Glastonbury to be renamed The Variety Bazaar in 2019

Glastonbury Festival

Michael Eavis has revealed that Glastonbury Festival will be getting a new name to go with its new site in 2019.

The announcement was made by the festival’s founder in an interview with Glastonbury FM broadcast today (17 January). In the segment, Eavis said: “The Variety Bazaar. It’s a good name, don’t you think?”

The name change will go hand in hand with the festival’s relocation in 2019, a decision made to protect the festival’s current Worthy Farm site. The new site has yet to be announced but Eavis revealed: “It’s half way to the Midlands from here and there’s only one landowner. I’ve got 22 landowners where I am now. I just wonder whether the next generation will want to negotiate with so many people. It’s a very difficult job to hold it together.”

2018 will be a fallow year, with no festival taking place.

Eavis described the name and location change as a “huge risk,” explaining: “I’ve been a huge risk taker all my life. I mean, 47 years of huge risks really and so far, touch wood, I haven’t come unstuck.

“This might be one risk too far, I don’t know.”

(via Fact)

Update

Emily Eavis has issued a statement clarifying Michael Eavis’s earlier announcement. In it, she explains that Glastonbury Festival will remain at Worthy Farm and that Variety Bazaar will be another, separate event. You can read her short statement below.