With tickets now costing £340, Glastonbury is without doubt prohibitively expensive for a lot of people. That's unfortunate, to be sure - but is it really now much less accessible than it already was?
Part of Glastonbury's PR problem is the scale of the price increase - up by more than 25 per cent. But that obscures the fact that tickets were last sold back in 2019. Since then, the impact of the pandemic, Brexit and the energy/cost-of-living crisis have all bitten hard.
Emily Eavis is perfectly justified in talking about these "incredibly challenging times" and pointing to sharply rising costs for what is an enormous logistical operation. There is clearly a risk of imperilling the festival's future if this isn't carefully and cautiously factored into the ticket price.
In any case, I'd argue that it would actually be £340 well spent, especially if you arrive on the Wednesday and leave on the Monday. Hipster naysayers may sneer and scoff, but there's simply nothing to rival the sheer scale and breadth of entertainment on offer at Worthy Farm each June.
Compare the Glastonbury ticket price to those for other festivals that have far lower infrastructural costs and far fewer acts to enjoy, and it starts to look much more reasonable. In a world where it costs between around £52 and £92 to see the reformed Blink-182 (should you be so inclined) in a soulless purpose-built enormodome, a golden ticket to Glastonbury - while not exactly a snip - continues to represent good value.
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