Glastonbury or Glasto is the abbreviation for the Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts, which is the largest greenfield music and performing arts festival in the world. It is popular for its contemporary music, dance, comedy, theatre, circus and many other arts. People gather at the festival also to celebrate summer solstice. In King's Meadow, the hill at the far south of the site, is a small megalith circle which, like Stonehenge, is coordinated with the summer solstice, and since 1990 represents a Stone circle. The festival takes place at Worthy Farm, six miles east of the town of Glastonbury. In recent years the Pyramid stage and Other stage with many attractions are part of the festival. Attractions on the east of the site include the acoustic tent, comedy tent and circus. To the south are the green fields, where displays of traditional and environmentally friendly crafts can be seen, for example amazing giant sculptures made of straw or wood. The first festival at Worthy Farm called the Pilton Festival, took place in September 1970, and was attended by 1,500 people. The Glastonbury Fayre in June the next year attracted nationwide interest and became an important precursor of the later Glastonbury Festivals. In the 1980s the festival became an annual event. In 1981, Michael Eavis took control of the festival for the first time, and it was organised in conjunction with the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND). 1981 was the first year that the festival made profits, and Eavis donated £20,000 of them to CND. In the following years, donations were made to a number of organisations, and since the end of the Cold War the main beneficiaries have been Oxfam, Greenpeace and WaterAid. Many charities and organisations run promotional or educational stalls at the festival, e.g. the Hare Krishna vegetarian food stand. Network Recycling manage refuse on the site. For instance, in 2004 it recycled 300 tonnes and composted 110 tonnes of waste from the site.
At the Glastonbury Festival 2009, which took place between 24 and 28 June, a record 36,500 people gathered on Salisbury Plain to watch the sun rise. So many people came to celebrate the solstice that roads had to be shut and the vast field converted into a car park for 6,500 vehicles was full by 3am. The festival hosted headliners such as Blur, Bruce Springsteen and Neil Young performing on the Pyramid stage. The Other stage was headlined by The Prodigy, Franz Ferdinand, Pendulum, Maxïmo Park and Bloc Party. Other famous performers included for example Lady Gaga, Jason Mraz, Nick Cave, Status Quo, Lily Allen, or The Gaslight Anthem in which Springsteen appeared on stage during their song "The '59 Sound". This year the festival will take place between 23 and 27 June. Tickets went on sale on 4 October 2009 and were sold out in less than 24 hours. The visitors can look forward for U2, Stevie Wonder or Muse, who will headline The Pyramid Stage, and for much more good music.
We can find the connection between the summer solstice celebrations at the Glastonbury Festival and similar celebrations at Stonehenge. Every year thousands of people come to Stonehenge at equinoxes and solstices to celebrate the connection between the monument and the heavens. Equinoxes are two days of the year when night and day are the same length, because the sun is at the equator so there is the same amount of light in the north and south hemispheres. Summer solstice is the longest and winter solstice the shortest day of the year. The largest number of people come to Stonehenge to celebrate the summer solstice. In normal circumstances people are not allowed to approach within a short distance of the stones, but at solstice, there are no barriers. It´s a kind of spiritual experience to see the rising sun placed accurately between gaps in the large megaliths. The colourful flowers and religious costumes that people wear also make the Stonehenge celebrations a unique experience, bringing the monument and its history to life. Today the celebrations are peaceful and happy, but that wasn't always the case. For years, Wiltshire police fought battles with the people who came to see the sunrise on the longest day of the year at Stonehenge. Every year the numbers were arrested. In 1985, in an event named "The Battle of the Beanfield", Wiltshire police were accused of brutality against New Age travelers heading for the site. After that English Heritage, who manage Stonehenge, have established a set of rules and now visitors can spend all night there - from sundown to sun-up.
Stonehenge, a standing stone monument to those who built it, has stood silent for more than 5000 years and its original function is still a mystery. People think that in the past Stonehenge served as a temple, an astronomical observatory or the sacred place for burying people from high society. The first evidence that Stonehenge was used to observe the heavens and events such as solstices and equinoxes was given by astronomer Gerald Hawkins in the 1960´s. Stonehenge is the greatest prehistoric monument in Britain and also a World Heritage Site. It is believed that the semi-nomadic peoples started building it around 3500 BC. The first stone that was placed at the site was the so-called Heel Stone, which marked the original entrance to Stonehenge. About 200 years later 80 blocks of bluestone were transported by water almost 240 miles, from the Prescelly Mountains in Wales, and then set up in the centre where they formed an incomplete double circle. These stones weigh almost 4 tonnes each. Later the sarsen stones were brought from the Marlborough Downs about 25 miles north of Stonehenge and arranged in an outer circle. The largest of these stones weighs 50 tonnes, so transportation by water wasn´t possible. Ancient people probably used sledges and ropes to move the stones. About 500 men would be needed to pull one stone with ropes. Five “trilithons“, pairs of standing stones, were placed in the form of a horseshoe inside the circle. The so-called altar stone, the last stone of the construction, was placed in front of one of the trilithons. Stonehenge was probably completed around 1500 BC.
Slavka Kittova
The Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts is the largest greenfield music and performing arts festival in the world. It is popular for its contemporary music, dance, comedy, theatre, circus and many other arts. People gather at the festival also to celebrate summer solstice.