Glastonbury's founder says festival has become too middle-aged and middle-class
The organiser of the Glastonbury Festival has made an extraordinary attack on its fans, saying they are becoming too middle-aged, middle class and respectable.
Michael Eavis said that selling tickets online had this year allowed older, more affluent people with high-speed Internet access to snap up tickets as soon as they went on sale.
That meant the demographic profile of the annual festival in June had radically changed for the worse, he said. Internet users bought 137,500 £150 tickets in a record time of one hour 45 minutes when they went on sale in April.
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Plenty of exuberance on display from Glastonbury crowds this year, but for organisers it wasn't youthful enough
From now on, Mr Eavis said, 40 per cent of tickets would be available through phone lines - so that more teenagers could buy them using their mobile phones.
"We're trying to get the youngsters-back - the 16, 17 and 18-year-olds - because numbers were down this year," he said.
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Fans making their way through the mud at this year's event
Glastonbury organiser Michael Eavis
"People say we're getting middle class, which is stretching it a bit far, but we're attracting a lot more people in their thirties and forties and need to get the Radio 1 and NME crowd back in.
"These kids add so much to the flavour of it and should have a lot of fun but we're getting the 30 and 40-year-olds in, which changes the character of it. The demographic is changing and it's slightly worrying. We might lose the fascination the show has for the public.
"The people who now come have the right attitude, they grin and bear the mud. They're fantastically well-mannered and polite, and respectable, but they do change the nature of the show."
Mr Eavis said teenagers "did not stand a chance" of getting their hands on tickets this year because the Internet-only sales policy gave those with fast Internet connections a clear advantage.
"They're likely to be older people, with the money for the fast connections," he said.
"By selling 40 per cent of tickets through phone lines, kids will be able to use their mobile phones to get tickets."
Increasingly in recent years, the festival has become overrun with middle-aged music lovers who convoy-down from the Home Counties in their 4x4s with the desperate hope of clinging on to their youth in a haze of mud and dope smoke.
But the festival has increasingly catered to this more moneyed crowd.
There is even a VIP section where for £3,000 plus VAT guests are pampered with hot showers and massages, foie gras and Glastonbury beef fillets, and bottles of Chateau Margaux and Cloudy Bay.
