Thank you for your interest. We are sorry but to view this application you need to download or activate the MacromediaFlash Plugin to view the interactive timeline. If you need help doing this then please use the BBC Webwise Guide

In the meantime you can access a non-flash version below:

The 1970s

1970 | 1971 | 1978 | 1979

The 1980s

1980 | 1981 | 1982 | 1983 | 1984 | 1985 | 1986 | 1987 | 1988 | 1989

The 1990s

1990 | 1991 | 1992 | 1993 | 1994 | 1995 | 1996 | 1997 | 1998 | 1999

The 2000s

2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008

1970: Naked dancing hippies

‘Naked dancing hippies’ attended pop fan Michael Eavis’ first ever Glastonbury.

For Led Zeppelin, their appearance at a blues festival on the Bath and West Showground was just like any other gig. But their appearance had huge repercussions for British music as a certain impressionable Mr Eavis was in the audience.

"I went to the blues festival and thought ‘this was great, this was wonderful’.

"I’d been working hard to keep the farm going and I thought maybe we could do this as a diversion to help deal with the mortgage," said Michael.

"The police tried very hard to talk me out of it in the first place but having agreed to do it, the police realising that I wasn’t going to change my mind, they’ve been very supportive."

Held the day after Jimi Hendrix died, the concert featured Al Stewart, Keith Christmas and Marc Bolan, who replaced the Kinks at the last minute.

Despite local villagers’ protests, the event only attracted 1,500 festival-goers and left Michael with a debt of the same number.

"I wouldn’t say it was a disaster, but it wasn’t as good as I’d hoped," said Michael at the time.

Return to the top

1971: A spiritual festival is born

After the first festival disappointingly landed Michael with more debt, he was reluctant to hold another one. But then some glamorous hippies changed his mind.

The 1971 Glastonbury Fayre is often thought of as the first Glastonbury Festival however it was not organised by the Eavis’.

"I was thinking of a way to re-coup the £1,500 loss when all these rather glamorous hippies turned up and said, ‘hey, we want to do a festival next year’.

"So I said, pay off my losses and I’ll let you have the site. So we agreed a rent for the farm, which would cover it.

"In fact they lost even more so I ended up being even worse off," said Michael.

Andrew Kerr was one of those hippies. "There were a number of people around who were really fed up with the commercialism in the pop industry. To our way of thinking, it wasn’t a true expression of people in that industry or the people who enjoyed the music.

"It was about time something was put on that was really free. People came and didn’t have to pay very much for the food and the music was free.

"People who built the stage and those who put it together did it for free. It was an incredible thing.

"It was pretty refreshing to see that happen. You could feel it in the atmosphere. People who didn’t understand it came here and said ‘I can’t believe it, I’m so happy here.’"

Andrew originally wanted to hold the event at Stonehenge but he knew the arable land around the site was unsuitable so approached Michael who said yes.

Worthy Farm also fitted in with the mystical spirit of the festival as Glastonbury had strong Christian, spiritual and pagan links and became a Mecca for hippies. The stage was built along the key energy lines which connected the farm with Stonehenge and the Pyramids in Egypt.

Sir Winston Churchill’s granddaughter, Arabella, became jointly involved with the festival’s organisation and ploughed all the money she had into it. Model Jean Shrimpton even paid for the kitchen.

During the festival, organisers continued their spiritual quest by inviting the Lord of the Universe, 13-year-old Guru Maharaji, to speak. There was even space allocated for flying saucers to land.

Despite local opposition, the festival went ahead with performances by Fairport Convention, Hawkwind, Traffic and David Bowie who told Glastonbury Festival Tales that he had "no recollection of the show itself" although he remembers seeing a "strange girl getting up onstage and whirling away, mostly without any music playing".

The free spirit of the festival meant it was quite disorganised. Etchings by John Lennon weren’t raffled off as they forgot to sell tickets. The festival made a considerable loss.

Return to the top

1978: Police-forced impromptu festival

Having decided to call a halt to the festivals because they were too much work, The Eavis’ found themselves in the extraordinary position of being made to hold a festival- by the police.

In 1978 the police unexpectedly turned up on Jean and Michael’s doorstep with a convoy of travellers, who had been washed out from their Summer Solstice celebrations at Stonehenge.

Between 1972 and 1978 a number of small scale events were held at the farm but 1978 stood out as the biggest and most organised music festival.

Michael said: "I couldn’t do anything about it, I couldn’t move them off so I kind of joined in, I thought oh well, it’s a party."

Return to the top

1979: The uncoordinated festival

Buoyant from the ‘78 festival, the Eavis’ were persuaded to hold another event at the farm in aid of the Year of the Child.

After Michael secured a bank loan of £15,000, Arabella Churchill, Bill Harkin and others organised an event in aid of the United Nations Year of the Child. That year saw the festival branch out into more than just a music event as two fields, children and theatre, were introduced.

The event still made a loss of £49,000 despite all the artists performing for free, including Genesis, Peter Gabriel, Footsbarn Theatre and Steven Hillage.

One of the organisers, Thomas Crimble, said there was a ‘lack of co-ordination’ as the festival was organised by Andrew, Arabella, and others from London, which was a big mistake. "It had all gone horribly wrong. We had this country-town thing going on, but it proved a failure. You’ve got to organise a festival from where it happens."

It was then that Michael decided to take over.

"I realised I enjoyed the challenge. And I realised then that I had skills that I hadn’t seen before. I got on with people quite well, I could manage them, I can persuade them to do things, I can get them to put in their time and effort and energy for a reasonable rate or even voluntarily in some cases. It still lost money, but it was laying the seeds for future festivals."

However 1979 was a pivotal moment for the future as it was the year that the current co-organiser, Emily Eavis, was born.

Return to the top

1980: No main festival this year

No festival was held but several small-scale monthly concerts were held in the wagon shed (next to the farm house). These normally attracted 350 people, with the notable exception of a gig with Ginger Baker and Airplane that saw 1,000 people crowd into the barn shed.

Return to the top

1981: The Glastonbury CND Festival

With Michael at the helm, the festival took on a political new direction.

Undeterred from the losses of the 1979 festival, Michael decided to organise a large scale event to raise money for The Peace Movement. Having been involved in setting up the Shepton Mallet Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament Group, CND was the obvious choice to be the main benefactor of the festival. CND loved the idea and their supporters persuaded bands to play and worked at the festival by selling tickets and counting the money.

Michael’s affiliation with CND attracted politically inspired performers including New Order, Taj Mahal, Ginger Baker and Aswad. It was the first festival to make a profit and £20,000 was donated to CND who earned their donation by being the chief ticket seller.

CND member David Rumsley said they used to count the money in a portacabin which was then carted around the site in tool boxes so that it wouldn’t attract attention.

A new and improved Pyramid Stage was built over the course of two months with the help of ex-Ministry of Defence sheeting and large telegraph poles. By making the stage double up as a cow shed, Michael was able to get around the problem of a licence.

Return to the top

1982: Mud and flying plane-targeted fireworks

The first truly muddy festival saw Eavis take on the anti-CND brigade with fireworks as his weapon of choice.

Now a perverse charm of the festival, 1982 was the first muddy Glastonbury. But the highest amount of rainfall for 45 years did not dampen the spirits of the 25,000 festival-goers who watched U2, Van Morrison, Aswad and Jackson Browne perform.

The event continued its controversial support of CND, much to the annoyance of the right-wing who hired a small plane and flew over the festival towing an anti-CND banner just as the CND chairman, Bruce Kent, was giving his speech on the Sunday afternoon, drowning him out.

This infuriated Michael who ordered fireworks to be let off in the plane’s direction.

"The rocket went off and it exploded in thousands of particles around the plane. It was really brilliant, he got it spot on, and everybody cheered like mad. It was a marvellous moment and the plane never came back again," said Michael.

The incident ended up in court- but it was the pilot who was fined £400 for flying over a crowded area without a licence.

Return to the top

1983: Escaping cows

A change in law meant the festival had to have what was to become the bane of the festival- a licence- however the stipulations didn’t stop the cows from escaping.

For the first time in the free-thinking festival’s history, the organisers had to answer to someone- Mendip District Council. The new law meant the festival had a crowd limit of 35,000 and provisions of access roads, water supply and general hygiene had to be supplied.

1983 was also the year that Radio Avalon, the festival’s radio station, broadcast for the first time. Acts who played included Curtis Mayfield, UB40, The Chieftains and Alexei Sayle. The theatre and children’s fields continued under the leadership of Arabella Churchill and CND received continued support; £45,000 was split between the group and local charities.

The festival was disrupted this time not by fireworks shooting down aircraft, but by the fields’ main inhabitants- Friesian cows. Just before the festival, the cows used to trample down the cow pats before the punters arrived. They then had to be moved into another part of the site for the weekend however this year they slyly managed to escape and ran freely around the site, trampling peoples’ tents.

Persuading them to go back into their temporary home from the big tops and market area proved to be a "mammoth effort", recalled festival worker Robert Kearle. "I think Michael used to like that really, the cows causing mayhem," he said.

Return to the top

1984: Going Green

The festival continued its trait of creating a new section every year by adding what was to become one of the most popular areas of the event.

Michael won a court battle against the council for breaking licence conditions and The festival went ahead with acts including Billy Bragg, Ian Dury and The Smiths.

During this time, the Green movement was slowly gaining momentum. Activists from the Ecology Party had been holding a conference on the site since 1980. It soon became apparent that the area could not sustain two green events so they merged together into what is now a staple of the festival, the Green Fields. According to the area’s co-ordinator, Liz Smith, the essence of the fields was about ‘personal growth, self discovery and empowerment’. "There was a belief that everybody has a place, value and worth," she said.

Around £60,000 was raised for CND and local charities.

Return to the top

1985: Tractor army

The increasing popularity of the festival saw it outgrow its home, while another muddy year saw an army of tractors employed for the first time.

With the festival’s growing popularity, Worthy Farm became too small to accommodate the hoards of festival-goers and travellers who flocked to the site so Michael ended up buying 100 acres of neighbouring Cockmill Farm.

Another muddy year saw Billy Bragg, Joe Cocker, Boomtown Rats and The Pogues perform. Wooden pallets were placed as stepping stones so that Paul Weller, immaculately dressed in a pristine white suit, stayed mud-free. Tractors were also used for the first time to tow away stranded vehicles.

The festival continued with its support for CND as £100,000 was raised for the group and local charities.

Return to the top

1986: Classical anarchy

1986 saw anarchy and classical music appear as well as the first festival appearance of a Glastonbury stalwart.

The 1986 festival saw the likes of Level 42, Madness, Simply Red and The Cure grace the Pyramid Stage as well as The Housemartins, which included a certain Norman Cook, a.k.a. Fatboy Slim. It was an experience filled with ‘nerves and not knowing what to do’. "I was dragged there kicking and screaming," he said. "We called the crowd bearded hippies and encouraged them to throw objects at us, which they did."

As the festival was growing year on year, crime became more prevalent. Stallholder Dick Jones said in Glastonbury Festival Tales that it was "risky as hell" and remembered seeing one stallholder chase after someone who was trying to rob him with a shotgun.

To protect stallholders the market was laid out in a different formation. Instead of the straight rows, they formed a protective circle which was easier to defend.

£130,000 was raised for CND and local charities.

Return to the top

1987: Festival battlefield

Mounting tensions between drug dealers and security guards, local farmers and land owners, and festival-goers and travellers made for an uncomfortable festival.

Throughout the 1980s, the festival grew year-on-year. The forced closure of the summer solstice celebrations at Stonehenge meant the two events merged into Glastonbury and soon hoards of travellers were led in a police escorted convoy to the site. The condition of the licence meant that Eavis had to provide somewhere for the travellers to go for free.

"Pilton has always been a divided village as far as the festival is concerned. You’ve got one half who say we don’t mind, we like it, we think it’s good and the other half who don’t want to know," said councillor Bill Mackay.

"We’ve had all sorts of cases of trespass, fences and garden gates being broken down, houses being broken into…some people decided to go away while the festival was on and that was probably a worse mistake than staying because it left their house completely vulnerable. People were complaining bitterly that their gardens were being used as toilets, stones being thrown through windows."

A few people blamed gangs from Bristol for making some areas no-go. As the festival was trying to control it themselves, the police could only monitor people as they entered the site. Many felt that criminal elements were taking over and that the festival felt unsafe.

The organisers then made the decision to allow police on site, which caused outrage as some people thought the essence of the festival (that people could go there and express their freedom and creativity without any kind of authority of any kind) would be destroyed. However the presence of the police calmed things down. Officers appeared in small numbers and kept a low profile.

On the performing side, Van Morrison, Courtney Pine, Elvis Costello and The Communards all played while ‘Carhenge’, a sculpture which would later be the inspiration for a Banksy Glastonbury Festival artwork, was created- complete with Arabella’s missing broken VW car on top.

Return to the top

1988: No festival

The Eavis family decided not to hold a festival so they could sort out security issues and problems associated with the increased popularity of the festival.

Return to the top

1989: Death threats and clowning around

Just before the festival, Susanne Vega and her bassist Mike Visceglia received two threatening phone calls and rumours spread that someone was going to try and assassinate them by sniper fire while they were performing on the Pyramid stage. Suzanne decided that she had to perform because otherwise she felt she wouldn’t ‘be able to play in England again’ so she donned a bullet-proof vest and played the most nerve-wracking gig of her career. The gig went off without any drama and was cut short only by the midnight curfew.

Other performers included The Pixies, The Waterboys and Wonderstuff. The Circus Field was introduced and the Green Fields were expanded.

Despite the opposition to the police, the festival calmed down and tractors were used to control criminals by threatening to tow away their vans laden with stolen gear, and breaking their transmission.

Return to the top

1990: The ‘Illegal’ festival

The on-going tension between the security guards and the travellers led to a riot which saw over 200 arrests and £50,000 worth of damage.

Travellers have been involved in the festival right from the beginning. In the ‘70s and ‘80s, the festival became part of the annual alternative summer tour whose spiritual focus was celebrating the Summer Solstice at Stonehenge and Glastonbury. After the authorities made Stonehenge a no-go area in 1985, the travellers went to Glastonbury instead. They expected things to operate in the same way as at Stonehenge- with free entry and self entertainment. They felt the festival scene would offer them a safe haven.

After the police escorted convoys of travellers to the site, Michael accepted them as the Magistrates said he had to provide an area for them so he let them use the Lost Vagueness area.

Organiser Thomas Crimble said the travellers were putting the festival in danger. He warned they would break in and play music throughout the night, much to the annoyance of the locals.

The festival carried on with the likes of De La Soul, Happy Mondays and Paul Oakenfold playing. Anarchic French circus troupe Archaos transformed the Pyramid stage with chainsaw duels, cars hurtling down the sides and performers walking across a high wire from its pinnacle to an oak tree.

It wasn’t until Monday when the festival was being packed away that the trouble started. Roy Gurvitz (who later went on to found Lost Vagueness) said the confrontation erupted after the security guards attacked the travellers. The guards believed the travellers were stealing leftovers from the market area. The travellers decided to retaliate and later destroyed the site on their way up to the farmhouse for a confrontation. Someone tipped off the organisers and the police were waiting for them in full riot gear. 235 people were arrested.

Return to the top

1991: No festival

The Eavis family took a year off to sort out the problems with the travellers.

Return to the top

1992: Calming crystals

1992 saw the festival become a lot calmer, thanks mainly to a new field full of crystals.

After the trouble of 1990, the festival moved to the weekend after the summer solstice, in order to discourage travellers gatecrashing.

Another change saw the end of CND as the main beneficiary. The end of the Cold War saw peoples’ concerns change from impending Armageddon to the environment. Greenpeace became the new beneficiary which saw a large part of the site was dedicated to green technologies like wind and solar power. There were also more creative and traditional activities on offer, like stonemasonry, glass blowing and poetry readings.

The festival made a significant profit thanks to performances by Blur, PJ Harvey and Shakespeare’s Sister.

The year also saw the introduction of a chill out area called The Sacred Space in Kings Meadow. Ivan McBeth, designer of Worthy Stone circle, dug the holes for the 19 stones by hand and brought crystals from across Britain to lie beneath the stones. He said he was happy with the Sacred Space because he believes whenever someone enters it, consciously or unconsciously, they are "changed by the properties of the space on a deep and fundamental level".

Return to the top

1993: Electric fence?

The festival expanded with new areas and stages, attracting thousands more festival-goers which led to some unusual ideas for keeping gatecrashers out.

The festival continued to grow, this time without the travellers who had used up their welcome in 1990 after the police clashes. A host of new areas were created including the circus, cabaret and cinema fields, while the new NME stage and Field of Avalon as well the Pyramid Stage played host to acts including Jamiroquai, Lenny Kravitz, Suede, Robert Plant and The Stereo MCs.

For the first time the festival sold out before it started, meanwhile the on-going battle of how to keep out gate-crashers continued. A post-festival evaluation by the gate and traffic team, (as quoted from Glastonbury Festival Tales) discussed the following options:

• To have a double fence system and fill a moat with water or cow dung.
• To have motorbike patrols on the perimeter.
• To put barbed wire on the fence (illegal).
• Electrify the fence (illegal).
• To smear the fences with grease (would they get any volunteers?).
• To have smaller gates dotted around the site to increase the visibility of gatecrashers.

Return to the top

1994: Fire destroys Pyramid

A fire on the Pyramid Stage threatened to cancel the biggest Glastonbury to date- but thankfully a replacement stage was made just in time.

An accidental fire saw the Pyramid Stage burn down just ten days before the festival. Emily Eavis told Glastonbury Festival Tales: "My dad used to joke that the Pyramid was like my doll’s house. It was my world, my playground. I’d be on it every weekend…and it burning down was just one of the most heartbreaking moments.

"About four in the morning my sister Sandra told me about the fire, and I thought it was some bad dream. We drove down and just watched it cave in. The fireman couldn’t get near. I was devastated."

A replacement stage was hastily hired and baptised by Bjork, Radiohead, The Beastie Boys and Manic Street Preachers. The festival was shown live on TV for the first time with Channel 4 broadcasting fours hours per day. Around £300,000 was donated to Oxfam, Greenpeace and other local charities.

1994 also saw the festival’s first ever death-from a drug overdose- as well as 964 thefts, 120 arrests for drug offences and the festival’s first ever shooting in the market area. No-one was hurt.

Return to the top

1995: Silver anniversary

The festival went on to celebrate its 25 year anniversary despite Michael’s health scare.

The silver anniversary of the festival was celebrated with Robert Plant presenting Michael and Jean with a gold plaque. "I love the place. I even come here when there’s no festival. It’s jubilation everywhere. Being an old hippie, I can’t stay away," said Robert.

Michael was diagnosed with stomach cancer and began chemotherapy. Despite his illness, the family decided to go ahead with the festival.

1995 was also a memorable year for Pulp who headlined the Pyramid Stage, after The Stone Roses cancelled at the last minute. Local boys Massive Attack, Elastica, The Charlatans played the main stage joined by PJ Harvey in a fetching bright pink cat suit.

The festival was marred by crowd control problems however after gatecrashers pulled down the perimeter fence around the Green Fields.

Return to the top

1996: Festival cancelled

After the fence came down Michael cancelled the festival in 1996 so that the farm and everybody else could have a break.

Return to the top

1997: Mud, mayhem and sunburn

The year of the mud saw festival-goers rolling around naked in the mud and ongoing fence problems.

Torrential rain the week before saw the site turn into a mudbath. Much of the market area was sunk under 12 inches of mud and tour buses couldn’t get to the backstage area. Wooden pallets and straw were used to create pathways, but not all mud plans were quite as successful.

Arabella Churchill said: "In the dance tent, it was so muddy that someone had the bright idea of using the sewage sludge gulper- to go in and gulp out the sludge. But they put it on blowing instead of sucking so it created a terrible mess."

The mud didn’t seem to bother one man who ran around the site in a mathematical pattern in just socks and trainers. He had to have medical attention for sunburn on every part of his body.

1997 saw the first proper Greenpeace field complete with solar-powered showers, a daily newspaper and BBC 2 broadcasting live. Beck, Catonia, The Chemical Brothers and a host of Brit Pop acts played.

It also saw the return of overcrowding. Liz Eliot, Green Fields coordinator said: "We had a real problem with people collecting outside because they knew the fence had come down before. The security people were getting very heavy and people inside were trying to take on the security. There was quite a lot of fighting."

Wary of the festival’s licence, Liz decided to let the gatecrashers come inside to defuse the situation and to protect neighbouring properties.

Return to the top

1998: Mud surfing and sliding

Another rainy year failed to deter thousands of festival-goers who created a new sport: mud surfing.

A muddy Glastonbury is something all true festival-goers have to endure. Studies have been conducted looking into the phenomenon and found if it’s muddy, then apparently it’s muddy two years in a row. 1998 is a point in case, but it didn’t dampen the spirits of the thousands of music fans who turned up to watch over 1,000 performers on 17 stages including Blur, FatBoy Slim, Robbie Williams and Tori Amos.

Return to the top

1999: Untimely death

The sun finally shone on Glastonbury but the event was overshadowed by Jean Eavis’ death.

One of the festival’s main figureheads, Jean Eavis, passed away in May. The festival went ahead as Jean had planned most of it. It seemed like the ‘natural thing to do,’ said Emily Eavis.

"It was almost a saving grace, something to get stuck into, because the festival was so significant in her relationship with Michael; all the taboos they faced in the beginning, how much they’d been through.

"They’d put a real united front together and created this event, which was born of an intense love affair.

"Continuing after she died was the natural thing; a great mark of respect for what they’d shared over 30 years," said Emily.

Shortly after she died, Michael paid this tribute: "A wonderful mother and a great lover, she became the cornerstone of the festival, offering not only unwavering support, but a determination which has seen the Glastonbury Festival develop into the unique event it is today."

A winged wicker sculpture was burned in her honour.

Performers that year included Blondie, Courtney Pine, REM, Skunk Anansie, Travis and Joe Strummer.

Return to the top

2000: Rise and fall

Jumping the security fence had become as much a part of Glastonbury Festival as the Pyramid Stage but in 2000 it collapsed completely and the event doubled in size.

Gatecrashers have long been a feature of Glastonbury. Fence jumping was part of the festival culture and it became cool to get into Glastonbury for free and people used to pay £5 to a security guard and get in on a re-entry stamp. Michael used to go round the perimeter picking people up and letting them in as it was better for them not to jump and break their ankle.

But in 2000, everything came to a head. The perimeter fence completely collapsed and the festival doubled in size. The council, mindful of the fact that eight people had been crushed to death at Rosklide Festival in Denmark, put their foot down and tightened up the licence requirements.

Standing strong however was the new Pyramid Stage which was baptised with Worthy Farm milk by Robert Plant. Performers included David Bowie, Basement Jaxx, Macy Gray and Moby. Keanu Reeves also made an appearance with his band Dogstar, although the crowd pelted him with fruit.

Other highlights included Fatboy Slim’s Miniscule of Sound (the smallest club in the world holding six people), Keith Allen’s Karaoke and Sunday Best with the Cuban Brothers who did naked break dancing on grass.

2000 also saw the Lost Vagueness area officially included as part of the festival. Previously it had been reserved as a space for travellers. It was launched with ballroom dancing and a casino area. Organiser Roy Gurvitz said: "Lost Vagueness was really a pun on Las Vegas; a theatrical, glitzy town in the middle of a dessert just like this was a lost part of the festival in the middle of green fields."

The festival’s character was dramatically changed by mobile phones. The aim wasn’t to lose yourself but to party with friends you knew. One festival worker said: "You don’t need to make your way home, now you can ring someone to pick you up. Once you went to lose yourself, now it’s a found weekend."

Return to the top

2001: Relax, reorganize and resign

After the major security breach of the 2000 event, 2001 was spent rethinking crowd control and the festival’s organisational structure.

"I’m very good at the heart and soul stuff, I’m very good at persuading people to work here and persuading people to play.

"I can fire up the energy because I’ve got the personal energy that’s required to keep this show going. I enjoy it, I live for it," said Michael.

But he fully accepted that one of his strengths was not how to fulfil the council’s strict licence requirements. So in 2001 he hired Melvin Benn from Mean Fiddler music promoters to sort out that side of things.

Some people were worried that with Mean Fiddler involved, the festival would become another commercial product and lose its famous spirit. The festival’s original organiser, Arabella Churchill, had resigned but was persuaded to come back.

"The fact that large amounts go to charity from the festival is very important. If Glastonbury became fully commercial I think a lot wouldn’t want to do it anymore," she told Glastonbury Festival Tales.

The police and the council approved of their decision and granted the festival a licence for 2002.

Return to the top

2002: The ring of steel

A controversial new £1m fence saw the festival fight for survival.

Up until 2002, the fence was held together with nuts and bolts, which could have been undone with an ordinary socket from the back of a car, and held up with 18in pins.

The fence was so unstable that one year a long section blew over in the wind. The advantage was that it made it difficult to prop a ladder up against.

So in 1999 more gatecrashers probably got in with forged tickets than hopped over the fence.

To prevent the nightmare of 2000- when the fence collapsed- a five-mile perimeter fence was built complete with a second barrier.

Permanent guards were placed on watch towers and more security patrols were employed including a posse of local riders on horseback. The festival also put out a strict message: no ticket, no entry.

In the programme, Michael said he was determined to make it work as otherwise the festival would be in jeopardy. "Please make sure that a new generation of young people can experience the magical, memorable moments that others have had over the last 30 years.

"Please respect the festival and all that it stands for. It has become a real part of our culture. You need it, we need it, the charities we all support need it. I’m pleading with you to help me keep it alive."

The fence was successful and 100,000 visitors saw performances from the likes of Rod Stewart, The White Stripes, No Doubt and Robert Plant (again). It was also the year Michael asked Coldplay to headline. Michael had asked the band to play the previous September whilst driving them to a small gig in Pilton.

Chris Martin said the pressure of knowing they were going to headline Glastonbury made the band record the best album they could (X & Y) because it had to be ‘good enough to headline’.

Chris loved the festival so much that he wrote a letter to the council begging them to grant a licence. At the time he said it was ‘special’ as it was run not by a faceless corporation but by an "amazing family and because wearing one of the wristbands afterwards makes you cool for a long time afterwards".

Return to the top

2003: ‘The best ever’

Doubts over the festival’s future were dispelled as 2003 was one of the smoothest Glastonbury’s to date.

The ‘rings of steel’ fence held up and made Michael declare 2003’s festival as "the best ever" and the one which they finally got right. He said it proved they could keep going without gatecrashers. The fences stopped neighbouring Pilton village being invaded and created a spirit of surprise and adventure surrounding the events inside. Crime levels also plummeted.

"Things are looking very, very good for the future with the council and the village," he said at the time. "Last night was the first night ever when I haven't had a phone call in the night from some irate neighbour." The event was also one of the most anticipated as tickets sold out in 18 hours. Festival-goers enjoyed performances by The Manic Street Preachers, REM, The Darkness and The Kings of Leon. Radiohead played three encores.

The Lost Field was launched and £1.25m was given away to charity.

A stone was erected in remembrance to a festival favourite, The Clash’s Joe Strummer.

Return to the top

2004: The year of the tickets, football, mud and a music legend

Since the security fence had proved so successful in keeping numbers down, the battle for tickets hit a new arena- online.

With the future of the festival safe, getting a ticket was like trying to get a golden ticket for Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory. From the moment the tickets went on sale at 2000 GMT one Thursday, hundreds of thousands of people tried desperately to get a ticket. People sat zombie like hitting refresh on their computer non-stop for hours until the tickets finally sold out 24 hours later.

Many fans were left disappointed as the website continuously crashed due to the sheer number of people trying to access the site.

The 2004 festival will be known as the defiant festival. Not even England bowing out of the European Championships to Portugal on penalties, much less the mud, could dampen the spirits of the 112, 000 festival-goers. They had after all defied the odds and managed to get a ticket in the first place.

Sir Paul McCartney, James Brown, The Scissor Sisters, Oasis, Joss Stone and Basement Jaxx all played the main stage. Opera fans were treated to the National Opera’s rendition of Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries.

Filthy habits were kept in check by the Green Police who tried to stop people urinating in hedges and streams; and girls were encouraged to use the new ‘shee-pees’ (female urinals) instead.

Return to the top

2005: Swept away

Torrential rainfall saw some fans swim to their tents while Bob Geldof made a rousing appearance as part of the Make Poverty History campaign.

Glastonbury 2005 was almost swept away as torrential rain fell across the site on the Thursday. Some 200 tents were submerged in up to eight feet of water on Friday and some people even had to swim through the mud to get to their stranded tents.

The rain quickly cleared and revellers were left to enjoy performances by Coldplay, New Order, Keane, Van Morrison, Razorlight and Basement Jaxx who were drafted in to replace Kylie Minogue who cancelled after discovering she was diagnosed with breast cancer.

Bob Geldof also appeared on the main stage- not as part of a ‘I hate Mondays’ Boomtown Rats reformation, but to encourage festival-goers to help ‘make poverty history’. He was introduced by Michael- the first time he had appeared on the main stage since the festival began in 1970. Respect MP George Galloway made an appearance dressed in a pink shirt and clutching a faithful cigar.

The event also paid tribute to one of its biggest supporters, Radio 1 DJ John Peel who died suddenly in 2004. The Unsigned Bands tent was renamed the John Peel Stage in his honour.

Return to the top

2006: A year off

2006 saw Worthy Farm take a year off so that the site could fully recover from the drainage problems caused by 2005’s torrential downpour.

A film charting the festival’s lifetime and featuring footage sent in by festival-goers was released instead to appease disappointed fans.

Return to the top

2007: Glastonbury gets tough

Tickets with photo ID and artistic portaloos made the 2007 Glastonbury headlines.

The problem with organising a successful music festival is that everyone wants to attend. Tickets which cost £125 were selling on Ebay for over £750. In a bid to stop fans being ripped off, Michael tried a new ticketing system whereby fans had to register to buy tickets. If they were successful, they were issued with a ticket bearing their name and photograph to prevent people re-selling them and to cut out ticket touts.

The system worked and festival-goers attended the biggest Glastonbury to date. A change in the licensing laws meant the site could expand vastly and the festival’s future was guaranteed until 2010.

The Arctic Monkeys, Kasabian, The Kaiser Chiefs, The Who, Lily Allen, Shirley Bassey and Amy Winehouse all performed. But it was The Wurzels, who grabbed the headlines for refusing to play on the stage they had been allocated.

The Park, a new area organised solely by Emily Eavis, proved a success- despite the difficulty in getting to the area through the mud.

The festival went smoothly and the most controversial element was a ‘boghenge’ sculpture by graffiti artist Banksy which caused outrage to some because it was placed in the Sacred Space.

Return to the top

2008: Hip-hopping festival’s future

Despite continual rumours that there won’t be many Glastonbury’s left, Michael has booked an artist to try and preserve the festival’s lifeblood.

In order to preserve the festival’s future, a different type of headliner has been booked, American hip-hop maestro Jay-Z. Normally the festival is tight-lipped about what acts are playing, however this year Michael has announced the acts early in order to try and attract young people back to the festival.

"Younger people have more spunk and really add to the character of the festival- that's how it always used to be. It is vital we get them back," said Michael.

Other acts confirmed so far include The Verve, Kings of Leon, Kate Nash and Hot Chip. The Lost Vagueness Field will be transformed into a Shangri La area which has a music licence until six in the morning.

Return to the top

Send your Glastonbury videos and photos to somerset@bbc.co.uk