Michael Eavis - Festival Founder, Glastonbury, Summer 2002
By: Toby L
There's something distinctly unusual about Worthy Farm, life-long home of the Glastonbury Festival, as we travel down on a late spring afternoon. The towering stages; the thousands of freaks; the partially loaded rock-stars... Just where are they?
Simple: they're not here yet. It's April, a couple of mere months away from one of the essential events of the music-calendar. Somehow, it's a wonder that festival creator, curator and all-round media-representative for Glasto, Michael Eavis, even contemplates the prospect of a normal life as a farmer. Yet he does, and - presumably - with the scale of land such as this, he's a damn fine one.
But even more stand-out is his 30 annums of conjuring the finest musical-festival to have ever been staged, year after year creating the perfect alternative to mundane living. Demand to attend has never been so fierce, whilst the scale, range and stealth of the performing-artistes remains alone in its output. Really, there is no other.
So, come June, does it ever feel as if, 'Oh look, everybody - Michael Eavis is alive! Then it hits July, and then... 'Oh, he's gone'...
(Laughs) 'Well, it does take longer than a month to organise, certainly. It takes your whole life really...
'I actually had a long chat with a journalist from Bristol earlier this morning and he commented that he didn't realise how much work was put into the event until he met me. However, I can't really speak to everyone about what's going on and how it's put together - I can't exactly say it to every one of the 100,000 people that are attending, can I? Luckily, they must know in some way, because they come every year, they know how the site works, but can also appreciate a good show when they see one - that's why we sold out so quickly this year.'
Other festivals don't seem to be as focal on creating an atmosphere as much as Glasto...
'Yes, we're lucky because we've had thirty-two years of being able to work on that. It takes a long time to grow. But the spirit and the atmosphere has to have so much time spent on it, and needs a lot of cultivating, nurturing and watering and weeding in order to get there. So, on the basis that it's improving all the time, then this year must be the best one...
'I always set each new and upcoming event as a challenge: always more to aim for, and more goals to obtain...'
OK, so come on then - more on that gigantic perimeter-fence that prevents any free-loaders jumping over...
'The thing is that it's a really good fence. It can't be unbolted, it's all interlocking, it's higher, you can't dig under it, because it's got a metal casing underneath and running around it outside; we've also got five-hundred people around the site that will be looking after it, and we've got fifty Land Rovers, too... I shouldn't say it, but you can't really get through it - I don't want to lead people on.'
When you consider the sheer size and proportions of the festival in its current state...
'It's all been an organic growth - we didn't really plan it any specific way: we just put the show on, people like it, we make it better and then people like it more - that's the way it works now and always has. We've got no marketing-strategy or anything like that.
'Also, we don't decide from the top, for example, 'Oh, we're going to have 100,000 people' - that's not the way it works. We provide the show, and the acres and the space, and people just come to it. When people feel that it isn't worth coming to it, that will be the end of it, won't it?
'We go one year at a time, always, so we can throw so much energy towards it and make it work, make sure it's an absolutely top show and that people enjoy it, rather than something that's just year-in, year-out, come rain or shine, but still do the show.
'We take years off occasionally, in order to stimulate it; we don't have to do it - we've all got proper jobs: I've got a farm to run as well... So, we only do it if we really want to do it - it's not like a business in that sense.'
Festival tradition in recent years is to conceal the running-bill of all appearing acts until the date of the occasion nears itself; how does it feel when erroneous rumours of who's appearing are published?
'The press will continually speculate, won't they? They usually get it wrong, maybe half right, but it's all just that, really - rumours. Those that we're really thrilled about having, however, are all the new acts that are playing in the New Bands Tent; we've got all the best ones, and all the ones that are making the running at the moment: they're all playing.
'So, that's the place to be; the exciting thing for me with the festival is that they come here before they're really known well and then they make the grade later, yet they've been tried and tested at Glastonbury first. Once they've made it, though, it doesn't really have the same fascination for us then... We still need some of the ones that have made it, but the new bands get us far more excited.
'That is going to be the place where most of my interest will lie I think, but I'll see the headliners as well and dip in and out of the show a bit, though there are five new bands that are currently causing a lot of excitement that I really want to see. Luckily, a lot of them are spearheading the new British scene, because we've tailed off a bit recently due to imported American acts and Irish boy-bands... We do need to get the reputation back that we once had; we dominated the American charts at one time... we've virtually lost it.
'We get a lot of stuff thrown at us which keeps us up to date, and I've got my daughter (Emily) who's listening to it all the time, but there's also a lot of feedback we receive, and - with the four or five people we have booking bands - we put our heads together and figure out who we're going to put on and how we're going to do it.
'So, we're encouraging all the new, gutsy acts that are coming through this year - and that's why the New Bands Tent is the place to be at in Glastonbury.'
Keeps you young...
'Yes, I suppose it does.'
What else would you be doing - just farming?
'Well, yes - either that or just spending most of my time speaking to the sheep in the fields...'
One recent development was a merging of the festival's management with maverick promoters, Mean Fiddler (the people behind the Carling Weekend: Reading and Leeds events)...
'Melvin Benn from Mean Fiddler originally worked for me during the 80s and he's very thorough - does things properly, and he's the Operations Director, in charge of the smooth-running over the weekend, and will oversee health and safety, the security, council-compliance and all that sort of thing: he'll be on top of all that, and that's his job. He's not here at the moment - we do all the build-work first - and then he'll come in at the end of it; we've got three of his staff working here at the moment on all the administration, so there's a lot going on at the moment, but it's all going to plan, and we're all getting on very well together.
'The police really insisted on the council that we needed some new input from the outside in regards to organisational staff so they would feel it's more professionally run, so we got involved with them - Mean Fiddler are just helping us out, and they're doing a good job. We've all got different roles to satisfy, and we all know what we're doing: basically, we're all helping each other to create the best show on Earth, really.
'At the end of the day, I've got faith in Melvin's abilities - and, fortunately, he was the one that persuaded the police he could make the changes they were looking for, so it leaves me with more time to do the things I really enjoy doing - such as booking the entertainment, all the amusements, organising the Greenfields cabaret and entertainment: the quality of the performing-acts in those will be absolutely second-to-none.'
What keeps you so enthusiastic towards the project?
'You have to go at it like it might be the last one, so that triggers off a great load of enthusiasm and energy... I just enjoy doing it anyway - and we meet so many people; everyone's enthusiastic: the workers, the performers, the fans... Everyone's willing us on for it to work and for the sunshine - there's not much negativity around at the moment, so it has to work - it has to be fun.'
For those that have never attended before?
'What should they expect - first-time visitors? When they walk in through the gates, they should prepare themselves for a shock - they're going into a world they've never been into before. And there will be amazing things that they will see...'