Glastonbury Festival sells fewer tickets in hopes to avoid overcrowding
Emily Eavis has shared that the festival sold “a few thousand less tickets” to solve previous overcrowding issues.
Glastonbury Festival is just around the corner, and organiser Emily Eavis has revealed a few changes to this year’s operation, as reported by The Guardian. Massive crowds are a given at this legendary festival, but overcrowding has caused disappointment and frustration in the past. For 2025, changes have been made to hopefully avoid more of the same.
Speaking on an episode of Sidetracked podcast, with Nick Grimshaw and Annie Mack, Eavis said the festival has sold “a few thousand less tickets”. She went on to say, “It’ll be interesting just to see how that affects the dynamics on site … to see if a few thousand less can make an impact on some of the busier times.”
This move comes after audiences ran into difficulties caused by overcrowding at smaller stages. At last year’s event, the area that Sugababes were set to play ended up being closed down as overcrowding started to occur. The same band shut down the Avalon stage two years previous due to safety concerns. Additionally, electronic duo Bicep were forced to end their set early last year due to concerns around crushes and dangerous overcrowding.
Eavis also revealed some changes to the layout of the festival this year, explaining that the Shangri-La area is “going full trees and green space”, something “completely the opposite to anything they’ve done in the past.”
Newly purchased land “just on the outside of the site” will also be utilised for crew members. “I kind of suggested that they make some space for the public there because I think it’s really important to try and make space, particularly in the south-east corner because it gets really busy at night.”
She went on to explain that if festival goers want to head down to this area but would prefer to avoid the busier sections, they can go to the new Dragon’s Tail area. This will be the ideal vantage point to take in the atmosphere – “you can literally sit on a hill and see it all.”
Glastonbury Festival 2025 will take place in the Somerset countryside from Wed 25th Jun – Sun 29th Jun 2025. Of course, tickets are well and truly sold out – the first wave sold out in 30 minutes, and the second took just 40 minutes to sell out. You can check out the line-up here.