Glastonbury Festival’s ongoing mission to support sustainable projects.

Glastonbury Festival is a five-day festival of contemporary performing arts with a noble cause. It is one of the biggest events in the UK that uses its proceeds to support sustainable projects within the country.

Taking place near Somerset, the festival holds several contemporary performing arts stages showcasing performances such as dance, cabaret, theatre, circus, popular rock and pop. Fledgeling and veteran artists tend to perform their catalogue of hits at Glastonbury as it is widely covered by newspapers and television stations. To date, about 200,000 people have attended the event.

The festival’s theme of sustainability is inspired by the ideals of counterculture and hippie culture. In 1970 when the festival first started, people who believed in such an ethos made the event possible. Today, those beliefs are still instilled in the minds of the event organisers who make the event worthwhile every year.

In order to bring the event to life, Glastonbury Festival partners with many organisations. One of those is Worthy Farm. Both Glastonbury Festival and Worthy Farm are working hard together to maintain the rich and diverse environment that has evolved through alternative land usage. According to Worthy Farm, “holding a festival once a year in the middle of the growing season prevents the use of environmentally-damaging conventional farming practices, which would have a more intrusive impact on the ecology.”

In other sustainable news, the Glastonbury Festival and its partners are committed to minimising the amount of waste on site, as well as maximising efforts to collect rubbish. Each year, all plastic, paper, wood and organic matter is separated and re-used thanks to the event’s partnership with an organisation called Recycling Crew. In 2014, half of the event’s waste was recycled which totalled 114 tons of organic waste, 400 tons of chipped wood, 41 tons of cardboard and 85 tons of cans and plastic bottles.

Aside from the festival, Glastonbury has many other interesting aspects which draw a crowd, such as its association with the mythos of Avalon. In 1190, monks from the Glastonbury Abbey discovered the bones of the legendary King Arthur and his Queen. This association is now celebrated in many forms, including through books and video games. In “King Arthur’s Avalon: The Story of Glastonbury book,” a coherent narrative about how the Glastonbury Monks discovered King Arthur was documented. In the casual game Avalon, King Arthur’s legend and his sword Excalibur are both remembered through symbology and iconography.

Although the Glastonbury Festival doesn’t mention anything about the connection between Glastonbury and the mythological narrative, they draw in many living legends. Last year, Glastonbury had an amazing line up of performers. Dave Grohl and his band the Foo Fighters were at the event, as well as Pharrell Williams, deadmau5 and Kanye West. Timeless artists such as Lionel Richie, Patti Smith and The Who were also in attendance.