Photo by Maja Smiejowska
Almost continuously since 1979, hundreds of thousands have flocked to Pilton, England’s Worthy Farm for the annual Glastonbury Festival. Every year seems to bring massive rains, and when you have 175,000 people trudging through muddy farm lands for four days, there’s bound to be some damage. Because of this, the mega-event may move to a new temporary location in 2019 to give the land a chance to recover.
Festival founder Michael Eavis told The BBC that the new location would be about 100 miles “towards the Midlands” from the iconic Worthy Farm. The idea would be to use the secondary site every five years in order to protect the original one from excessive deterioration.
“I’m arranging to move the show [but] it would be a huge loss to Somerset if it went there forever,” Eavis said, adding that the region also gets an economic boost from Glastonbury’s existence. “I don’t want to lose it forever, no way.”
The new location would actually allow the festival to continue without its occasional fallow year, the last of which was in 2012 (the year of the London Olympics, as it were). Typically, the festival takes a break every five years to give the land and festival organizers a breather. If the B site becomes a reality, it looks like only the land will be taking a year off from here on out.
Glastonbury 2017 will be headlined by Radiohead, with acts like The Stone Roses, Kraftwerk, and Ed Sheeran also rumored as potential performers.
