Each summer, as the world’s most famous music festival kicks off, the historic town of Glastonbury braces itself for a familiar scene: bewildered festival-goers arriving in the wrong place. Laden with tents, boots, and rucksacks, these visitors mistakenly think they’ve arrived at the Glastonbury Festival, only to find themselves in the charming, centuries-old Somerset town rather than the actual event site nine miles away in Pilton.
Despite drawing around 210,000 visitors annually, the festival location on Worthy Farm can still confuse newcomers. David MacGeoch, formerly Vicar of Glastonbury and now Team Vicar in the Ouzel Valley Team Ministry, recalls many encounters guiding lost attendees back on track. Speaking during a BBC Radio 4 broadcast from St John’s Church in 2023, he noted how parents drop off their excited youngsters, who then ask for directions to the festival. “Their faces fall at first,” he says, “but when I direct them to the nearest bus stop, they soon brighten up.”
The naming of the Glastonbury Festival itself dates back to 1971 when the event, originally called the Pop, Folk and Blues Festival, was rebranded as Glastonbury Fair after its inaugural 1970 gathering of just 2,500 people at Worthy Farm. Inspired by the Bath Festival of Blues and Progressive Music, Michael Eavis envisioned a sprawling event marked by the famous Pyramid Stage aligned with ancient ley lines near Stonehenge.
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Although held in Pilton, the festival took its name from the nearby town of Glastonbury — a place steeped in myth, famous for its Tor, mystical abbey ruins, and local legends linking it to figures such as King Arthur and Joseph of Arimathea. The reasons behind the festival’s naming remain somewhat mysterious but likely tied to the town’s rich historical and folkloric appeal.
Over the years, the festival evolved through several name changes and milestones. After a hiatus, it reemerged in 1979 as Glastonbury Fayre, eventually becoming the Glastonbury CND Festival in the 1980s, reflecting Eavis’s support for nuclear disarmament. The event steadily grew from modest beginnings to a vast cultural phenomenon, occasionally sparking debates with local councils over its expanding size and impact.
By 1989, the festival took on its current name, Glastonbury Festival, and saw increased coordination with authorities, including police involvement, to better manage its massive crowds.
While the confusion among festival-goers arriving in Glastonbury town each year may cause brief misadventures, residents approach it with good humor — a quirky reminder of their town’s enduring connection to one of the most iconic music festivals in the world.