🎧 Glastonbury Festival — Key Facts
| Official Name | Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts |
| Owner | Worthy Farm Ltd — Michael Eavis & Emily Eavis (family) |
| Founder | Michael Eavis (first festival: 1970) |
| Current Director | Emily Eavis (Michael’s daughter) |
| Location | Worthy Farm, Pilton, Somerset, England |
| Capacity | ~210,000 (one of the world’s largest) |
| Charity Partner | Oxfam, Greenpeace, WaterAid (receive share of profits) |
| Frequency | Annual (usually June; “fallow years” periodically) |
Glastonbury Festival — officially the Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts — is the world’s most famous outdoor music festival, held annually on Worthy Farm in Pilton, Somerset. It is privately owned by the Eavis family through Worthy Farm Ltd, making it one of the rare major global cultural events that remains in the hands of a single family — not a corporate entertainment giant.
Who Is the Owner of Glastonbury?
Glastonbury Festival is owned by Worthy Farm Ltd, a private company controlled by the Eavis family. Michael Eavis, a dairy farmer, organized the first festival in September 1970 on his own farm — charging £1 admission and including free milk from the farm. His daughter Emily Eavis has been the festival’s co-organizer and primary director for many years, effectively inheriting the creative and operational leadership. The festival has no corporate or private equity ownership — it remains a genuinely independent, family-run event, which is a remarkable achievement given its scale of 200,000+ attendees.
Charitable Dimension
What sets Glastonbury apart from commercial festivals is its explicit charitable mission. Oxfam, Greenpeace, and WaterAid each receive a guaranteed share of the festival’s profits. The three charities also provide volunteer stewarding for the event. Over the decades, Glastonbury has donated tens of millions of pounds to these causes. Michael Eavis has said publicly that making money was never his primary motivation — creating a countercultural community gathering was.
Scale and Cultural Impact
Glastonbury attracts approximately 210,000 attendees and is a five-day festival spanning hundreds of stages covering music, comedy, theatre, circus, and arts. It has become a defining cultural institution in British life, with a Pyramid Stage headliner slot considered one of the most prestigious gigs in pop music. Artists ranging from David Bowie to Beyoncé to Radiohead to Paul McCartney have headlined. Despite its scale and cultural weight, the Eavis family retains full control — a rarity in modern festival culture dominated by Live Nation and AEG.