If the festival had to move locations would you still go?

[smudger]

No for me.

 

There are plenty of other festivals that are created with the right spirit. End of the Road, Green Man, Beautiful Days etc. all of them with great reputations. None of them Glastonbury though. Glastonbury is the land its on, it's the railway line, the stone circle, the valley, the farm, the Tor in the distance and the collective memories of thousands of people meeting and re-meeting, ecstatic at just being there again.

 

I live in the South East, I've traveled around the world, there are two places I call, and more importantly feel, at home, here in the town I was born in and there. Its just special that's all.

[Spindles]

99% of people would barely bat an eyelid if it changed sites.

Yet the responses in this thread paint a very different picture.  

[incident]

Sorry, a million people are worrying about this? 99% of people would barely bat an eyelid if it changed sites. People go there for the entertainment, not because it's in a some whimsical valley.

 

You can certainly recreate the festival on another site. It'd take them significantly longer to build a lot of the initial stuff that stays built year-round, but the look and feel of the festival would be preserved.

Here's the problem. You can build a Festival on another site. You could probably even recreate a relatively familiar layout, put up a Pyramid Stage, a Leftfield Tower, etc so people have their usual landmarks.

But so much more than that goes into making Glastonbury what it is, and most of the groups involved are largely independent of the Festival organisers - to actually recreate something resembling the feel of Glastonbury, you'd need to get a good majority of them on side, and I just can't see any way that happens.

It's almost a miracle that so many different groups have ended up united under the same banner as it is, and it's basically because of the way the Festival has evolved over a long period of time. Others have tried to recreate the same formula from scratch and either failed (Phoenix) or got nowhere near the same scale.

Even at the current site, it's difficult to keep everyone on the same page - every time there's a site reorganisation inevitably someone takes offence to being moved and decides not to come anymore - Chai Wallahs a few years back for example. Or certain people within Lost Vagueness take offence to suddenly having a new area across the track for competition.

One of two of those places disappearing each year isn't so much of an issue, especially as there's people lining up to take their spots. Move lock stock to another site? I don't know if it could be done and it's certainly not as clear cut or easy as you imply.

[Nice hymer]

One huge point that hasn't been mentioned - it's the people that *make* the Festival.

 

Not the punters, not the Evii, not the performers, who all make a great contribution....

 

It's the local community that give the festival its unique vibe, the many thousands of beautiful volunteers who make it happen.

 

I'm thinking of all the local clubs and organisations, the local businesses and residents who have built the festival over the last 40 odd years....

 

So much of the quark and strangeness that makes Glastonbury the best has evolved through the locals.

 

Glastonbury, Shepton, Wells, Evercreech, Bruton, Frome, Ashcott, Warminster, Somerton, Bridgewater, Norton and Radstock, Bristol, Bath, Yeovil....

I could go on and on - these are all buzzing communities that live and breathe the festival.

 

Move the Festival somewhere local, perhaps it has a chance, take it somewhere completely different and it will be completely different.

 

It might be called 'Glastonbury' it might well be a great festival but it will never be the Pilton Festival that so many of us have grown up with !

 

Just putting it out there - phew !!

Edited June 20, 2015 by Nice hymer