Here are some facts and figures about Britain’s most famous festival, Glastonbury, which next year will celebrate 50 years since it was founded.
– The 2020 festival is the 37th Glastonbury, after the event began in 1970.
Originally named the Pilton Festival, it has observed regular fallow years to allow the farmland to recover.
– Attendees often complain about the price of tickets but the inaugural event cost just £1.
Admission came with free milk from founder Michael Eavis’s dairy farm.
– The price of a ticket to next year’s event is £265 plus a £5 booking fee.
Profits will be split between the charities Oxfam, WaterAid and Greenpeace.
– Tickets for 2020 sold out in 34 minutes last month.
That is two minutes less than last year. Coach package tickets were snapped up in under 30 minutes.
– Some 135,000 tickets are believed to have been sold to the general public.
The site is expected to host 200,000 festival-goers, cast and crew over the five-day event.
– In 2020 the site is expected to cover 900 acres in the Vale of Avalon in Somerset.
The inaugural event in 1970 took place on land owned solely by the Eavis family.
Best view in the world, no? EM pic.twitter.com/lJDOMWnE0p
— Glastonbury Live (@GlastoLive) June 26, 2019
– There will be as many as 2,800 performances during the festival.
They will range from stadium-sized headline slots on the Pyramid Stage to intimate acoustic gigs in the Rabbit Hole.
– Last year Glastonbury hosted 79 stages across numerous areas.
Each had its own identity, with many being curated by individual teams.
– Roughly 400 food stalls will trade across the festival site.
The festival hosts annual trader awards focused on sustainability, and winners are offered free or affordable pitches at the next event.
– There were 40,000 bins at last year’s festival.
Many of those had been individually painted by a team of volunteers.
– Despite this, the clean-up following the 2017 edition of the festival cost £785,000.
The six-day operation came after festival organisers urged attendees to take their rubbish home with them.
– No single-use plastic bottles were sold at the festival in 2018.
Neither were they available in the backstage areas, though many of those attending the event took them to the site.