3 hours ago
3
Glastonbury festival is known for its huge crowds, but last year overcrowding at smaller stages led to areas being closed off to prevent crowd crushes and one act was even forced to halt their set.
In an attempt to avoid a repeat of last year’s safety concerns, the festival has sold “a few thousand less tickets” for this month’s event, the organiser Emily Eavis has said.
“It’ll be interesting just to see how that affects the dynamics on site … to see if a few thousand less can make an impact on some of the busier times,” Eavis said in an appearance on the Sidetracked podcast.
She also outlined the changes that have been made to the Shangri-La area, which is “going full trees and green space”, something “completely the opposite to anything they’ve done in the past”.
She said the festival had managed to buy some land “just on the outside of the site” that will be used for crew members.
“I kind of suggested that they make some space for the public there because I think it’s really important to try and make space, particularly in the south-east corner because it gets really busy at night,” she said. “I think if you want to go down and you don’t want to necessarily go into the busy bits, you can go to Dragon’s Tail [the new area] and you can literally sit on a hill and see it all.”
The music festival, which usually has capacity for 210,000 people, returns this month with the British pop band The 1975, Neil Young and his band the Chrome Hearts, and the US pop singer Olivia Rodrigo topping the bill.
There will also be performances from the US rapper Doechii, British singer Raye, the Irish rap trio Kneecap, and Rod Stewart, who will occupy the coveted legends slot.
The first group of tickets for the event sold out in 30 minutes last November, with the second batch selling out in fewer than 40 minutes.
The lineup features a number of acts listed as TBA, as well as a mysterious act called Patchwork who will play the Pyramid stage on Saturday.
“I’ve been working on Patchwork for a long time,” Eavis said, adding that planning for their appearance had taken about a year for “logistical” reasons.
Last year, many fans were left frustrated when they struggled to see Sugababes performing on the West Holts stage or Charli xcx DJing at Levels on Friday night – with reports that the queue to get into the area was longer than the queue to get into the festival itself. The electronic duo Bicep also halted their set on the IICON stage due to overcrowding concerns.
At the time, the festival said major artists performing at smaller stages with limited capacities was “part of the magic of Glastonbury” and some fans may be left disappointed.
