Revealed

EPISODE 16

Michael Eavis

Taking place over the weekend of the Summer solstice, this year the annual Glastonbury Festival generated over 400,000 applications for the limited 180,000 tickets, to hear some of the greatest bands on the planet. More than just a festival: it is a carnival of hedonism, community and idealism.

The festival has become a ‘requisite date’ on the summer calendars of generations of youth: tent-dwelling hippies and music fans alike. But none of its trademarks, the pop stars, poets, socialites, fire-breathers, magicians and all the rest, would come together in such a manner each June, were it not for the festival’s creator and guiding light, Michael Eavis.

Eavis owns Worthy Farm in the heart of the English county of Somerset and has been welcoming festival-goers on to the site since 1970. An unlikely music promoter, Eavis spends most of his year tending to the 400 dairy cows on his farm. Worthy farm produces a ton of cheese a day. But for one weekend of the year, the cows are re-located to the barns, and a mass of revelers pile in, to create a gathering of people larger than the local City of Bath.

This month, Revealed follows Eavis on a tractor-led tour as he transforms the site from pastures to party venue. We see the famous pyramid stage under construction, the erection of 14 km of fence surrounding the festival, the booking of acts such as Damien Rice, and the auditioning of hopeful unsigned bands for the chance to play at the festival.

With interviews from this year’s headline performers, The Who, The Killers, Shirley Bassey, Fat Boy Slim, The Kooks, among others, Revealed gets access all areas and discovers what makes this festival so unique.