Glastonbury To Celebrate 50 Years With Special Book Release

16 October 2018, 11:00 | Updated: 16 October 2018, 11:06

Michael Eavis at Glastonbury Festival 2017
Michael Eavis at Glastonbury Festival 2017. Picture: OLI SCARFF/AFP/Getty Images

According to reports, the legendary festival will release a book entitled Glastonbury: 50 with contributors including Noel Gallagher and Chris Martin.

Glastonbury Festival has announced a book to mark its 50th Birthday in 2020.

The legendary music event, which takes place on Worthy Farm in Somerset, will celebrate half a century since it was founded in 1970.

According to Somerset Live, the book will be entitled Glastonbury: 50 and will include written contributions from past headliners in Oasis songsmith Noel Gallagher, Jay Z and Coldplay's Chris Martin plus original pieces from the likes of Caitlin Moran, Billy Bragg, and Lauren Laverne.

Noel Gallagher
Noel Gallagher. Picture: Radio X

"This book has been 50 years in the making," said Eavis.

"There really are so many images and memories that tell the incredible story of the festival’s five decades here at Worthy Farm, and we’re honoured that so many brilliant people have helped us to collect the most iconic ones together for this book."

Glastonbury: 50 will be released in hardback in October 2019.

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The spokesman for Trapeze, which will publish the special edition book said: "In 2020, Glastonbury turns 50 years old, and Glastonbury: 50 celebrates this momentous occasion with a beautifully designed, illustrated book full of exclusive and never-before-seen photos, archive material and artwork.

"The 60,000-word book captures the magic of this unique festival with stories and interviews looking back at memorable events and treasured moments from across the Festival’s colourful history."

"It all began in 1970, the day after Jimi Hendrix’s death, when Somerset dairy farmer Michael Eavis invited revellers to his field in Somerset to attend a ‘Pop, Folk & Blues’ festival.

"Tickets cost £1, giving the less than 1,000 attendees music, dance, poetry, theatre, lights and spontaneous entertainment – as well as free milk from the Worthy Farm cows.

"Since then, Eavis’s festival has grown to a mammoth ‘city in the fields’ with a total population of over 200,000, attracting people from all over the globe, making it the most-enduring and largest greenfield festival in the world, and arguably the best loved and most well-known."

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