The extraordinary event that is the Glastonbury festival takes place on Pilton Farm, near Glastonbury in Somerset. Most of the year it’s farmland – but almost every summer a remarkable transformation takes place – it becomes a small temporary city the size of Oxford.
Glastonbury festival: view of the pyramid stage © MrGiles (flickr.com)
Along with other festivals that are on during summer, it is testimony to the remarkable logistics involved in putting on large scale outdoor events. The size of the structures and services being installed is often staggering.
For example more than ten miles of pipes have been built beneath the fields over the years that the Glastonbury festival has been running. Another 15 miles are laid above ground in advance of the festival.
As the number of people staying at the festival site is about the same as the population of a small city, plenty of food and drink outlets are needed to meet their needs – along with around 3,000 toilets.
Of course that number of people will produce a large amount of litter. The Glastonbury festival has always been very eco-conscious and aims to recycle as much of the rubbish (approx 2,000 tonnes) as possible. Renewable forms of energy are also used wherever they can and people are encouraged to come to the festival by public transport.
Music is the main attraction at Glastonbury so in addition to ensuring the services are on place to meet the needs of the festival goers many stages are created for the performers. Large iconic ones such as the famous pyramid stage are erected as well as unusual one-off structures.
The famous pyramid stage at Glastonbury festival © Paul Holloway (flickr.com)
Building the performing areas takes weeks. Stages, television camera towers, PA systems, support for videos screens and the actual stages themselves all have to be constructed. Over 50 people are involved in the logistics. It’s a massive operation and has become known the world over.
If your class were in charge of organising the Glastonbury festival, how would they design this “temporary town”? And what kind of temporary structure would they create for musicians to perform upon?
