How Big is Glastonbury Festival?
When you’re tired of Glastonbury Festival, you’re tired of life! Walking around Glastonbury Festival is pretty tiring however! What started as a mini-festival in 1970, is now a bona-fide cultural phenomenon with an eight-kilometre-long perimeter fence. Around 200,000 festivalgoers spend three days zig-zagging the vast site on foot — that’s a lot of steps!
How many acres is Glastonbury Festival?
Glastonbury Festival is set on 900 acres of scenic Somerset farmland!
The Glastonbury Festival is the largest open-air music and arts festival in the world. The inaugural Glastonbury took place in 1970 when farmer Michael Eavis, influenced by a nearby blues festival, chose to organise a comparable event on his own land.
How many steps do you walk at Glastonbury festival?
Do not underestimate the sheer amount of walking you will do at Glastonbury – one of our team members averaged 45,000 steps a day! (including the dancing!) but averages suggest that most people will do over 10,000 steps per day at Glastonbury Festival. Great news if you’re counting your calories and justifying all that yummy food available. It’s official, festivals are good for you! Plus Glastonbury is one of the most sustainable festivals in the UK – read more about that here – How Can Festivals Be More Sustainable.
Share Your Favourite Glastonbury Festival Routes with OS Maps
If you are going to Glastonbury Festival this year, and you want to record your favourite festival walking or running route then try OS Maps.
Ordnance Survey’s mapping and route planner (the best in the UK!) is available online or as a mobile app. Have fun creating routes around the site or on the footpaths beyond the perimeter. Just remember to bring your paper ticket with you if you do leave the site so you can get back in easily.
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OS Shop
We are with you every step of the way. Shop our trusted walking and hiking kit so you can explore the outdoors with confidence.
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GLASTONBURY FESTIVAL ESSENTIALS!
A poncho, some insect repellent and a handy waist pack, make sure you have these three essentials packed for your Glastonbury experience!
Top Tips for Navigating Glastonbury Festival from Team Ordnance Survey
Exploring such a huge site can be exiting and overwhelming at the same time. But fear not, we asked Ordnance Survey’s Glastonbury Festival veterans for help.
From skating through mud and fishfinger sandwiches, to flash mobs singing Bohemian Rhapsody, read on for our top festival memories and recommendations and tips on walking around Glastonbury Festival . (Spoiler Alert: a good pair of hiking boots features often!)
Nicoletta Cremona, Social Media Marketing Executive
I went to Glastonbury for the first time in 2023 and am lucky enough to be going again for 2024! Last year was brilliant. Our first night was the summer solstice, it was incredible to see the sun go down over Glastonbury Tor on the longest day of the year and watch the opening night fireworks. The final evening was Elton John closing the Pyramid Stage with his last ever UK show, which was just momentous and special to see.
My top tip would be picking up a copy of the Glastonbury Free Press from the information centre near the BBC Introducing Stage or the Glastonbury theatre. It’s a great way to find out about what is going on over the weekend. For example, there was an interview in it last year with the founder of Black Girls Hike, Rhiane Fatinikun, plus they share secret sets in it. It’s also a cool souvenir from the weekend and mine is now framed on my wall. They go fast, so get there early in the morning.
Also, the site is huge! Be prepared to walk miles, no seriously, I did around 45k steps a day (including a good ol’ bit of dancing). Wear walking shoes to save your feet and make sure you have a backpack with plenty of hydrating fluids… not just gin. Sun cream and a hat is also a must as there is very little shade.
Richard Bayliss, Partnerships Manager
Glastonbury really should be marketed as a walking holiday for music lovers. You have to walk everywhere and the distances between stages are huge! A casual walk from the Campervan Field to the Park Stage can take anything up to an hour and a half, so you need to either plan for long journey times between bands, or just give up and let the festival eat you up.
2016 was the wettest and muddiest Glastonbury since records began and was the last time I went. It was a real challenge for my partner, Lucy, who had damaged her knee and was on crutches. But we got lots of help from the lovely stewards who guided us through all the sneaky short cuts across the site.
My best memories are being down the front for LCD Soundsystem while headliner Coldplay’s light show was kicking off in the sky all around and being with my Mum for ELO when a chink appeared in the grey clouds and the sun streamed through, perfectly timed for the chorus to Mr Blue Sky. My recommendation would be visiting the hilltop stone circle through the night. The pulsating lights and sounds of the whole festival in a single fabulous panorama is breathtaking.
My favourite route across the site is east to west from the madness of the circus, on to West Holts to discover world music, to the Glade for full immersion in one of the world’s best sound systems, past the giant automaton spider at Arcadia, and finish with a great band at the Park Stage.
Mary Malyon, Marketing Manager
My Aunt Liza went to the very first festival in 1970 and remembers drinking her free pint of milk. My first Glastonbury was in 2000. Thousands invaded the fence that year, and it felt a bit like the Wild West. The ticket back then was only £89, compared to £355 this year! My favourite memory was watching Morcheeba at sunset with a pint of Somerset cider – I remember the evening sunlight being magical.
I went back in 2005, which felt much calmer with the fence in place although it rained like mad overnight. I woke to find my hard, cold sleeping roll transformed into a 5-star, luxury mattress, thanks to the rivulet underneath my tent. The Glastonbury Waterbed’s a well-known festival rite-of-passage, just be careful unzipping your tent, or the water will flood in and soak everything…
My top recommendation would be to bring a good pair of walking boots and give yourself time to explore. The headline acts are always fantastic, but if you follow your ear you’ll come across music from across the globe. Also, while away a couple of hours in the Tipi Field which has a low-key tribal, hippy feel. There’s a bit of drumming, small groups talking in circles and barefoot kids having the time of their lives — I always imagine the first Glasto must have been like this.
Steve Hawkins, Test Analyst
So, I went in 2017 and one of my random memories was late at night, after all manner of excellent music and several beers, I chanced upon a fish finger sandwich stall. I loved them as a kid, and it delighted me so much that I involuntarily crushed the, thankfully empty, beer can in my hand and ran to the stall, much to the amusement of the people I was with!
A recommendation I’d give is to try and see the acts you like but, if in doubt, just wander. You’ll see all sorts of fun, unpredictable things: I ended up in the Shangri La area one night by doing that, which was a riot of fun.
Oh, and also wear comfy shoes if you think you’ll do a lot of walking (which you should!). The site is massive, more like a town than your average-sized festival.
Greg Davis, Senior Marketing Manager
I’ve been very lucky and went several times, the last time being 2022 and the first time being 2007. I have so many happy memories, from seeing the sun rise at the stone circle, to bumping into Guy Garvey from Elbow at the park stage, brushing up against Prince Charles and his entourage in the Greenpeace Field and ‘skating’ through mud in one of the many muddy years.
For me, the experience is like being a kid in a candy shop. There’s so much going on all the time, getting the highlighter out and marking the bands I want to see is a fine art. I would recommend comfy shoes if it’s a dry year, because the site is so vast you walk miles!!
Alice Hutchinson, Engineering Architect
I was at Glastonbury in 2013, 2014 and 2015 and am excited to be back for 2024. For me, the best thing to do at the festival is wander around and see what weird and wonderful things you can find away from the main stages.
Some of my most memorable moments have been street performers, wacky stalls, and late nights in the circus tents.
One of my favourite memories is from the Greenfields, when an unsuspecting duo having a tinker on a piano and a sit drum found themselves taking requests after drawing a crowd. A huge group of strangers muddling their way through Bohemian Rhapsody on a sunny afternoon was a great warm up for the evening’s big-name acts!
Finally, if you’re not a big-crowds type of person, there’s stunning countryside to explore beyond the festival perimeter fence, including the world-famous Glastonbury Tor…
Fran Pratt, Product Manager, OS Maps app
To celebrate the Solstice, I ran with my friend from one historic hill to the next, interesting both have links to King Arthur. We started at Glastonbury Tor with the noisy sunrise celebrations, which soon contrasted with the flat fields of Somerset and the quiet country lanes. We arrived at Cadbury Castle Hill fort, after nearly 14 miles of running — incredibly we could still see Glastonbury Tor.
Glastonbury Tor to Cadbury Castle Route in OS Maps:
We hope you have enjoyed our tips for walking around Glastonbury Festival and the fabulous anecdotes from our team!
