The Latest Glastonbury Festival Facts & Stats

Glastonbury Festival fans had been eagerly gripping onto the tickets that they had bought back in 2019 before they knew that Covid-19 would force the event into a two-year hiatus. 2022 was the first time that they could hand these tickets over and step into one of the largest performing arts festivals in the world for five magical days.

210, 000 people attended the 2022 festival.
Upwards of 3, 000 artists attended the festival and performed on over 100 stages.
Live content from the festival was streamed a record-breaking 23 million times on BBC in 2022.
2, 000 people joined the festival’s stewards or litter-picking teams in 2022.
There was 85% less crime at the 2022 festival compared to 2019 levels.
142, 000 tickets have been sold for 2023 thus far.

Through The Glastonbury Festival Gates

Glastonbury Festival combined its 50^th and 52^nd birthday celebrations in 2022 after 2020 had robbed it of commemorating the big five-oh. The delayed celebration took place between the 22^nd and 26^th of June in 2022- and what a celebration it was!

More than 3, 000 performers attended Glastonbury Festival and performed across 100 stages with an audience of 200, 000.

This was a record-breaking number of official attendees for the festival (which usually sees gate crashers) and was also the maximum capacity that the venue, Worthy Farm, could take.

These were the headliners for 2022:

Paul McCartney, with guest appearances by Bruce Springsteen and Dave Grohl. McCartney performed a week after he turned 80, making him the oldest-ever solo headliner at the Glastonbury Festival.
Billie Eilish. Her set also featured her brother, Finneas O’Connell, and she was the festival’s youngest-ever headliner.
Kendrick Lamar.

Other performances included Wolf Alice, Ziggy Marley, Black Dyke Band, and Lorde; whose set had an appearance of Clairo and Arlo Parks.

The Festival And The BBC

The thousands of attendees paled in comparison to the number of viewers that streamed performances at the event from BBC’s dedicated Glastonbury Festival channel, where 35 hours of coverage was provided.

Glastonbury Festival 2022 marked record-breaking figures for the BBC:

The content of the festival was streamed 34,1 million times on BBC iPlayer.
23 million live streams were watched, which set a new record for a BBC programme brand.
BBC Sounds saw the event being played 2.3 million times.
The number of streams increased by 116% on BBC iPlayer and 205% on BBC Sounds in comparison to the 2019 Glastonbury Festival- up from 15.8 million and 765, 000, respectively.

The following views were raked in for the headliners on BBC:

Paul McCartney: 2.7 million views
Diana Ross: 3.8 million views.
Billie Eilish: 1.2 million views.
Kendrick Lamar: 570, 000 views.

More Than Just Music

Most days the stages were littered with rock, pop and every other kind of musical genre. But they also shared a space with climate activist and surprise guest Greta Thunberg, who spoke to the 2022 audience from the Pyramid Stage about a climate and ecological emergency.

Oxfam, Greenpeace, and WaterAid also joined the festival in 2022 and were responsible for sharing information about the climate and for creating activities that people could take part in; like co-creating a climate action flag.

Climbing Costs At The Festival

While 2019 ticket holders were granted admission to the 2022 Glastonbury Festival based on the original price that they had paid- other aspects of the event did become more expensive in 2022.

Reports stated that beer and food were incredibly costly at the 2022 event.

The cheapest pint of beer was £6, which is the same as trendy London.
A double vodka and Coke cost £10.50.

But all hope was not lost for penny-pinching partiers. Glastonbury Festival began running what they call ‘food for a fiver’ in 2015. Following this initiative, different types of food are sold for £5.

In 2022, three-quarters of the 400 food stalls at the festival took part in ‘food for a fiver’.

Another way of saving money involved joining the stewards or litter-picker teams. In 2022, 2, 000 attendees opted for this route, whereby they only had to pay for 50% of their ticket and could receive food tokens in exchange for work done at the festival.

Terabytes In 2022

2022 was a record year for the number of terabytes used during the event, which surpassed the 2019 record by 76%. This amounts to viewing around 7, 2 billion Instagram posts across the five days.

The Glastonbury Festival’s app saw 193, 000 total downloads while the festival was taking place, and 5.6 million artists were added to personal lineups.

39, 000 total downloads were made by fans who wanted to watch the festival from home.

During the festival, 3,4 million calls were made by attendees, perhaps to excitedly share their experience.

Crime Stats

One thing that dropped during the festival in 2022 was the level of crime. There was 85% less crime in 2022 compared to 2019 levels. 11 offences were recorded in total.

Soaring Sales

Ticket sales for Glastonbury 2023 went up on the 3^rd of November in 2022.

After 61 minutes, all of the standard tickets had been sold out. It took 22 minutes for the tickets packaged with a coach to sell out. Around 142, 000 tickets have been sold for 2023 thus far.

The sale time (61 minutes) for general tickets was much lower than in 2022, which had sold out in only 33 minutes. The slow speed was attributed to a ‘technical error’ on the site- much to the frustration of the festival’s fans who were unable to download a ticket due to the faulty server.

Ticket prices had also gone up in 2023, much to the dismay of fans.

2019 ticket sales: £265 plus a £5 booking fee for standard tickets.
2023 ticket sales: £335 plus a £5 booking fee for standard tickets.

Organisers linked the increase to the cost of running the festival and the economic damage incurred by Covid-19 and the subsequent festival hiatus.

Glastonbury Festival’s Stay At Worthy Farm

Currently, the Glastonbury Festival’s temporary planning permission for the festival expires in 2024.

Organisers of the festival want to get permanent permission for the planning of the space, which would mean that the land at the farm could be used by them throughout the year.

However, some residents are concerned about the land changing from a working farm to a festival and camping site.

Glastonbury Festival 2023

Nevertheless, the festival is sure to step foot once more, for a 73^rd time, at Worthy Farm in 2023. Thousands of people are already eagerly waiting to see some of the headliners that have been revealed.

Significantly, Elton John will make an appearance at the festival and will be headlining the Pyramid Stage on the 25^th of June in 2023. His performance at Glastonbury Festival will also be his musical send-off, marking his last show in his U.K. farewell tour.

Don’t fret too much if you didn’t manage to get tickets the first time in November, as a ticket resale will be taking place in Spring!

Sources

https://www.bbc.com/mediacentre/2022/glastonbury-record-breaking-digital-audiences-bbc-music