V&A To Create Glastonbury Archive

Featuring 40 years worth of memorabilia...

A true cultural force, Glastonbury is much more than just a music festival.

Started in 1970, the event has grown to become one of the true highlights of the summer season, attracting global attention. Now the V&A Museum has launched plans to create a Glastonbury archive.

The Guardian reports that the institution have received an enormous donation of memorabilia from Michael Eavis and his daughter Emily, containing all manner of programmes, posters, backstage passes, setlists, letters and photos.

Handed over in enormous crates, it is now the job of museum curator Kate Bailey to piece the collection together. "You won't be surprised to hear they never actually got round to cataloguing anything," she commented. "There is an extraordinary explosion of creativity on the fringes, which we really want to capture."

Kate Bailey is also seeking personal stories from attendees: "Without the stories of the people who go there, a ticket is just a bit of paper."

Glastonbury returns this summer, with headline acts including a performance from Metallica. Attracting no small degree of controversy, Michael Eavis has insisted to Sky News that the festival has always booked big acts.

"We have been going for so long that people don't expect us to put on a heavy metal band, " he said. "We had Rage Against The Machine and we have had lots of fairly heavy metal bands in the past but this is not a typical headline. We usually have bands like Radiohead, Coldplay and U2, the Rolling Stones, but I am really looking forward to them."

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