The gates to Glastonbury Festival 2024 have officially opened as thousands of ticket holders fight for the best spot at the hugely popular music festival.
It’s fair to say festival goers are buzzing with excitement to see Dua Lipa, Sza, and Coldplay topping the bill at Worthy Farm. The five-day festival is set to attract up to 200,000 people from June 26 to 30.
Also taking to the famous Pyramid stage will be LCD Soundsystem, British rapper Little Simz, Nigerian singer Burna Boy, 80s chart-topper Cyndi Lauper, and soul star Olivia Dean, alongside other stars including Keane, Paloma Faith, Janelle Monae, Michael Kiwanuka and Paul Heaton.
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Despite being one of the most famous music festivals in the world, the event may not pay acts as much as you would think. Speaking to SomersetLive, festival organiser Rob Da Bank gave fans a glimpse into the surprising pay cheques musicians take home after performing on the main stage.
(Image: Getty Images)
He explained: “They cap their budget and even the headliners don’t get paid more than £500,000 I think, which is cheap for some headliners and they’ve had a lot of them. So that’s proof of its huge, huge influence.”
To put this into context, headliners at other UK festivals can pocket upwards of £1million for their incredible performances. Across the pond in the US, Billboard reported that Beyoncé was paid a staggering £3.2million for her Coachella performance back in 2018.
Glastonbury organisers Michael and Emily Eavis previously lifted the lid on their act pay structure. Michael previously explained: “I paid £200,000 for Paul McCartney and Coldplay, and although it sounds a lot, they could have charged me far more.”
(Image: Redferns via Getty Images)
Emily also discussed how the festival’s performers are typically paid a fraction of what they’d usually expect from a major musical festival. Talking to BBC Radio 6, she revealed: “We’re not in the same bracket as everyone else when it comes to paying artists massive fees.
“We’re really grateful for the bands that we get because they’re basically doing it for the love of it. It’s probably less than 10% of what they’d get from playing any of the other major British festivals, [so] Glastonbury relies completely on goodwill.”
One of the biggest draws, possibly more than the pay cheque, is the understanding that their performance will be viewed by millions of fans across the world. On George Ezra’s podcast , Emily added: “Because of the TV and because of the exposure that they [the acts] get, they do go on to do really well afterwards, so they’ll sell records afterwards.
(Image: Anna Barclay for Glastonbury Fes)
“So we’re saying, ‘Look, come and do this but even though there’s a small fee, we can almost guarantee afterwards you’ll make up for it’.” It’s fair to say without this goodwill and draw to exposure, it’s unlikely Emily and her father Michael would be able to donate to as many charities as they do.
Annually, the father-daughter duo aim to donate over £2million to charities through ticket sales. But some smaller artists have opened up about the financial strain of performing at the popular music festival.
While performing at Glastonbury would be considered career-defining achievement for many aspiring musicians, one independent singer Nadine Shah revealed that the reality isn’t quite as glamorous. Taking to X – formerly known as Twitter – the artist confessed that she turned down a chance to perform at the gig due to the eye-watering cost.
(Image: Getty Images)
Breaking the bad news to her loyal fanbase online, she wrote: “The rumours are true. I am NOT playing @glastonbury. I would have liked to but I wasn’t offered a televised stage so I declined.
“It’s too expensive a hit for me to take otherwise. It’s just a reality that playing live is super expensive and if you can justify the costs (like being on telly and having a wider reach) then sometimes you take a hit. Otherwise no, we’ve all bills to pay.”
Fans will have to tune in to learn all the other acts that will take to the stage this year.
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Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
