About Festivals

The first Festival was held on the day after Jimi Hendrix died, over a two day period and before long "word had got around". It was the Blues festival at the Bath & West Showground that had inspired Michael Eavis to begin a festival of his own although on a smaller scale.

The Festival moved to the time of the Summer Solstice and was known as the "Glastonbury Fayre". It had been planned by Andrew Kerr and Arabella Churchill who felt all other festivals at the time were over commercialised. It was paid for by the few who supported the ideal so the entrance was free and took a medieval tradition of music, dance, poetry, theatre, lights and spontaneous entertainment. It was in this year that the first "pyramid" stage was constructed out of scaffolding and expanded metal covered with plastic sheeting, built on a site above the Glastonbury-Stonehenge ley line. The musicians who performed recorded a now very rare album. The Festival is also captured "a la Woodstock " by a film crew that included Nick Roeg and David Puttnam. This film was called "Glastonbury Fayre".

This became known as the "impromptu" Festival. This happened with the arrival of travellers washed out from Stonehenge who were led to believe that a festival was taking place. After persuasive discussion, a free mini Festival did take place. There was little organisation and few facilities layed on but somehow it did not matter - the stage was powered by an electric meter in a caravan with the cable running to the stage.

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