Quote of the day

"It's on the way out ... Partly it's economics, but there is a feeling that people have seen it all before."

Michael Eavis gives a gloomy prognosis on Glastonbury's future to the Times.

A curious thing for him to come out and say, given that this year's event sold out in two hours and the fact that next year is a fallow year will only ratchet up the anticipation and demand for tickets in 2013 even higher. While other festivals are apparently struggling with ticket sales - Reading, Leeds and Latitude, for instance, and the folk at Truck still seem to have plenty of tickets on their hands too - I can't see this being a problem Glastonbury is really facing. Regardless of whatever the comments-box naysayers claim about encroaching commercialism and heavyweight mainstream headliners, the festival never fails to amaze and delight in ways that other festivals just don't.

Why are festivals encountering difficulties? Well, for the reasons alluded to in the article - namely ticket prices and uninspired line-ups (Truck's bill seems one-paced and lacking the diversity of last year, and few acts at the 1-2-3-4 caught my eye), but also the fact that we're nearing saturation point in terms of the sheer number of events. All three factors plus prior engagements have conspired to mean that I'll only be going to two festivals this year, as compared to seven or eight (depending on your definition) in 2010.