2016 Last ever Glastonbury at Worthy Farm?

[maelzoid]

1 hour ago, pie_and_a_pint said:

Are the comments about Glastonbury being immoral in a world where there are refugee camps still there... I had to stop reading at that point!

Ha, yes, that's about the point I gave up as well.

[djcolsen]

2 hours ago, pie_and_a_pint said:

Are the comments about Glastonbury being immoral in a world where there are refugee camps still there... I had to stop reading at that point!

Some Guardian readers can be a right barrel of laughs when they put their minds to it

[johnomatic]

I still think that either it'll be a move just during fallow years, or Michael's using it as a 'threat' as he's suggested in the past, or both.

If it does more permanently I'll be sad to see it leave Worthy Farm but as long as the event retains its character, most of the same areas, same basic feel, scale and events then I think I can definitely make my peace with it. That might be because I've only been three times though, I can imagine someone who had been going for twenty years finding it harder to make the change. 

[danbailey80]

Would be very sad. You'd hope they would find a similar size valley. The valley is key. 

The positive is I do like the idea of loads grumbling locals/ farmers suddenly being hugely out of pocket. Suddenly pleading for it to stay. Would serve them right. 

[maelzoid]

If it does move, I'll still go, but inevitably become a "When Glastonbury was at Worthy Farm...." bore.

[Pinhead]

19 hours ago, danbailey80 said:

Would be very sad. You'd hope they would find a similar size valley. The valley is key. 

The positive is I do like the idea of loads grumbling locals/ farmers suddenly being hugely out of pocket. Suddenly pleading for it to stay. Would serve them right. 

They may be initially disadvantaged, but its possible it will also free them to pursue their own agricultural development initiatives funded largely perhaps by previous Glasto land rents...

[danbailey80]

27 minutes ago, Pinhead said:

They may be initially disadvantaged, but its possible it will also free them to pursue their own agricultural development initiatives funded largely perhaps by previous Glasto land rents...

True, they've probably made a huge amount already that they could do whatever it is a farmer dreams of doing. Start a festival?

RE Eavis': If buying their own big plot of land  and starting fresh means saving more money and gives them more freedom to do more, such as build more, expand, less restrictions on sound levels, more money for charity and less twatty locals/ councils complaining then I have to feel we should support them. I trust they will lay it out in a very similar fashion. Just imagine Glastonbury but with an even bigger and versatile blank canvas to create on. A lake anyone?

Edited May 4, 2016 by danbailey80

[Pinhead]

32 minutes ago, danbailey80 said:

True, they've probably made a huge amount already that they could do whatever it is a farmer dreams of doing. Start a festival?

RE Eavis': If buying their own big plot of land  and starting fresh means saving more money and gives them more freedom to do more, such as build more, expand, less restrictions on sound levels, more money for charity and less twatty locals/ councils complaining then I have to feel we should support them. I trust they will lay it out in a very similar fashion. Just imagine Glastonbury but with an even bigger and versatile blank canvas to create on. A lake anyone?

Yeah, but will it in all reality make things easier? New locals, new rules on sound, maybe new council, maybe less infrastructure, maybe even more restrictions - alcohol ban in arena anyone?

What I dread is yet another stately home festival - like 90% of festivals seem to be on this sort of site, largely down to it being all owned by one landowner of course which is what Eavis would prefer.

[SteveTLizard]

Emily Eavis - "The main thing to set straight is that Glastonbury Festival itself will always be at Worth Farm"

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-36201807?ocid=socialflow_twitter&ns_mchannel=social&ns_campaign=bbcnews&ns_source=twitter

Edited May 4, 2016 by SteveTLizard

[warriormonk]

Hang on though.  Emily says 

"The deal on the year off is we're planning a show - another event - somewhere nearby. It's either going to be in 2018 or 2019."

So does that mean we might get an extra Worthy Farm Glastonbury in 2018?  

Or will it be 2018 fallow, 2019 Somewhere else Festival, 2020 back to Worthy Farm.  

My brain is hurting now

[gherring8]

[Pinhead]

"It's going to be the whole team behind the Glastonbury Festival but it's not going to be called Glastonbury," she said, explaining the event would be a "visual feast" featuring "larger-scale installations, as well as music".

"The main thing to set straight is that Glastonbury Festival itself will always be at Worthy Farm."

That last sentence should be savored in every way that it deserves to be....

[dannygrif]

Emily has now said on Twitter that there's potential for the fallow year to be 2019 but it's too early to say. 

[D-Low]

Will be terribly sad to see it go. There's no shying away from the fact it will lose character in a new location. Then again it may even be better (dare I say it). We don't know. As Emily has said let's just focus on this year;'s first

[Pinhead]

Yeah, in line with the comment about the new festival being either 2008 or 2009 I think its safe to say that the designated fallow year is being strongly conditioned by those plans.

Analysing the latest statement, it reads like the SE Corner might have asked for more land to create bigger installations, but due to there being little leeway to expand in that direction and likely landowner resistance to expansion there, plus no way of just moving the SE Corner to the SW Corner or something like that, the idea was floated of doing a festival elsewhere that leans heavily on that sort of show. Plus it gets to make revenue flow for all concerned more consistent over the festival season rather than having many of the staff working fornother festivals instead when not just at Glasto.

[Festival Liam]

Maybe they will just bin the fallow year... 

[Pinhead]

Maybe. There is no license requirement to have it.

[eFestivals]

12 hours ago, Pinhead said:

Maybe. There is no license requirement to have it.

It's almost impossible for the council to legally enforce a fallow year now, since licencing changed a decade or so ago.

BUT .... I know from licence hearing I've attended that there's a very strong local opinion that it should have years off now and then to give locals a break, and if Glasto were to stop the fallow years the attitudes of the council and many locals would change towards it.

So it's a difficult one for the festival to handle. Operating in the sort of hostility that the festival used to have is something I don't think Emily and Michael would want.

Edited May 5, 2016 by eFestivals

[Pinhead]

Good point. Its also good for the land to recover once in a while - I know ME has said before that the land can cope with more than 4 years on the trot, but a farmhand I once spoke to when working Oxfam one year said the farm staff definitely think it benefits from a rest.