How Glastonbury Lost Its Mojo

With reports that tickets are still available more than 24 hours after going on sale (they sold out within hours in previous years) and unconfirmed rumours that headliner Jay-Z is pulling out in protest at the mixed reaction to his announcement, could the British public's love affair with Glastonbury be on the wane?

 

Organiser Michael Eavis is blaming the bad weather of the last few years, and while that is almost certainly a factor, I can't help thinking there's more to it.

 

 

For more than three decades Glastonbury has reigned supreme, the festival to which all others aspire (or at least ought to) but could never hope to emulate.

 

Uniquely among events of its kind, it was the one you would happily pay money to attend without knowing the line-up.

 

Unlike the gig-in-a-car-park that is Reading or the soulless corporate beano that is V, Glastonbury at its best is a truly life-enhancing experience. You can walk around without ever venturing near a stage and still be enchanted by the atmosphere, the people, the sense of freedom and possibility it offers.

 

And you don't need drugs to feel like that either.

 

Indeed, it's no exaggeration to say that the community which springs up on Michael Eavis' farm for three days (nearly) every summer has been a consistent reminder that not only did the hippie dream not die out completely at some point in the 1970s but that, in small doses anyway, it can still work and be a beautiful thing.

I have a friend who resisted Glastonbury's allure for years precisely because this sort of talk made him want to vomit. When he finally made it to what he insisted on sarcastically calling 'the indie music fans' annual convention', he returned a total convert.

 

While he would rather eat his own eyes than admit it, I think the experience altered his world view a little bit.

 

Now that's pretty powerful stuff.

 

So what's changed? Firstly, Glastonbury has been the victim of its own success. Eavis put up with the fence jumpers for years because he isn't motivated primarily by profit. Just think about that for a minute. How many other events of Glastonbury's size, popularity, and prominence aren't run as money making concerns? But I digress.

Anyway, the point is that things eventually got out of hand. I was there in the glorious summer of 2000 when record numbers got in for free. Although it was one of the best weekends of my life, I remember thinking it was a Hillsborough waiting to happen.

 

The health and safety authorities thought the same because they refused to grant Eavis future licenses until he could demonstrate that the problem had been addressed, hence the super wall and stepped up security.

 

Clearly this had to happen, and while nobody misses the lowlife tent robbers, something important was lost. What Eavis understood, even though he never went as far as to say so publicly, was that the non-paying attendees were, in the main, the people that gave Glastonbury its colour, its edge, its little frisson of outlaw chic.

 

Without them the festival has become progressively more middle-aged and middle class. Similarly, the new anti-touting measures have been very effective on one level but they've also excluded those without a credit card and/or internet access – ie. the younger, less affluent people who are Glasto's lifeblood.

The other main factor is the changing nature of the UK festival scene. It was basically a two-horse race between Glastonbury and Reading until about 15 years ago. Even then, they weren't really direct competitors.

 

Reading was (and still is) for the hardcore rock fan. Moreover it's a beer drinkers' festival. Put it this way, unlike Glasto, no part of the site is dedicated to meditation and alternative therapies and you would risk a punch in the face for asking if there was.

 

Competition arrived in the 1990s with T In The Park and V but, as if to prove that the British public's appetite for outdoor music was nothing like it is today (more of which in a minute), a third would-be rival, the Phoenix Festival, was scrapped in its fifth year due to poor ticket sales.

 

So, what changed? In two words, the internet. Album sales may have suffered from downloading and file-sharing, but they've been a total boon for live music. Gigging is where the money is for bands these days and people have easier access to new music than ever before.

 

The over-30s might not necessarily be aware but young people today have keener and more wide-ranging music taste than any generation before them – and they want to see it played live.

The huge explosion in new festivals in recent years has proved the demand for them is greater than at any time in history. Moreover, a number of canny operators have finally cottoned on to the fact that setting is as important as the bands. 

 

These so-called 'boutique festivals' are taking on Glastonbury at its own game and, whisper it, are gaining a lot of ground.

 

As Glasto's official attendance figure nudges the 200,000 mark, events like Latitude and The Secret Garden Party play host to a fraction of that number in idyllic surroundings. The idea that huge queues and hideous toilets are part of the experience simply isn't tolerated at this new breed of festival.

 

Worryingly, Michael Eavis' response to these new threats seems especially ill-advised. In an attempt to attract a younger and more diverse crowd he has booked rapper Jay-Z to headline. In his own words, "We're trying to get youngsters to the festival this year. Hopefully the headliner will appeal to them. Traditionally we've had a very white line up and I'm moving away from that."

All very admirable but, rightly or wrongly, hip-hop fans aren't big festival-goers and he is risking alienating his core audience. I don't know if the two are linked but the number of people who have registered for this year's festival is significantly down.

 

It is absolutely not my intention to stick the knife into Glastonbury. My fondness for it should be evident to anyone reading this.

 

In fact, I happen to think it a national institution to be proud of on a par with the World Service and the NHS.

 

It is precisely because I feel so strongly that I would hate to see it lose sight of what made it great in the first place. Because ultimately, great though many of its new rivals are, I doubt any of them could have blown my friend's mind like Glastonbury did in the heady summer of 1995.