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EXCLUSIVE: Emily Eavis interview part one: Curating Glastonbury

“No, we’re not getting any bigger than where we are now, I can guarantee that.”

Glastonbury, home to 175,000 festival ticket holders every year, has reached its limit as it gallivants towards forty years. And as it hits forty, the festival itself feels like it is levelling out into calmer seas than it has occupied over previous years: from the gatecrashing years of the late nineties, to the superfence and involvement of Meanfiddler (now Festival Republic), to the Jay-Z debacle and the unprecedented year that the festival actually failed to sell out, Glastonbury 2010 has got things back on track, with an instant sell out, and nothing short of widespread anticipation from those who are just paying off their tickets. The sun of a fantastic year last time out probably helped, but really, nobody can keep Glastonbury down.

Talking about line-ups and Jay-Z to TFF in this first part of our Glastonbury series, Emily Eavis is almost buoyant in retelling the moment that it all went right at Glastonbury 2008:

“[Jay-Z] was always going to be amazing. But I was nervous... I got all these promoters – smart people whose job it is to know these things – saying that it was going to be embarrassing and that the crowd wouldn’t even go as far back as the sound desk.

“On the night though, I was walking over from the Park to the Pyramid and I could just hear people chanting for him, and I knew then that it was going to be one of the greatest Glastonbury moments. All the talk before it – it just galvanised all these tribes of people from all over the site to come together in support. It was just incredible.”

And it is testament to the crowd that Glastonbury draws that they trust the line-up that is put on for them. Bands don’t tend to be announced before the tickets are sold out, and the biggest excitement for a ticket holder is when the big announcement of all artists on all stages is announced. This year, the confirmation of all acts should be, “within two weeks,” according to Emily. And it shouldn’t be too long after that that the big announcement comes.

Line-ups though, are often the source of massive media scrutiny when it comes to Glastonbury: “you’ve just got to avoid forums,” jokes Emily, “nobody on there ever seems to have a nice word to say.

“We’re always criticised for our headliners and for our line-up, but what matters to us is how good an artist is live, not how many records they’ve sold. That was why we booked Jay-Z, because I’d seen him live and knew he would be amazing.”

The main concerned levied towards Glastonbury headliners is that they’re not ‘worthy’ of headlining. If you drop into any conversation where people are lamenting the rise of file sharing, you may hear statements such as ‘nobody can become as big as The Rolling Stones or U2,’ often followed by the claim that ‘Kings of Leon will be the last stadium filling band.’ The insinuation then comes that nobody will be worthy of headlining Glastonbury, so the festival will just rely on the appallingly titled ‘heritage acts’ for its headline slots.

“I don’t think that’s the case,” says Emily, “we only pick our headliners based on how they perform live, not on a case of how many records they sell. We are always bashed for our line-ups for not putting on ‘classic Glastonbury headliners,’ and we’ve never been afraid to put someone on who is new.

“People forget: we got criticised for having Coldplay as a headline act after one album, but we knew they would be great. We had Kings of Leon and Jay-Z headline and people said they weren’t ready or weren’t worthy to headline, but they were all great and our decision was justified. We go for great live acts.”

This year though, with Muse, Stevie Wonder and U2, there is no doubt that Glastonbury is going down the heritage route. Emily implies it’s because everybody seemed to say yes this year, but the naysayers will point to a lack of ‘headline worthy’ acts coming through the music industry.

That though, is rather short-sighted of anyone who has truly experienced the Glastonbury event. With well over forty stages of music over three days, plus impromptu performances on the days leading up to the event, it’s extraordinarily easy to not see any ‘heritage acts’ and just watch new and exciting artists. Indeed, despite forty-plus stages of music, it’s easy not to see any bands at all, given the huge scope of the festival.

“The kids field on its own is the largest kids festival in Europe,” says Emily when discussing how she begins to curate such a huge event. “We just let people get on with what they do best. Tony Cordy, who puts on the kids field, does a fantastic job every year, and we know he’s going to put on a fantastic line-up, so we let him do what he does best.

“It is the same for every field, they are individually organised and come together for the whole festival.”

And that’s the festival we’ve come to love. Much more than the sum of its parts: whether it is the best bands in the history books or the ones who haven’t emerged yet that you’re interested in seeing, or whether it is the kids entertainment, the circus, the healing fields, the green fields or just the festival feeling, it is the people that make Glastonbury great, as well as amazing music...

Coming soon:

Emily discusses the environmental impact of Glastonbury, growing up on the site, charity work, family tragedy and when the festival will stop...

Talking about this year's headliners, here is Muse from their headline slot in 2004...