Michael Eavis - on Glastonbury 2008

Lifting the lid on this year's festival

United Kingdom | 25 January 2008

We've spoken to Michael Eavis on many an occasions but never have we heard him so excited about a certain weekend in June.

Arguably the best party host in the world, Michael still revels in inviting more than 150,000 strangers into his back garden every year and always walks away from the weekend with scores of new friends - an impressive attitude given that he's 72 years old.

This year is no different and while his enthusiasm is unabounding, there's also a supreme sense of confidence in what's in store for Glastonbury 2008. We call him at his Worthy Farm home in Somerset for a prearranged interview before being asked to call back in ten minutes while he has a cup of tea. It's a sign of his unruffalable demeanour that despite being responsible for the most famous festival in the world he never feels the need to rush things.

In typically cryptic form, Michael drops various hints and clues throughout our conversation concerning who might be performing at the three-day festival. He also discusses briefly the tragic recent loss of co-organiser Arabella Churchill, new measures to allow you to register just once for the next five years and why other festivals should be following his lead in tackling touts.

Juggling his time between milking his cows and organising the UK's biggest festival, it's good to see that Michael's got his balance just right, and it's a refreshing change from the average festival organiser to have the peace of mind to give us all something juicy to specualate on. Or is he just playing us?

Virtual Festivals: We’re due a sunny Glastonbury this year Michael, surely?
Michael Eavis: “I don’t want to tempt fate or anything but yes we must be due some sun. It’s never been a wash-out four festivals in a row. I think it’s impossible for it to rain again, well virtually impossible. That’s a relevant way of putting it for your site isn’t it?”

VF: Let’s talk about the ticketing scheme for this year.
ME: “It’s been a great success so far. Last year we got your award for the new system [Best Innovation Award at the UK Festival Awards 2007] and the beauty is that it’s actually very easy to do, once people have registered. We’re lucky in that we’ve found the right people to make it work for us. We use a company in Glasgow who actually produce driving licences, so they’ve got a whole history of dealing with millions of photo-passes every year. They’re printed in Nottingham and then they’re shipped to See Tickets who send them out - so the whole chain works really well. There were a handfull of people who had bad photos, where you couldn’t tell who the face belonged to, but that problem’s been ironed out for this year.”

VF: Did that mean that some people got caught out at the gate?
ME: “No they didn’t actually. They would come up and say, ‘My photo isn’t very good,’ and we’d send them up to the enquiry cabin and they’d give us their name, address and registration number, we’d check it out and pass it through the system. What we’re hoping to do this year is have the registration remain the same year on year. Then all people have to do is tick a box, to say they don’t mind [Glastonbury keeping their information] because of the Data Protection and all that. So they tick the right box and we keep them [on record] so people don’t have to apply every year - unless they go through some rather drastic plastic surgery or something. Hopefully we’ll keep it for five years or so, or hopefully forever. So once you’ve got a registration number it’s still active and when you apply for tickets you just use the same number. We’re introducing that this year.”

VF: Do you think other festivals should follow your lead?
ME: “I really don’t know why they don’t. Maybe their tickets aren’t so valuable on resale. I suppose Glastonbury sells out quicker than most other festivals so we’ve got more of a threat from touts than the others perhaps. I don’t know. It is a very simple thing to introduce though. Maybe it’s because we’re farmers and we think very laterally. If we encounter a problem we find a very simple way of solving it.”

VF: You said you were keen to get a younger audience back this year. How will you do that?
ME: “Well In that respect we’ve got a Saturday night headliner that’s going to attract the young people. We’re breaking the tradition of having the big name, Anglo-Saxon, white, rock’n’roll superstar types that we normally get. We’re breaking from that tradition for the first time and we’re having a black artist from New York. That’s going to go a treat and hopefully pull in the young people.”

VF: Are you a fan of that particular artist?
ME: “Well I’ve listened to it. I can see its going to be very, very different and kids and late-teens will love it to bits. That’s what they enjoy rather than the bands that I always considered to be the leaders in the field. The other surprising thing is we’re 50 years apart in age. He’s a well respected rap star who the kids love to bits and he’s going to have some really famous people with him as well.”

VF: So there are going to be some major collaborations?
ME: “It’s going to be a good show. I’m sure its going to be a mega attraction and the fact we’re doing something new, like the ticket system, shows we’re not afraid to change things in order to be bold and to be full of ambition and I’ve been doing that for 38 years.”

VF: You have to move things on in order to keep things fresh.
ME: “Well it was quite a bold thing for me to do Glastonbury in the first place really. So we’re not afraid of sticking our necks out. I don’t want to get into grooves we can’t get out of, so the main headline slot is going to be interesting.”

VF: And what about for the Friday and Sunday?
ME: “I can’t really go into that but I’ll tell you what, we’ve got some great stuff for my generation. We’ve got the best I could ever dream of!”

VF: It’s not Dolly Parton is it?
ME: “No it’s not Dolly Parton. Unfortunately they’re all blokes actually, every one of them. We’ve got someone great for the Sunday afternoon slot, a band with a prominent male soloist, and also an amazing act headlining the Jazz World. We’ve got seven classic artists who are just unbelievable. The over 40s are going to have a lot to choose from anyway so we’re not letting them down. I, for one, will be on cloud nine come the Sunday.”

VF: Are you confident this year is going to be a classic Glastonbury after mixed reviews last year?
ME: “I hope so, but I don’t want to take anything for granted. I don’t believe how people put up with the mud every year. I don’t see why they should and it’s a credit to them that they keep coming back and still manage to enjoy themselves. I’m very confident that we’ll put on a very good show for them this year.”

VF: Have you found it harder to get the bigger acts to play? Coldplay have said they’re not doing anything. I understand you tried to get Radiohead, but they declined.
ME: “We’ll we’ve always got an invitation open to Radiohead and they know that. When it suits them they’ll come and do it and if it doesn’t happen they’ll do something else. We can call on old friends, like Coldplay and Oasis as well, but they’ve all done it so many times that it’s not fair for me to expect them to do it over and over again.”

VF: I also read that you tried to get Led Zeppelin, but they were too expensive.
ME: “That’s not true at all. The money didn’t come into it but the fact that Robert Plant is going to America with Alison Krauss during that period means that they are not available. It was nothing to do with money whatsoever.”

VF: You also mentioned somewhere that you “need” Amy Winehouse.
ME: “I think she needs to get better as well. By saying that I was kind of encouraging her a bit because I love her music. I think she is one of the most prominent female artists, certainly in Britain today, and it’s all got too much for her so quickly. She’s sold so many million records and she was here last year and played an amazing set. So we do need her and if she’s well enough she’s welcome to do it. I just hope she can get herself better so she can take a prominent role. We’ve offered her the slots and they’ve confirmed it, but she has to be well enough doesn’t she?”

VF: Yes of course. What about some of the other promising female singers emerging like Duffy and Adele?
ME: “Yeah we’re going to have all of those as well. We've got all the female singers booked up. I especially like Duffy who we've got. I saw her play the other night in the Pigalle [The Pigalle Club, London] Were you there?”

VF: No sadly not. She sounds amazing.
ME: “Yeah, she was good. We’ve got loads of other ladies that will be playing somewhere or other I’m sure. So we’re expecting all of them really.”

VF: You haven’t had any problems getting the acts that you want?
ME: “No not really. There weren’t many big Anglo-Saxon superstar Sunday night jobbies around. There was Muse, Coldplay, Radiohead but they’re all doing something else.”

VF: Muse couldn’t do it then?
ME: “No because they’re doing the V’s [V Festival] aren’t they? They can’t do both really, it doesn’t really work doing both. Its going to be difficult to make a selection from the ones we’re being offered. So we’re doing something different and we’re being a bit bold. I think its going to be great fun.”

VF: Talking of being bold you had the new Park Stage last year, which went very well.
ME: “Yes, wasn’t it great? Emily [Eavis] got the award for gig of the year by The Times for the Africa Express show. It was fantastic – she did so well. I just gave her the space and she ran the whole thing and did a really good job of it. It was her first attempt at running something on her own. So that will be back this year and she’s got everything that moves up there. Everything she wants she’s been promised. It’s going to be great, let’s just hope less muddy!”

VF: Finally, will there be a tribute to Arabella Churchill (long-time organisers of the Green Fields who died recently)?
ME: “We are talking about it every day. We’re having a memorial service at St John’s Church on Glastonbury High Street. We’re having a service around about the last weekend in February, I think, but we’re waiting on a few things and hoping her son Jake (who was recently imprisoned) will be able to come back from Australia for it. There are plans for something at the festival, many things that Arabella began putting in place before she died, so we’ll have to wait and see what happens.”

Glastonbury Festival takes place at Worthy Farm, Somerset, from 27-29 June. You must register between 1 February and 14 March at the official Glastonbury Festival website and tickets go on sale on 6 April.