The beloved Glastonbury festival is just around the corner so we thought we’d give you a glimpse of what you can expect at the 2016 edition.
The Glastonbury Festival is a five-day festival of contemporary performing arts that takes place near Pilton, Somerset. In addition to contemporary music, the festival hosts dance, comedy, theatre, circus, cabaret, and other arts. Attended by around 175,000 people, Glastonbury is the largest greenfield festival in the world. Inspired by the ethos of the hippie, counterculture, and free festival movements it has become a must attend festival for every music festival lover.
1. The insane lineup.
Glastonbury always features great artists on the lineup and they’ve done it again with big names like Muse, Adele and Coldplay headlining. Acts like Sigur Ros, Tame Impala, Disclosure, LCD Soundsystem, Bastille, CHVRCHES, Ellie Goulding, ZZ Top, Vince Staples, Anoushka Shankar and Of Monsters And Men, to name a few, will also be making an appearance over 5 days.
2. Food food food food food.
Over 500 traders/stalls will be present at the festival giving festival goers and abundance of choice. Glastonbury is also bringing back their ‘Food For A Fiver’ scheme under which over 300 traders/stalls will participate and give attendees meal deals for a mere £5. There are also an increased number of vegan food providers and
3. Art galore.
The art adoring the festival grounds are truly part of the Glastonbury experience. From pretty to absolutely bizarre, you’ll find everything. Counter-culture sculptor Joe Rush, will be featuring three art installations as homage to Prince, David Bowie and Lemmy Kilmister. To represent Bowie, he constructed a large Ziggy Stardust lightning bolt with an eye in the centre right above the Pyramid stage. For Prince, Rush built a giant statue (over 13 feet tall) of a glittery hand holding a purple crown with a white dove flying from the top in the Park area. And finally for Lemmy is a peace sign sculpture made up of spanner wrenches, an aluminum ace of spades, a v-twist engine and a set of black ram’s horns. This sculpture will be placed near the Other stage.
4. Tribute sets honoring Prince, David Bowie and Lemmy Kilmister.
The festival will also be organising musical tributes to the greats such as a 50-piece orchestral performance, clad in all white, to commemorate Bowie. The orchestra will perform Philip Glass’ fourth symphony, which is based on Bowie’s album Heroes. The orchestral performance will take place at midnight on Saturday and marks the first time a classical act will headline the festival. In addition to this there will also be a DJ set curated and played by Hot Chip frontman Alexis Taylor, celebrating the music of Prince at the Block 9 stage on Friday night.
5. The Arcadia Spectacular stage.
Glastonbury will once again be featuring the renowned Arcadia Spectacular stage. Shaped like a giant mechanical spider with flames shooting out of its body and the artists dropping tunes from the underbelly make for a true audio-visual treat. Arcadia Spectacular has already been making heads turn at several large scale Electronic Music festivals including Ultra. The stage was given a permanent spot at Glastonbury in 2014 after a long history of collaborations since 2007.
6. The weather and the mud.
Weather at the festival is the stuff of legends. While some absolutely hate getting drenched in the rains and trudging down the muddy farm, a surprisingly large amount of people consider it a part of the experience without which, the festival would be incomplete. Though it doesn’t always rain, images of people frolicking in the mud have become synonymous with the festival.