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BBC News
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Glastonbury Festival: How it has changed through the years
Glastonbury Festival has evolved significantly from its humble beginnings in then, tickets cost £1 and included camping and a free pint of milk from the than 50 years later, Glastonbury Festival has become a global phenomenon, showcasing some of the biggest names in how has the festival changed over the years? 1970 - £1 tickets and free milk Attendance: 1,500. Tickets: £1The first Glastonbury Festival, which was known then as the Pilton Pop, Folk and Blues Festival, took place in September 1970, coincidentally a day after Jimi Hendrix organisers Michael and Jean Eavis were inspired by the Bath Festival of Blues and Progressive Music and by the success of the Isle of Wight Festival and Woodstock in the just £1 a ticket included camping and a pint of milk from the farm and approximately 1,500 people attended the year, recent chart-toppers The Kinks and Wayne Fontana were advertised on the tickets as the headline acts, although both pulled out. They were replaced by a band called Tyrannosaurus Rex, who were one of the biggest groups in the UK in the early 1970s. 1971 - The birth of the Pyramid stage Attendance: estimated at 12,000. Price: FreeThe following year, the festival was held in June to coincide with the summer solstice. Re-named Glastonbury Fair, entry was free and the number of visitors increased to 12,000. The festival's famous Pyramid stage also made its first from metal and plastic sheeting, the stage was deliberately placed on the Glastonbury-Stonehenge ley line (a network of lines which are said to connect sites with spiritual and cultural significance). 1979 - 'Year of the Child' Attendance: 12,000. Tickets: £5In 1979, the festival was held over three days and officially known as 'Glastonbury Fayre'. The theme for 1979 was the 'Year of the Child'.Special provision and entertainment was provided for children and it was at this event that the concept of the Children's World charity was born, which still exists today and works in special schools throughout Somerset and the numbers attending, organisers suffered a financial loss and no one wanted to risk another festival in was also this summer that Michael Eavis' youngest daughter, Emily was born. 1981 - Glastonbury Festival Attendance: 18,000. Tickets: £8The festival returned after a year's break, now officially named 'Glastonbury Festival'.Organisers partnered with Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND). CND was involved with promotion, ticket sales, and received a donation of £20,000 from the was in this year that it was decided to build a new sturdier version of the Pyramid stage - one that could be used all year round. When famous acts weren't performing on it, it could be used as a cowshed and a store for animal food. Using telegraph poles and Ministry of Defence metal sheeting as core materials, the new stage took two months to build. 1994 - Pyramid stage burns down Attendance: 80,000. Tickets: £59On 13 June 1994 the famous Pyramid stage burnt down in the early hours of the morning - just two days before the festival. Fortunately, a replacement was provided by the local company who also provided the stages for the NME and Jazz was also the first year that Glastonbury was televised. Channel 4 covered the event over the weekend. In 1997, the BBC took over broadcasting the festival. 1997 - 'Year of the mud' Attendance: 90,000. Tickets: £75 including official rain just before the festival weekend resulted in 1997 being dubbed the "year of the mud".The festival covered 800 acres by this point and many revellers were photographed dancing to the acts in their wellington boots rather than the latest fancy footwear. 2000 - Return of the Pyramid Stage Attendance: Official estimate, 100,000. Unofficial estimate, 200,000. Tickets: £87 including programmeThis year saw the return of the Pyramid stage (the third to be built) – it was 100 ft (30.4 metres) high and clad in dazzling silver. There was also more camping space with the introduction of a special family campsite. However, this year saw a huge influx of gate crashers. People climbed fences and crawled through ditches to join the Bowie headlined the festival with a two hour show which was shown in full for the first time on television. 2002 - 'Super fence' installed Attendees: 140,000. Tickets £97, including programmeDuring the 1990s, when the festival's popularity was rapidly increasing, break-ins were particularly rife at the festival site and after a high influx of gatecrashers in 2000, Michael Eavis was fined for breaching licensing a result his team built a £1m "super fence" when the festival returned in 2002, putting an end to mass break-ins. The ring of steel repelled all non ticket holders and 140,000 legitimate festival goers attended that year. 2005 - Extreme flooding Attendance: 153,000. Tickets: £125 including programmeIn 2005, a storm caused chaos at Glastonbury. Almost a month's worth of water fell in a few hours on the festival's opening day, washing tents down the hills and flooding campsites. More than 400 tents were submerged in floodwater. There were reports of people having to swim to their tents to retrieve their belongings - and some people were spotted canoeing around the services pumped three million litres of water from the area, leaving it strewn with litter, sleeping bags, tent poles and mud-covered the years that followed it was reported that Mr Eavis spent £750,000 on flood prevention measures. 2007 - New stage introduced Attendance: 135,000. Tickets: £145 including programmeThis year saw the introduction of Emily Eavis' Park Stage, bringing a whole new section of the Festival site to life, whilst the Dance Village cemented its reputation in its second Unsigned Bands competition became the Emerging Talent Competition, which generated thousands of entries and a host of worthy winners playing on many of the Festival stages. 2008 - First hip-hop headliner Attendance: 134,000. Tickets: £155 including programmeThere was quite a stir in the lead-up to 2008's Glastonbury after rap megastar Jay-Z was announced as Saturday night's headline headlining slot was controversial due to the festival's traditional focus on guitar-based rock and pop Jay-Z defied the doubters and became the first major hip-hop artist to headline Glastonbury, marking a turning point for the festival's line-up. 2019 - Last before Covid Capacity: 203,000. Ticket price: £248Jay-Z's performance in 2008 carved out a path for more hip-hop and rap dominated Glastonbury's Pyramid stage in 2019. While wearing a stab-proof Union Jack vest, he used his set to highlight inequality in the justice system and the year's Glastonbury Festival would be the last for the next two years due to Covid-19 pandemic. 2022 - Glasto returns Ticket price: £280 Capacity: 210,000Thousands of music lovers welcomed the return of the Glastonbury Festival in 2022, after a forced hiatus due to year's festival also featured its youngest-ever solo headliner in Billie Eilish and Sir Paul McCartney as the oldest. As well as the music, climate activist Greta Thunberg also made a surprise appearance, telling festival goers the earth's biosphere is "not just changing, it is breaking down". 2025 - Last before fallow year Capacity: 210,000. Tickets: £373.50 + £5 booking feeGlastonbury Festival will return on 25 June this year. Festival organisers have announced British band The 1975, rock legend Neil Young and US pop star Olivia Rodrigo will be Stewart will also perform on Sunday afternoon in the "legend slot" - 23 years after his last appearance at the year will be last festival before the 2026 fallow year to let the field you were unable to get yourself a ticket for the world's biggest music festival - don't worry - the BBC will have extensive coverage throughout Glastonbury 2025.
ABC News
25-05-2025
- Climate
- ABC News
Farmers set to plant a record crop equivalent to the entire UK
Despite severe drought and devastating flooding, Australian farmers are on track to plant a record winter crop, sowing an area equivalent to the size of the United Kingdom. A report by agribusiness Rabobank estimates 24.5 million hectares of wheat, barley, chickpeas and canola will be sown, breaking the record of 24.1 million hectares set in 2020/21. That is despite farmers in southern parts of the country reducing their planting or diversifying to cope with devastating dry conditions. For those farmers who received the wetter-than-average "summer luck", the forecast is a welcome dose of optimism after some tough seasons. Michael Ryan is one of those farmers gearing up for a big plant. He cannot help but feel thankful as he runs his hands through the rich, chocolate-brown soil on his property in Pilton, two hours south-west of Brisbane. In the past year, 730 millimetres of rain fell on his farm, 80 per cent more than average. "It's one of the best outlooks I've seen in the last 10 to 15 years," Mr Ryan said. "We're pretty lucky in this Pilton Valley. "We have very nice self-cracking, mulching clay soil; some people say it's that nice you could eat it. "I'm very lucky to be able to farm it." Alongside his wife Alyson and three children, Mr Ryan is preparing machinery for sowing wheat in a few weeks. He said it was a stark contrast to tough seasons between 2018 and 2020 when plantings were minimal. "We hardly grew a crop," he said. "While these good years are around, we've got to make the most of it because you never know when the next drought is." With 40 years spent on the land, Mr Ryan understands how quickly fortunes can change in agriculture. That is especially apparent this year, as parts of South Australia and Victoria struggle with record dry conditions, and parts of New South Wales reel from deadly flooding. "You really feel for those poor people," Mr Ryan said. "It's like someone's fortune is someone's misfortune, too." While the current flooding emergency in NSW had likely damaged some crops, it was unlikely to change the forecast, as Rabobank expected livestock producers were the hardest hit. Grains and oilseeds analyst Vitor Pistoia, who authored the report, said wetter-than-average conditions in the northern growing region over summer were driving the record forecast. "[Summer] flooding in some cropping regions may delay sowing but it is supportive for another season of large sowing areas," he said. "WA's southern cropping areas also received timely rainfall to have a good start to the season. "Other cropping regions around the country though, did not get the same summer luck." He said in South Australia, western parts of Victoria and southern New South Wales the soil was too dry to plant. "For South Australia, everything is hanging on the season break, which up to this moment, hasn't happened," Mr Pistoia said. At Warra, three hours north-west of Brisbane, farmer and Grain Producers Australia northern director Brendan Taylor faces a different challenge. Like many Queensland farmers, his barley is already planted, but conditions need to dry out to sow chickpeas. "The risk we've got in some places in the south here where it is very wet is, potentially if it rains again, that's going to delay planting even more," he said. "Hopefully Mother Nature cooperates and lets us do that." While the area sown may reach record highs, there is no guarantee it will mean bigger harvests or profits. Mr Pistoia said yields would depend on rainfall during the growing season, while input costs and grain prices would determine returns. "There are budget pressures. Fertiliser, it's costing more year over year. Machinery remains a big issue. Labour as well," he said. Rabobank forecasts the 2025–26 harvest to yield about 54 million tonnes, down from last year's 60 million. Despite global trade uncertainties, including US tariffs, Australian grain and oilseed exports remain resilient and may even gain market share, the report noted. "Asian countries rely on Australia to source imports of grains and pulses, and the EU imports canola to balance its supply of oilseeds," Mr Pistoia said. The Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences (ABARES) is expected to release its updated winter crop forecast for 2025 in June.
Edinburgh Live
14-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Edinburgh Live
Edinburgh gangster series uncovered life in one of city's roughest schemes
Our community members are treated to special offers, promotions and adverts from us and our partners. You can check out at any time. More info It is not every day that you have a gangster thriller series that explores Scotland's drug underworld set, filmed and produced in the capital. But Edinburgh filmmaker Garry Fraser, 44, who grew up in the scheme in Muirhouse, created a project that celebrates working class culture. The cast of Supply and Demand is mostly made up of non-actors who have experienced trauma in their life, whether as ex-veterans or martial artists from economically challenged backgrounds. The series is based on a family that is torn apart by addiction and involvement in the international drug trade. It focuses on the war on drugs, the role of the establishment in propagating the issue, as well as the real life stories of those caught up in the illegal narcotics trade. Garry, who is a former heroin addict and double BAFTA winner, is proud of the series for a number of reasons, from its authentic portrayal of personal trauma to the fact it was self funded without help from establishment media. Not only this but he says that the project used schemes like Pilton, Granton and Leith as its set. Of course this did not come without issue, after one scene involving a machete spooked North Edinburgh police into racing into a shop, only for them to be calmed by Garry after he explained they were in fact on part of Supply and Demand set. On the basis of the series, he said: "The war on drugs is something that can evoke many different images and emotions about the characters who might be involved in this complicated, contentious issue, but very rarely is the desire for change explored, or the abuse of power and the information network linked to deprived Scottish communities examined in-depth." "In Supply and Demand, however, this powerful desire for change is the common thread which binds our characters together. Told from the perspective of a broken, grieving family, this often-unexamined front line gives our intertwining plots a coherent dramatic structure, accompanied by original, intoxicating, local music that underscores the gritty tone." (Image: No credit) (Image: Supply and Demand.) (Image: No credit) (Image: No credit) "Drawing on the personal experiences of the cast of mainly non-professional actors, through an intense rehearsal period we have been able to tap into powerful emotions to tease out raw and authentic performances from my actors, often drawing upon their own lived experiences." "This authenticity shines through on screen as together, we tackle themes of what masculinity means in the modern world, alcoholism, drug addiction, family breakdowns, PTSD, and the constant strain of living under regular abuses of power from the people who are ostensibly there to protect us the police." Garry elaborates that Edinburgh is no different from any other major European city with regards to having a criminal underbelly. He cites shows such as Snowfall and The Wire that are set in the US, and portray the role of law enforcement in the drug trade whilst telling the real life stories from the perspective of those living on the projects, as motivation. That is what he has tried to deliver with Supply and Demand. A journey through the eyes of those who have lived through war in their communities through the drug trade. He says that there is a lack of storytelling from the perspective of working class people in Edinburgh. Too often he says, stories depict drug addict mums or down and out drug dealer villains hell bent on destroying their community, when in reality the stories in schemes are often more complex and diverse. It was important for Garry to use non-actors who had experience of trauma as he wanted to get a cathartic realistic performance from cast members. The project started two years ago in lockdown and has been a painstaking journey of drama workshops and meetings to bring the idea to life. The premise of the series follows a character Frank who has just returned from a tour with the British Army in Iraq, only to discover his cousin Charlie is heavily involved with high level drug dealing. Frank is recruited by MI5 to infiltrate and unravel his cousin's enterprise. "I don't think there has been a film made like this before in Edinburgh. As a screenwriter I have had to research our criminal underworld past and I was amazed to discover that we have had foreign mafia involvement in schemes like Pilton in the past", Garry said. "It was important to create an artwork that is from the perspective of ground zero and not the establishment. In countries like France, Italy and Poland there is a celebration of social realism but in Scotland it feels as though the arts have been hijacked by the middle class which means real working class stories are not told properly in this way." "We stay in a country where an addict dies every seven hours but where is the media telling the story from their perspective? There is a crazy inequality when it comes to life in Edinburgh and Scotland as a whole." "We have had refugees from Afghanistan and Ethiopia, veterans of the Iraq war and everyday folk from the scheme involved in the film making process for Supply and Demand. The project has been about breaking down barriers and opening doors." "I think if there are thirteen young bairns shouting 'action' and 'cut' alongside me on set, whilst seeing how passionate I am, then they may end up thinking they can build a career in film too." Garry says that wherever they went, whether Muirhouse, Pilton, Granton or Leith, they were met with love and support from the local community. Whether it was being offered food, tea or electricity or by local youths refraining from nicking equipment, Supply and Demand was a hit with whatever area they filmed in. The Muirhouse father-of-five added that local businesses were always up for offering their shops as sets. But on one occasion this sparked a response from local police. "We took over communities like Pilton, Muirhouse and Leith and had no trouble. We involved everyone and people were so generous towards us." "A big thing was turning the schemes into a filming location. A shopkeeper offered us his shop to film a scene where someone was brandishing a machete in a robbery." "It caused a stir and for a minute we thought we were getting charged with brandishing a weapon in public. But a senior officer listened to the shopkeeper who backed our claim that it was a live film set - art had taken over life in the community." "When people are struggling in poverty there is a lot of negativity and self defeat. This is not helped by the portrayal of working class culture in our media." "A large part of making Supply and Demand was to bring confidence to those living in schemes and to dispel a lot of the self defeating lack of empowerment. We wanted to show the empathy and complex nature of life on a housing estate." Garry, who is father to Gary J 20, Billy 16, Destiny 13, Faith nine, Lee four weeks and boyfriend to Xanthia, says he has not received any national funding for the series and as a result he is trying to fundraise to continue the project.
