Emily Eavis' Glastonbury evolution - terrified to 'passion project' fulfilled

26 June 2024 , 13:26

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Glastonbury organiser Emily Eavis has spoken about the festival (Image: Yui Mok/PA Wire)

Glastonbury Festival organiser Emily Eavis has opened up about her history with the festival, including having shared that a "passion project" of hers is being fulfilled this year.

The latest instalment of the five-day arts festival, which is held at Worthy Farm in Somerset, was opened by Emily, 44, on Wednesday. It's set to run through Sunday and a host of acts are set to take to the various stages over that period.

Amid the recent launch, Emily - whose father Michael Eavis founded the festival more than 50 years ago - spoke to radio host Lauren Laverne on site. The interview aired on the latter's BBC Radio 6 breakfast show in the morning.

Emily discussed her childhood whilst on the BBC Radio show earlier and the "evolution" of Glastonbury over the years since then, including some of her contributions. She also teased plans for the ongoing festival at the farm.

After it was suggested that Emily hadn't grown up expecting to run it, she said: "I don't think you could have bribed me into it when I was little. I found the festival terrifying. But now I feel like we've kinda grown a bit old together, I suppose."

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She further commented: "And what was a sort of completely out of control, wild ride in the 80s is [now] sort of a beast that we understand and we kind of know how to manage and we've got teams of people that work here all year. In those days everybody who worked here had a full-time job and they just came for the weekend."

Glastonbury organiser Emily Eavis spoke about the festival on BBC Radio 6 this week (AFP via Getty Images)

Emily said that when she was younger "everything was run through the kitchen" of their home. She said: "Everything just came through the house. There was no disconnection for me growing up, whereas now we have an office and we have an amazing team of people who work here all year." Sharing her thoughts on the team during the interview, she said: "It's so well-oiled. Honestly, we couldn't do it without this team of people." She added: "Everyone is important."

It was noted that the "scope" of the festival has grown over the years. Emily said: "It's definitely a five-day event now. That was something that we did - we were like when do we change the date on the t-shirts to it being five days? And it took us ages to do it. [...] Eventually, we changed it about five years ago."

Despite suggesting that she didn't have an interest in running the festival when she was younger, Emily has contributed to its evolution in the years since. It includes being credited with the Park, one of the areas at the festival. She said: "[Glastonbury] has evolved." Emily recalled visiting the area that became the Park with her father in 2006. She said that he said she could "do something" with the site, though at the time she felt it was "miles away" from the event.

Emily said: "At that point the festival ended by the Other Stage, really. But we took it on, and just [we] started programming music that wasn't really found on any other stages and y'know tried to really make something of the hill - because that hill is a really precious part of the festival site."

The interview comes ahead of acts like Dua Lipa headlining the latest instalment of the five-day festival, which opened on Wednesday (WWD via Getty Images)

Looking ahead of this year's festival, Emily shared that it includes the fulfilment of a "passion project". It comes following the previous announcement that the headliners over the weekend will be Dua Lipa, SZA and the band Coldplay. Emily said: "Every year has such a different identity, doesn't it? This one, I suppose ... it's the first year we've got two female headliners, which is something that has been a bit of a passion project for me." She commented: "That's a big one."

The organiser, whilst further discussing what to expect, said: "I think also just ... it's about peace. We've got lots of different peace moments." She gave examples such as a peace procession being held on site sometime on Friday. She also spoke about the BBC livestreaming two of the headline performances to a global audience for the first time. It was announced recently that Dua Lipa and Coldplay's sets will be livestreamed on the relaunched BBC.com.

Emily said: "I'm excited about this because this has been something we've been working on all year. I think to be able to make it accessible to everybody and there's so much of a global ... especially these bands ... they have so many followers all over the world. And I think to be able to watch it in Argentina [for example], how cool is that? It's a brilliant, really exciting thing. It's been all hands on deck to make that happen. I'm really glad that we can do it with the BBC."

Joel Leaver