2019 History



Ticket price: £248
Capacity: 203,000

With a new permanent licence approved by Mendip District Council in July 2018, the Festival spent the fallow year preparing for the return in 2019.

Following another fast ticket sale (all 135,000 weekend sold in under 36 minutes), the first news to emerge was a gamechanger: a ban on single-use plastic bottles on site for 2019. Festival goers were asked to bring (or buy) resuable metal water bottles for the 35 new WaterAid water kiosks and hundreds of free on-site taps.

The second announcement was simply a ‘Stormzy Friday – first headliner confirmed’ Free Press headline pasted up in the Oxfam shops in Glastonbury town and in Streatham. It set the bar for an historic Friday night on the Pyramid. And the third: news that Michael and Emily’s fact finding trip with Oxfam to South Africa had yielded an unexpected benefit: a 40-strong Methodist Choir from the suburb of Langa in Cape Town were invited to open the Pyramid on the Sunday morning. Fittingly, both the Langa Choir and Stormzy ended with starring roles in the BBC TV coverage, appearing on the BBC’s ‘Songs of Praise’ programme.

Other highlights of the 2019 Festival included Kylie’s long awaited fulfilment of her Glastonbury dream in the Sunday teatime legend slot, a storming rock and roll show from Miley Cyrus (who also persuaded her dad to join her for one song); a brilliant set from the Chemical Brothers on the Other Stage; The Killers (Saturday) and the Cure (Sunday) headlining the Pyramid; and a slew of new artists cementing their arrival with epic performances, notably Slothai, Izzo, Billie Eilish, Janelle Monae, Octavian and 19-year-old Jamaican superstar in the making, Koffee, who packed The Park on a blazing Sunday afternoon.

David Attenborough reinforced his commitment to climate change action from the Pyramid Stage, two days after Extinction Rebellion’s Glastonbury procession from The Park to the Green Fields. Festival goers also welcomed 2019’s new installations; Pangea in Arcadia, Joe Rush’s engineering triumph, Glastonbury-on-Sea, and Block9 stunning IICON.

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A reproduction of this poster is available to buy from the Glastonbury Shop.

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