Glastonbury Festival’s founder Michael Eavis.
©Jason Bryant

1970 - 1979...

September 19, 1970 (Attendance: 1,500. Price: £1 including free milk from the farm)

Michael Eavis, having boogied at a Blues festival at the Bath and West Showground, was inspired to begin a festival of his own, although on a smaller scale. On September 19, 1970, the day after Jimi Hendrix died, Eavis held a festival that attracted the likes of Marc Bolan, Keith Christmas, Stackridge and Al Stewart. After two days' worth of festivities word had got around. 

“It was 1971 and I was bottom of the bill. My going onstage time was delayed, so what better way to pass the time than ensconced in the farmhouse along with a crew of latter-day hippies and all kinds of mushrooms. By the time I was due to perform I was flying and could hardly see my little electric keyboard or my guitar.” (David Bowie). Courtesy of: Glastonbury – An oral history of the music, mud & magic by Crispin Aubrey & John Shearlaw.

June 20 - 24, 1971 (Attendance: estimated at 12,000. Price: free)

The next year, Andrew Kerr (former director of the research team which had worked on Randolph Churchill's biography of his father, Sir Winston) and Arabella Churchill (late granddaughter of Sir Winston Churchill) approached Eavis with an idea to put together a free festival that would offer something different amidst the saturation of over-commercialised festivals around at the time. A few supporters (including the model Jean Shrimpton) following the same ideal helped pay for the festival, thereby making it a free event (those were the days…) and Eavis agreed to his dairy farm being the perfect spot to hold the event. The festival moved dates so as to coincide with the Summer Solstice and became known as the “Glastonbury Fayre”.

A medieval tradition of music, dance, poetry, theatre, lights and spontaneous entertainment was the order of the day, all of which pleased the festival’s throng immensely. Using scaffolding and expanded metal covered with plastic sheeting, the first “pyramid” stage was constructed on a site above the Glastonbury-Stonehenge ley line.  The musicians performing that year, including David Bowie and Joan Baez, helped produce a now very rare album and a film called “Glastonbury Fayre” which captured the festival fun using a filmic style not dissimilar to the original Woodstock documentary. The 1971 festival signalled the beginning of something very exciting and is widely remembered as a significant moment in the history of youth culture and ecological/ethical awareness.

June 28 - July 8, 1978 (Attendance: 500. Tickets: N/A)

The arrival of travellers (washed out from Stonehenge) believing there was a festival taking place, led the festival of 1978 to be known as the “impromptu” festival, and rightly so. Following persuasive discussion, a free mini-festival did indeed take place despite little organisation and few available facilities. This somehow didn’t matter - the stage was powered by an electric motor in a caravan with the cable running to the stage.

June 21 - 23, 1979 (Attendance: 12,000. Tickets: £5)

The festival was still referred to as the Glastonbury Fayre but now ran over three days. Bill Harkin and Arabella Churchill, who were in charge on this occasion, turned to Michael Eavis for financial backing. Putting his livelihood in the hands of his idea’s success, Eavis secured a bank loan against the deeds of his farm. Taking the theme of “The Year of the Child”, the festival of 1979 provided special provision and entertainment for children and the concept of the Children’s World charity was born.