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Has Glastonbury Festival sold out? It’s an arguable point. One thing is for sure, in terms of tickets, it certainly hasn’t sold out this year, but in terms of ethos - well, there’s no two ways about it, it’s not the same chaotic, quirky, off-the-wall emporium of the Hippy surreal that it once was.

Glasto and the “Alice Through the Looking Glass” effect

In days gone by Glasto was not so much a festival, but more an in-your-face overwhelming experience. It was like walking into a Joan Miro painting. You never knew what strange weirdly juxtaposed apparition you would see next. Just walking across the site from one stage to another was a theatrical experience. The festival was crammed to bursting point with activity and everyone was part of the performance. That was the magic of it; when you went to Glasto, it was like taking a trip into an Arabian Nights fairytale. The music was great, but it was the mad crazy atmosphere that made the event.

What made Glastonbury Festival so magical?

It’s hard to put a finger on exactly what made Glastonbury so memorable. The sheer all-encompasing nature of the event, both good and bad, was part of the enchantment. The never-ending queues of traffic down winding country lanes that snarled festival-goers for countless hours on the way in and on the way out, the enormity of the mud when it rained. There’s no mud anywhere quite like Glasto mud! But when the sun shone, it was like three August Bank Holiday Mondays rolled into one.

All the locals jumped the fence. Watching grappling irons appear, followed by heads popping up above fences and a mad scramble of bodies leaping over, or seeing the earth dissolve beneath your feet as free-loaders tunnelled their way in was all part of the Glasto astonishment factor. The whole festival was like a huge street theatre performance. The exuberant spirit, the crush, the crowds were all part of the Glasto experience.

The demise of Glasto madness

It couldn’t carry on quite like that forever, now could it? I suppose in the end you would have to say that Glasto is a victim of its own success.

Here’s how The Independent described the rise and rise of Glastonbury:-

“Before ‘97, overcrowding was a loveable quirk of the event, a semi-legal remnant of the old, free festival mentality. Word would go round about which areas of the site’s fence were vulnerable, and gatecrashers would stream in through the gaps. By 2000, however, it was beyond a joke. Organisers sold 100,000 tickets, but attendance was 250,000. Complaints from the locals went through the roof, and the district council refused to grant another licence until the problem could be solved.

Michael Eavis decided to turn the festival’s security over to concert promoters Mean Fiddler (now called Festival Republic), the largest events management company in the UK, who were already responsible for the Reading and Leeds festivals. He was concerned that the move would be seen as diluting Glastonbury’s anti-commercial spirit and, after a brief dispute, Mean Fiddler allowed him to retain artistic control of the event in return for a 20 per cent share of the profits, which has since risen to 40 per cent.

The company built a £1m fence to keep out the gatecrashers. Then they instituted the pre-registration system intended to discourage ticket touting. Last year, for the first time, those who wanted to apply for tickets had to provide contact information and a passport photograph months before the tickets themselves went on sale; 400,000 registered for the 2007 festival. Only 225,000 took up the offer this year. Despite the new, £750,000 flood defences, last year’s festival was still marred by bad weather, and Eavis has blamed this for the lull in interest.”

Read more about The sounds of summer: has Glastonbury lost its mojo?

Glastonbury’s corporate sell-out

So Glastonbury was tidied up. The quirky ethos of the event was straightened up and the loveable disorganisation sorted out. No more jumping the fence. Thugs beat you up if you try that now. Out went the travellers, the droves of school kids sneaking in, the campfires and the independent traders, and in came corporate homogenisation and the middle-aged London green welly brigade.

It’s no surprise that Glastonbury Festival is not the same event. In comes neat, tidy and comfortable and out goes outrageous and amazingly wonderful.

Glastonbury Festival is the same as all the rest

The saddest part of the commercialisation of the festival? It’s the loss of that wonderfully surreal Pythonesque brand of English eccentricity that was the trademark of Glasto in its heyday in the late ’90s.

In moving mainstream, the baby has been thrown out with the bathwater. Glastonbury 2008 is in danger of losing its originality and becoming just another boutique Summer Festival: it would appear that it no longer stands head and shoulders above the rest.

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