Glastonbury - from hippy weekend to international festival
Steve Henderson, Leeds Metropolitan University

Glastonbury Festival has beconne a worldwide attraction for music fans and artists alike. In 2009, Bruce Springsteen was added to the long list of acts (from Paul McCartney to Oasis) that have appeared at the festival. It started in 1970 when 1,500 hippy revellers gathered on a farm near Glastonbury Tor to be plied with free milk and entertainment from a makeshift stage. Now, Glastonbury is a major international festival that attracts over 150,000 attenders. Without any knowledge of the lineup, the tickets for the 2010 Festival sold out in days. In those early days, the Festival was developed by local farmer, Michael Eavis, whose …show more content…

Sometimes described as boutique festivals, Freddie Fellowes, organiser of the Secret Carden Party, describes this type of festival as a chance 'to be playful, to break down barriers between people and créate an environment where you nave perfect freedom and perfect nourishment, intellectually and visually'. Festival Republic, the rebranded Mean Fiddler, created a boutique festival on a larger scale with their Latitude festival. Similarly, Rob da Bank, a BBC DJ, put together Bestival on the Isle of Wight where the attenders are encouraged to join in the fun by appearing in fancy dress. Quite clearly, audiences are now being presented with a wide range of festivals to consider for their leisure time entertainment. Many of these festivals attract sponsors with some becoming prominent by acquiring naming rights on the

festival. Others have low profile arrangements involving so-called 'contra' deals as opposed to sponsorship payments. For example, Glastonbury has official eider suppliers who typically boost their brand by giving the festival a preferential deal on their producís in exchange for publicity. Though these commercial relationships are sometimes spurned by the smaller festivals that see the branding as an intrusión on their fun environment, larger festivals often need such relationships to survive. In order to attract sponsors, large festivals are turning to radio and televisión broadcasters as