Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts takes over Worthy Farm near Pilton in Somerset following the summer solstice every June, and sells out within minutes each year. Having firmly established its place as one of the world’s most iconic festivals since starting in 1970, last year’s edition saw headline performances from Dua Lipa, Coldplay and SZA on the gargantuan Pyramid Stage, while this year sees Neil Young, Olivia Rodrigo and The 1975 follow in their footsteps. Headline performances in 2025 come from artists including Charli XCX, Loyle Carner and The Prodigy, but it’s the festival’s ever expanding dance music-focused offering that has been the real highlight of recent years. Glastonbury — which raises millions of pounds for charity organisations annually — has a history entwined with electronic and dance music dating back to the arrival of free party sound systems in the late ’80s. The festival introduced its Dance Village in 1997, which has since morphed into its Silver Hayes area, and in recent years has seen the rapid expansion of its South-East corner, home to areas including Block9, Shangri-La, The Common, Glade and The Unfairground. This year, the festival will see some of its dance music areas expand in size to account for this increased popularity, with Shangri-La getting a total redesign complete new stages and the Arcadia, Glade and Silver Hayes areas all getting additional capacity. Glastonbury announced that the five-day event will be taking a fallow year in 2026, meaning those that missed out on tickets for 2025 will have to wait until 2027 for another chance to party on the farm. ROB MCCALLUM
