Another Award For Eavis

Glastonbury Festival founder and regular award-gatherer Michael Eavis will add to his collection by receiving the lifetime achievement gong at next month’s European Festival Awards.

Eavis, named one of Time’s “100 most influential people on earth” in 2009, admitted to Pollstar one year earlier that all his awards are kept “in a shed on the lawn.”

“It used to be a playroom for the kids when they were growing up, but now I use it to display the awards and so anyone who wants to see them can go and take a look,” he explained.

Glastonbury has won Pollstar’s International Festival Of The Year award every year since 2005, except in 2007 when the festival grounds, which also serve as Eavis’ dairy farm, needed a break.

“After 41 years, to win something of this magnitude is something to be incredibly proud of. To still be doing this after that amount of time is no mean feat,” Eavis said of his latest prize.

“Michael Eavis is an icon in the European festival scene and in my view Glastonbury is the mother of all European festivals,” said Christof Huber of Yourope, the European festivals’ organisation that co-produces the annual awards.

The European Festival Awards, now part of Eurosonic-Noorderslag, is at Groningen, The Netherlands, Jan. 11.