After an injection of good news on Monday 22nd of Feb with the announcement of the government road map out of lockdown I just wanted to take a step back and shine a light of one of our greatest hero’s that has still fallen victim to the COVID-19 pandemic, for a second year running. Of course, I’m talking about the one and only Glastonbury Festival. Glastonbury is in a league of its own with roughly 200,000 people taking over the equivalent of a large town in Somerset in June. On average a 2 month build. Crew were set to be onsite from March, so it’s fully understandable why the festival has not been logistically possible this year.
Glastonbury is well known for its infamous Pyramid Stage, huge capacity, and pumping late night areas in the South East Corner. Or more informally known as the naughty corner! It seems only fit to play homage and show our support to the immense and extremely talented production teams involved, across various areas within the festival. The iconic stages in block 9 (pun intended with Icon), intricate art décor in the circus area, and thought provoking left field installations in Shangri-La. Basically a hell of a lot of work and love goes into the production of this festival!
It’s a crying shame I personally will not be able to get in front of Genosys this year and babble on about the ‘technical aspects of putting a build like that together’ to a non-industry friend who has no idea what I’m talking about! For me it’s a clear winner that Genosys is my favourite stage within the festival. Reaching 50ft and weighing an impressive 55 tonnes you can’t not feel slightly intimated by this beautiful audio-visual art piece. There is no denying that this is most definitely art. With lasers for days, and plants bursting from the windows, once merged with banging tunes this stage is the definition of escapism. The creative brain being that this beauty has conceptualised an unforgettable space for people to lose their inhabitations and enjoy the moment. Which is what the whole point of festivals is right!? Escaping the mundane normality of real life with your nearest and dearest then partying to great music! This is just one of many amazing stages at Glastonbury. What a playground of fun to explore!
As much as I love the Block 9 area, there is a reason The Pyramid stage is so famous. To put it into perspective here are the complexities of the Main Stage at Glasto. The Pyramid stage is 25 metres tall. The stage has 292 audio speakers. There are 8.5 km of cables for video and audio. On stage there are 354 microphones and 3743 lightbulbs. (Glastonbury Site Press, 2019) Capacity in front of the stage is just shy of 100,000. I don’t care who you are, that’s impressive!
In short, we love you Glastonbury Festival and thank you to the crew that spend months building this playground for us! See you 2022…. Where I’m sure it will be one of your most famous muddy years, knowing our luck!
Written by: Millie Devereux
Photos courtesy of: Glastonbury
By WATF in production
3rd March 2021
