The Glastonbury Festival does wonders for the reputation, awareness and finances of Somerset. So, why do some people wonder what it does for us? PAUL JONES has a look at the bottom line…

“WHAT we charge Glastonbury in their licensing fees doesn’t anything like – anything like – cover the costs.”

Those were the words of Somerset Council leader Bill Revans during a recent Parliamentary Committee hearing on local council finances.

We will talk more about that later, but the comments surprised me, and prompted a more in-depth look at the impact Glastonbury has – financially and otherwise – on our beloved county.

And there really is no doubt, the Glastonbury Festival is good for Somerset, in myriad ways.

Each year, more than 200,000 people descend on Worthy Farm, Pilton, to see some of the biggest names in music perform – in fields on a farm in our county.

Many of those music lovers, festival fans and traders are from outside the county. (To be fair, Glastonbury attendees increase the entire population of Somerset by almost 50%.)

Those people bring money, of course, but also open minds, often seeing Somerset for the first time – and maybe vowing to come back for a visit at another time, or perhaps even move here.

I count myself in that latter group.

My first memory of the Glastonbury Festival is from 2005, when I attended as a young reporter. I loved it. It genuinely changed my life in a way I would never have expected.

Me at the 2005 Glastonbury Festival

Several years later, as my love affair with the event continued, I took a job at a Somerset newspaper. A job which was, at best, a sideways move.

Why? Partly because I wanted to be closer to the festival to which I had become a devotee.

But aside from the anecdotal evidence of my personal experience, the data also bears this out.

In 2023, the festival commissioned consultancy Fourth Street to measure the event’s economic impact in Somerset and further afield.

We’re focussed on our county, of course, and Fourth Street’s report found Glastonbury generated £32 million for Somerset-based businesses.

While the total cost of putting on Europe’s largest greenfield festival was a whopping £62m, £12m of that went to more than 250 companies here, in Somerset.

Punters, meanwhile, making their way to Worthy Farm, or restocking while attending, spent an estimated £1.6m in the wider community, the report said.

Your Leveller’s own reader survey, held in the run-up to the 2024 event, also gave a glimpse into the event’s impact on the wider county.

Of around 100 people who took part in our poll, 22% said they visited another part of the county when attending the festival, with another 20% saying they sometimes did.

More than half (52%) said they spent money at places other than the festival site, with 34% spending more than £100.

When we put all those factors together, the data suggests the festival provides a sizeable boost to Somerset’s economy.

That more than pays for itself, whether Somerset Council gets the money directly, or not.

As well as the economic benefits, our survey also revealed 47% of people knew ‘nothing’ or ‘a bit’ about Somerset before discovering the festival, which points to another beneficial side-effect – awareness.

Glastonbury town clerk, Conor Ogilvie-Davidson, said the festival raised awareness of the town itself around the world – and said the quieter town centre at festival time (as everyone thinks it will be busy) is a great time to visit.

He also highlighted another benefit – employment.

“The festival provides a great deal of local employment in the preparation, during the festival, and then in the immediate clean up stages,” he said.

“Many local people work at the site every year, and have done so for many years in the past.

“The town itself however, being the festival’s namesake, is often actually very quiet during the festival.

“Many people assume that the site is very close to the town and that it will be very busy – consequently staying away.

“However, during the festival is actually an excellent time to visit the town.”

He added: “Everything has its pros and cons, the festival being no different. The word Glastonbury benefits from worldwide recognition and the town therefore benefits from this as well – but people should come and explore the ‘real’ Glastonbury, we’re sure they’ll find something they weren’t expecting.”

So while there may be a slight dip in the town itself, for thousands of people, attending the Glastonbury Festival is an enforced week’s holiday in Somerset.

Many of them will know nothing about the county before their festival pilgrimage, and some of them, like me, will fall in love with the place.

But Glastonbury is not only a money maker for Somerset, it is also a free and very, very effective piece of PR, with our beautiful county beamed into millions of homes around the world for a week almost every summer.

Elsewhere, in practical, quantifiable terms, the festival has brought about or boosted some major projects in the community – beyond simply boosting income.

These include in Pilton itself, where the festival has been involved in huge restoration projects at the Tithe Barn, the working men’s club and Co-op, the New Room Coffee Shop and the creation of dozens of affordable homes for villagers – taking those costs away from Somerset Council, it should be noted.

Unveiling work on the latest tranche of homes in 2022 – for which Michael Eavis and the festival donated land and £250,000 – the festival founder said it was the accomplishment he was “most proud of”.

Michael Eavis at the official opening of the Co-op supermarket in Pilton. Picture: Co-op

And support for a raft of community groups, initiatives and development projects were cited by villager Kelly Sumner, who said the benefits of being home to the festival were vast.

“The amount of people from the village working there (on the farm) 52 weeks a year is incredible. If the festival wasn’t there, they wouldn’t be there,” he said.

“The vast, vast majority of people haven’t got a problem with it. Yes, stuff is going to happen, but the festival is very reactive when it does.

“Some people – and I can count them on one hand – will complain. You can’t please all the people, all the time. But the benefits it brings massively outweigh everything else.”

In the broader Somerset community too, the event plays an important role, from creating fundraising opportunities for groups including carnival clubs, to making donations to schools, and more.

One carnival club told your Leveller they had been “helping with Glastonbury for 30 years” and that it “goes a long way to our fundraising”.

After the 2024 event, the festival donated almost £6m to good causes, including in Somerset and Bristol, with the Somerset Carers Network, the Somerset Wildlife Trust (SWT) and the Food Forest Project among groups to benefit.

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Adam Murray, director of action for nature at Somerset Wildlife Trust, said the festival had supported “a number of different projects” at the charity, “furthering our nature recovery work across the county”.

“They support both national and local charities, and we’re very grateful that they’ve chosen to support us on their doorstep,” he added.

“We have also had the privilege of attending the festival for the past two years, engaging with new people both locals and those visiting the county, inspiring action for nature, and celebrating all that is great about Somerset.

“We will be attending again this year, and we look forward to engaging with even more wonderful festival goers.”

This all helps fund amazing work in our communities and again, is something the council does not have to address.

There is hardly a community in the county, it seems, that has not benefited from the success of Glastonbury in one way or another; from the carnival carts you enjoy each year, to the house you might live in.

So, back to Bill Revans. As mentioned, it was something of a surprise when the council leader spoke of how the event was, effectively, a ‘net loss’ for the authority – for taxpayers.

This is different to how it boosts the economy itself, of course, as Cllr Revans was, we presume, speaking purely in terms of costs to the council.

However, our investigations don’t bear out his remarks either.

Somerset Council is the authority responsible for licensing Glastonbury – and for ensuring the festival adheres to the conditions of those licences, called monitoring.

This means overseeing and checking things like traffic, health and safety, water quality, and involves departments such as public health and Traffic Management.

A ‘debrief report’ produced by Somerset Council after the 2024 Glastonbury Festival detailed how, in a bid to save money at the cash-strapped authority and “reduce the burden on the Environmental Health Team”, a number of steps had been taken.

Those steps included “ceasing some monitoring functions”, as well as moving some administrative staff off-site.

As a result, the council report said costs were significantly reduced – by some £23,000 when compared to 2023 – bringing the total cost to the council to £33,500.

That number is, just, covered by licence fees charged to Glastonbury each year, which are listed as £34,200.
So, according to the council’s own analysis, the authority actually made money on overseeing the festival in 2024 – as well as the county enjoying all the benefits detailed previously.

The Glastonbury Festival brings more than 200,000 people to Somerset. Picture: Paul Jones/Leveller

So what is going on? Why does the leader of the council claim the licence fees “nowhere near cover the costs”?

Well, your Leveller understands Cllr Revans was commenting on ‘previous years’, when council costs were higher.

However, going on the council’s own figures again, the cost previously would total around £55,000 – nowhere near the amount of money the festival itself has donated to Somerset communities – and that’s before you factor in their licence fees.

Even a cost to the council of around £20,000, for a boost to business alone of millions, seems cost-effective, at least to me.

Other costs ‘imposed’ on the county including policing.
While the figures vary each year (in 2019, it cost just over £518,000, whereas in 2022 it was more than £1.3m), the festival pays the ‘on-site’ policing costs, with those outside covered by the force.

“We are proud to police Glastonbury Festival and have an excellent working relationship with its organisers,” an Avon & Somerset Police spokesperson said.

“As with many privately-run events which require Special Policing Services (those which are in addition to the regular duties of police forces), some of the policing costs are recharged to the event organisers.

“We have a long-standing arrangement with Glastonbury Festival that it covers the costs of policing services inside the event perimeter while we pay for those off-site.

“Examples of some of the services provided include uniformed officers, detectives and specialist police staff.”

Glastonbury foots the bill for policing ‘inside the fence’ at Worthy Farm. Picture: Paul Jones/Leveller

Again, this is not evidence that Glastonbury costs Somerset overall – certainly not when we consider the boost to the county itself, both monetarily and reputationally, during the build-up and the festival itself.

In times of financial crisis, the likes of which Somerset Council is experiencing and we have discussed previously, it might be easy to round on something like Glastonbury and claim it costs us money.

But consider this; were someone to offer the council a £32m boost to business, worldwide recognition and a huge tourism PR campaign – for less than £100,000 – would they take it? Of course they would.

And that is exactly what Glastonbury brings.

Some folks may well have reason not to look forward to the Glastonbury Festival. The traffic, potential noise, and yes, there will be some unsavoury characters in any crowd of more than 200,000 people (although arrests in 2019 totalled just 25).

But as Pilton resident Mr Sumner said: “It’s like medicine. Sometimes, there are side effects, but taking the medicine is the right thing to do.”

Glastonbury is certainly my medicine, and it undoubtedly provides a big financial tonic for not only Pilton, but other towns, villages and the county.

As Adam Murray at SWT said, the festival helps ‘celebrate all that is great about Somerset’.

And it doesn’t just talk the talk, it walks the walk, quite literally putting its money where its mouth is.

If we could replicate the success – financial and otherwise – of the Glastonbury Festival in other areas, we might all be in a better situation. Because overall, Glastonbury more than covers its costs. It is an asset to Somerset and one we should be enormously proud of.

Long may it continue.