Often regarded as the must-attend music event of the year, Glastonbury is easily one of the most widely renowned and globally recognised music festivals on the planet.
From humble beginnings in 1970, the Somerset based festival has grown year on year, with a countless slew of big names taking to the stage to delight fans, including the likes of David Bowie, Dolly Parton, and even Beyoncé.
For the first time this week, even music legend Elton John will be among the headliners at the festival, as he performs for the final ever time in the UK before retiring from touring.
Yet while some huge names will be taking to the Pyramid stage, sadly their pay packets won’t be anywhere near as hefty as fans at home may have imagined.
To put it into perspective, most headline acts at UK festivals in the peak summer season typically earn around £1million, while American events such as Coachella have been known to pay over three times as much, as evidenced by Beyoncé, who famously bagged herself a hefty £3.2million pay cheque for performing in 2018.
Year on year, these fees have continues to increase, but here at good ol’ Glastonbury, headline acts are paid a far more modest fee, with the amount paid said to be capped at a mere £500,000.
Michael and Emily Eavis, the father and daughter duo who co-organise the event, have previously opened up in interviews about the cost of getting some of these big acts to take to the Worthy Farm stages.
Michael revealed that even massive stars such as Coldplay and Sir Paul McCartney were only paid around £200,000 for past headline sets in recent years, but did stress that many acts at the festival weren’t in it for the money.
He said: "I paid £200,000 for Paul McCartney and for Coldplay, and although it sounds a lot, they could have charged me far more."
Emily also doubled down on this important detail when she spoke to the BBC back in 2017, as she confirmed that many acts were performing for only a fraction of what they would typically be paid for other concerts.
"We’re not in the same bracket as everyone else when it comes to paying artists massive fees,” she told the broadcaster.
"So 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 per cent of what they'd get from playing any of the other major British festivals."
She then added: "Glastonbury relies completely on goodwill.”
In addition, festival organisers were also said to be very strict when it came to their budget, with nobody going a penny over the agreed cap of £500,000.
Bestival organiser Rob Da Bank previously told Somerset Live: "They cap their budget and even the headliners don't get paid more than 500 grand.
"Which is cheap for some of the headliners and they've had a lot of them. So, that's proof of its huge, huge influence.”
Source: Read Full Article