News Glastonbury '08
Early tickets available for Glasto 2009
Fans wanting to attend next year's Glastonbury Festival will be able to reserve their tickets six months earlier than normal for a £50 deposit.
From October, 100,000 tickets will be made available.
Organiser Michael Eavis said they were changing the ticketing system because of the confusion surrounding the sale of this year's tickets.
They will be put on sale on 5 October ahead of other music festivals in the hope this will avoid 2008's slow sales.
Mr Eavis said he expected there to be a high demand for next year's festival.
"Everybody wants to come - everywhere I go people say 'oh we should've been there and we're so fed up about it' because it was so good," he said.
No Festival for 2011
Michael Eavis has come out in strong praise for all those involved in this year's "sold out" Glastonbury at a press conference today. Inevitably though, questions largely focused around on Saturday night's headline performance, Jay-Z. Labelling it a "fantastic" performance, Eavis seemed genuinely pleased the hip Hop star had defied press expectation and been "a triumph of a show". In particular, Eavis took time to mention enjoying the tongue-in-cheek opening to Jay-Z's set - a video montage of the various press headlines and celebrity surrounding the rapper's appearance, a move Eavis called "inspired". He went on to assure that hip hop artists would continue to have a presence at the Festival but wouldn't be headlining next year. "You can't do the same thing twice can you?".
Michael also took time to praise Amy Winehouse. "She was on brilliant form, wasn't she?" he stated before moving on to recognise her health concerns. Yet Michael was also quick to defend miss Winehouse over an alleged incident involving her hitting a man attempting to fondle her as she reached into the crowd. Speculating about the event he said, "well, wouldn't you?" and laughed the incident off as "a Prescott situation".
In terms of the running of the Festival, there was mixed new in terms of its financial and administrative success. Though Eavis confirmed the credit crunch and fuel prices had pushed up the cost of diesel by around £160,000 for the Festival, he noted around half a million pounds had been saved through restructuring of the clean-up operation. However, on the subject of the Festival's big environmental initiative, new eco-friendly bio-degrable tent pegs, Michael had to agree to being less successful, having only used half of them. “It’s a shame – we had wall to wall sunshine for 5 days before the event which was wonderful... the ground was just too hard”. He did agree though that the new pegs had raised awareness: "People know now to count their tent pegs back into their tent bags".
As for ticket sales, Michael welcomed that it had taken so long for tickets to sell out "It means people can come if they want to come... it means they can make their minds up,not in a two hour window" - the standard sell out time for the Festival
Eavis has also confirmed that the Festival will take a break in two years time to allow for some rest.
Biodegradeble tent pegs are being launched at this years
festival
The eco pegs made from material derived from wheat and potatoes are being provided by The festival and Millets. Over 100,000 packs are to be distributed, with free packs of ten being issued to every festival-goer coming through the gate.
The pegs are 100% reusable so can be taken hom and used again and again, if theya re accidently left behind they are broken down by the soil in exactly the same way that organic matter is broken down.
The first of these new pegs we knocked into the ground at Worthy Farm by Michael Eavis on 13th March.
New late night area for this years festival!
The Team behind the 'Lost Vagueness' field are behind this new project, Debs Armstrong who is from the team said in a recent interview "I think it should be the front line of cutting-edge UK culture, whether it be performance, or decor or the way that a venue is run. It all feeds into a vibe. And it should be exciting, with unexpected things to find and discover.
It's not about big name bands, it's about strange little worlds that you stumble across. You might well find the most rocking vibe that you'll find all weekend, even if it's only in a 5-metre wide tent. For us, it's about creating these little autonomous worlds or zones based around weird and wonderful ideas."
The project is to be called 'Shrangri-La' not a lot can be revealed about the new project as the organisers don't want to create crowd control issues and anyway it's always nice to discover these things
News Glastonbury '07
Glasto: one of 'world's best parties'
Glastonbury Festival comes fourth in a survey among travel-guide readers of the best places to party on the planet. It is the only British event revellers voted into the top 10 of a website poll.... more
Michael Eavis portrait unveiled
A new portrait of the Glastonbury Festival founder is now on show in Bath. Listen to an interview with Michael Eavis to find out what he thinks of it, and why he's looking forward to Glasto 2007... more
Glasto revellers held up in rain.
Thousands of people have been delayed leaving the Glastonbury Festival because of bad weather ... more
Babes in the mud
Did a muddy Glastonbury look like tough going? Imagine doing it with a five-month-old baby in tow ... more
Glastonbury in pictures: The Stars
Some of music's biggest names are entertaining thousands at the Glastonbury Festival. Lily Allen starred on the Pyramid Stage on Saturday afternoon ... more
Glastonbury in pictures
Snap from the festival
from the BBC ... more
Guardian: festival in pictures
177,500 people converging on a Somerset dairy farm to soak up four days of contemporary performing arts ... and lots of rain ... more
One death at festival :
A 26-year-old man has died in Yeovil District Hospital after a suspected drugs overdose at the Glastonbury Festival at Worthy Farm in Somerset ... more
Summary of Glasto this year ... more