The masses have poured out of their trains, cars and coaches, tents have been squeezed into every last space on the fields until recently trodden only by cows, and now the Glastonbury 2024 action is properly under way.
Dua Lipa is Friday’s Pyramid stage headliner, with LCD Soundsystem and PJ Harvey beforehand. Elsewhere, Idles top the bill on the Other Stage, Jungle are at West Holts, Jamie XX is at Woodsies and Fontaines DC headline up at The Park. Plus of course the entire site will be awash with wacky, wild and wonderful acts.
Our writers will keep you up to date with all the festival fun.
More than 200,000 people will descend on Worthy Farm this weekend
SAMIR HUSSEIN/GETTY IMAGES
Guide for all the sofa surfers
For those who didn’t manage to get a ticket to this year’s festival or would rather watch the events unfold from the comfort of their sofa, the BBC is offering music fans the best seat in the field, with extensive coverage across television, streaming on iPlayer, radio and podcasts.
Read our guide to the daily highlights and to find out when your favourite artists are on.
Leave flooding to the folklore
This year’s Glastonbury is forecast to be pleasantly warm and dry (Will Hodgkinson writes). Up until a week ago, however, organisers, insiders and festival goers were bracing themselves for mud, flooding and general water-based misery on a scale not seen since the great tent-engulfing deluge of 2007.
“The ground at Glastonbury, which is among the most susceptible to flooding in the country, is like a bath that until recently was filled to the brim,” says Simon Benham, who runs the Free University of Glastonbury literature tent. “Everyone was bracing themselves for an explosion of water rushing down the hills, which, combined with the high water table of the ground, would create a perfect storm.”
It is a reminder of how lucky Glastonbury attendees have been in having a run of dry years, because being absolutely sodden should be the natural state on a dairy farm like this.
Before modern drainage Glastonbury Tor was an island, surrounded by the permanently flooded Somerset Levels. “I do wonder if that explains the area’s connection to Arthurian Legend, with the lake surrounding the island of Avalon,” says Benham.
Hmm, he looks a bit familiar…
With his bald head, distinctive Amish-style beard and iconic short shorts, it is not hard to spot Glastonbury Festival founder Michael Eavis in a crowd (Will Humphries writes). Or so many people who grab a selfie with Simon Pitts think.
The healthcare worker from Birmingham, who volunteers as an Oxfam steward at the festival, has turned himself into an Eavis lookalike “in tribute” to the fact that the festival made him feel accepted.
Simon Pitts says the festival changed his life as a young man
WILL HUMPHRIES
Pitts, 59, who grew his distinctive beard during the Covid-19 pandemic, said he poses for “hundreds of selfies every day” at the site.
“It’s also people coming up and wanting to say what a great time they are having and for many people how the festival changed their lives, like it did mine as a young man feeling like I didn’t belong anywhere,” he said.
Festival fashion is a beautiful game
You could probably hazard a guess at what most revellers are wearing on Worthy Farm this weekend: bucket hats, bum bags and bare butt cheeks are cornerstones of British festival “style” (Hannah Rogers writes). But there is no one Glastonbury uniform. Yesterday I saw a group costumed as flamingos, another in branded yellow, blue and white Lidl shell suits. At 4pm, 40 odd ravers were giving it some at a DJ set in The Park in children’s party hats. I quite wanted to ask if I could have one.
Flamingos flock in the vicinity of the Other Stage
YUI MOK/PA
Most, sensibly, dress for comfort. At Fleet service station yesterday an excited mob in baseball caps, baggy shirts and cycling shorts was clearing out the Waitrose of its prosecco and cocktails. Others step off the coaches with curlers in their hair and manage to maintain a full “look” all weekend, false lashes and all.
It’s still early days but one clear trend to emerge is football shirts. Nevermind the Euros, it’s not just fans of the beautiful game sporting footie kit here. I’ve seen jerseys paired with denim shorts, linen maxi skirts and cargo trousers. Some are genuine supporters but most just think they look cool.
Yesterday afternoon the popular Instagram account @festivalfootballshirts, which documents … well, you can guess, hosted a meet-up at Stonebridge bar. Its two founders, Rhys, 29 and Carl, 32, told me that the hottest styles they see are vintage, made for obscure teams, have a 90s-inspired loose fit and niche designs.
The Blowfest on-site salon ensures everyone looks pose-perfect for Friday
SWNS
A day for husky voices and men in wigs
I’m starting the day early with Lynks, at 11.30am at The Park (Will Hodgkinson writes). This masked underground pop sensation is like a Gen Z version of the Eighties clubland legend Leigh Bowery: camp, theatrical, very funny indeed. From there I’ll head over to husky voiced Indian funk legend Asha Puthli (12.30pm, West Holts) because her version of JJ Cale’s Right Down Here is a sultry rare groove classic and I never thought I’d get to witness her singing it in person.
Danny Brown (6.30pm, West Holts) is a totally original rapper/former jailbird with an appealing sense of the absurd so he can’t be missed, and can I squeeze in a bit of Bootleg Beatles (9.30pm, Avalon) before getting to the main event, a headline set by the hi-octane pop glamazon Dua Lipa (10pm, Pyramid)? Hope so, because hearing Here Comes the Sun performed by a bunch of men in wigs before rushing over to the Pyramid and jiggling about to New Rules will really make Friday go with a bang.
Ssshh — do you want to know a secret?
The lovely thing about Thursday night at Glastonbury is no one cares that much about the music (Susannah Goldsbrough writes). Wait, hold up, I know how that sounds but what I mean is you don’t have to chase it. No major acts, no fomo, just strolling through field after field in the late evening sunshine, thinking: I forgot there were this many people in the world.
Campers will continue to arrive today but for the most deeply committed revellers, who rocked up as dawn broke on Wednesday, yesterday was a gentle kick-off to the weekend. I hear Queer House Party at Rum Shack was the place to be during the day, both for the DJs and the (lightly clothed) dancers. As the dance tents swung into action later, Aussie techno tinkler Mall Grab had the crowd pounding the air.
The musical action may not have begun on Wednesday or Thursday but the Glastonbury vibes kick in early
DYLAN MARTINEZ/REUTERS
Plus, a buffet of Glastonbury eccentricities: 24-hour ice cream vans, an eye-opening number of inflatable giraffes, and a surreal five-minute-sequence in which a man, then an unrelated woman, bought me a drink, both of whom were called … Lois?
Meanwhile, rumours are already simmering about “secret sets” (read: a big artist pops up at a smaller stage late at night to the delight of a lucky few). Nothing secret about them, of course. I should be keeping this under my (fetching green baseball) cap but if you’re a fan of the young soul crooner Olivia Dean, I have two words for you — Sunday night.
An installation by the Mutoid Waste Company, whose band made of car parts is bringing “heavy metal” to the Pier
LEON NEAL/GETTY IMAGES
There were few real, human rock bands to entertain early arrivals but how about a mechanical one (Will Hodgkinson writes)?
Up on the Pier — a recreation of an old-fashioned seaside wooden pleasure arena complete with Punch and Judy show and vintage pinball arcade — Joe Rush of Glastonbury’s industrial salvage/crusty traveller favourites the Mutoid Waste Company has built a monstrous hydraulic four-piece out of car parts, giving new meaning to the term “heavy metal”. And they played actual drums and guitars with a lot more vigour, if less variation, than many of their fleshy counterparts.
A light display made up of 576 drones welcomed guests on Wednesday night
SWNS
From reiki sessions in the healing field to late-night raves at Shangri La, Glastonbury has always been all things to all people, apart from people who cannot abide odorous toilets, relentless positivity, and hippies. A drone display created a CND sign in the sky on Wednesday night, followed by a vast fireworks display at the top of the site. A frail but heartfelt My Way alongside other standards by Michael Eavis on the Park stage gave the festival its official opening, and we were off.