastonbury Festival site, Live From Worthy Farm, with performances by acts including Coldplay, Haim, and Damon Albarn.

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16.

Cosmic Rough Riders included "Glastonbury Festival Revisited" on their album Enjoy The Melodic Sunshine in 2000.

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17.

Glastonbury Festival is a setting in John Osborne's 2014 Radio 4 show The New Blur Album.

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