Watching: Glastonbury

Overview

The Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts is the largest greenfield music and performing arts festival in the world. The festival is best known for its contemporary music, but also features dance, comedy, theatre, circus, cabaret and many other arts. For 2005, the enclosed area of the festival was over 900 acres, had over 385 live performances and was attended by around 150,000 people. While the villagers of Pilton have been complaining about the noise generated during the weekend for many years, in 2007 over 700 acts played on over 80 stages. Glastonbury was heavily influenced by hippie ethics and the free festival movement in the 1970s, especially the Isle of Wight Festival.