Culture - Glastonbury Festival

I enjoy festivals just as much as anyone else. I like the variety of performances, the atmosphere and the feeling of total euphoria. But one place I despise for it's over the top show boating style is Glastonbury Festival. Glastonbury is the place where everyone claims they want to be, but really you are just stood in a muddy field with drunk and high strangers around you with queues for the toilets stretching miles. 'FUN'. Why pay that much money, when it's broadcast on television anyway, and you can enjoy it in a nice setting, like your bed, all cosy and warm. But this year, tickets have sold out in a record breaking 25 minutes. That's around 6000 tickets sold a minute. It's always fathomed me why? Why is Glastonbury such an amazing and magical place for so many people? So I did a little research..

 

First, I looked into who was playing at Glastonbury. If I had to go to Glastonbury Festival as a matter of life and death - the only way I could possible bear it is if Coldplay were there. Which made me think, perhaps people go to Glastonbury because of the artists, and it's a great way to see multiple artists at once for one price. I was wrong. It appears Glastonbury Festival don't release their acts until early spring 2015. Which means customers have brought these highly sort after tickets - which now due to ID requirements, they can't sell on - to watch a headlining act which they may dislike. This information completely confused me - I don't understand why people would pay so much, for a weekend of performances they may hate.

 

So I started to look at Glastonbury in a completely different light. They are a business and as such are trying to shift as much product as possible, in this case tickets to the main event. But how do you get people to have a connection with a product without knowing the product itself - answer: COLOUR. Colours can affect the way an audience may receive the message of the brand, and can also help associate different feelings with brands also. Looking at the design of Glastonbury's 2014 logo, it seems they have used a lot of coloured to suggest summer - red, orange and yellow. Summer is a warm and exciting time, as many people - especially young people, have the summer to be free and do whatever they wish. The use of yellow is very prominent in their advertisements and also on their website - which is a colour which generally promotes the feelings of happiness and joy. This warm happy feeling may be the only thing that entices thousands to Glastonbury every year. Something as simple as a colour may be the reason everyone is coming back year on year - it certainly isn't the brown colour of the mud. 

Information found via;

http://www.glastonburyfestivals.co.uk/

http://www.glastonburyfestivals.co.uk/areas/

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/news/glastonbury-festival-2015-reasons-to-stop-crying-over-not-getting-tickets-9775298.html