Glastonbury Delays Fallow Year

Glastonbury chief Michael Eavis has decided to postpone the festival’s regular break from 2011 to 2012 because of difficulties staging the event close to the London Olympic Games.

He originally planned the break for next year but the following year appears to be the one to miss, because staging the Olympics will put a huge strain on the country’s police resources and increase demand for portable lavatories.

“I can see it getting very expensive,” he said of the portable toilets. He also pointed out that Avon and Somerset police told him that all the 600 or so officers usually deployed at Glastonbury would be needed in London.

“So we looked at the timing and thought that a year off seemed sensible,” he told the Daily Mail.

The festival generally takes place a month before the games open July 27, but it’s anticipated that security in London will be beefed up from the beginning of June.

Earlier this month, Glastonbury sold all its 125,000 tickets for 2011 within four hours of going on sale.

The event regularly sells out before any acts are named, but this year there were rumours that U2 – which had to cancel its appearance at this year’s festival – would be among the headliners.

Since Glastonbury started, it’s occasionally taken a break, which Eavis – a dairy farmer – describes as “a fallow year.” He says it gives the festival staff and the farmland site the chance to recover.

The last two fallow years have been in 2002 and 2006, the latter being the only time in the last six years that Glastonbury hasn’t won Pollstar’s International Festival Of The Year award.

A couple of papers have reported Eavis saying that he and his wife Liz plan to use their year off to tour Britain in their yellow Mini. The trip will include a visit to the Olympics.