‘The real world goes out the window’: How the BBC brings Glastonbury to the masses

When Glastonbury 2023 kicks off in earnest on June 23, the BBC will once again be on-hand to provide the most extensive coverage of any event on earth. As the world’s most iconic festival continues to expand, so too does the BBC’s live and on-demand content, as its linear airwaves across TV and radio, as well as highlights packages and on-demand features across the iPlayer and BBC Sounds app, commit to all things Worthy Farm. To find out how exactly the organisation manages to continue upping the ante year after year, Headliner caught up with a raft of heavyweight BBC presenters to discover what goes on behind the scenes, as well as their ones-to-watch this year and some of their favourite moments from Glastonburys gone by.

Taking place from June 23-25, Glastonbury 2023 will see Arctic Monkeys, Guns N’ Roses, and Elton John headline the Pyramid Stage, with the festival shaping up to be the biggest outing in its history. As such, the demands on the BBC in bringing that experience millions of fans the world over are also bigger than ever.

For years now, the BBC’s various platforms have been capturing live performances from virtually every stage at the festival, along with highlights reels, interviews with everyone from the artists to the organisers, and just about any other form of Worthy Farm content that can be imagined. And for those delivering that content to viewers and listeners, it’s a task that is both exciting and challenging.

“Not everybody gets to go, so it’s all hands on deck,” says BBC Radio 6 Music and Radio Wales presenter Huw Stephens, who will be broadcasting live on radio and TV this year. “You talk to the producers for weeks beforehand, you figure out who is on when you’re on air, who you want to play on your show. Friday and Saturday I’m on late so it means crossing over to the Pyramid Stage before, then picking some highlights from what you’ve seen. You’re thinking with the producers about how much you can bring to the airwaves with the time that you have. It takes a long time to get from one side of the festival to the other, so you can’t just pick a bit of this, and then a bit of that from somewhere on the other side of the festival, you have to be planning carefully.

“The tele side is different as there are already cameras at a lot of the stages, but it’s a huge operation, and it’s an even bigger operation for the producers and the technical people and the editors, because they are the ones sat in a van all weekend overlooking the stages, cutting up tracks, seeing which ones are they allowed to use with the rights issues etc, making sure everything goes to the right places. Glastonbury is such a huge thing for the BBC.”

Radio 1 presenter Jack Saunders also outlined the efforts that going into covering the festival to the fullest.

“At Glastonbury this year I’m going to be on the TV again alongside Jo Whiley, Lauren Laverne, Clara Amfo, and bringing everyone at home every single highlight possible from across the weekend,” he tells Headliner. “This has been happening for many years now and continues to be the most stellar music coverage of any festival or any music experience across the planet. The way the BBC brings Glastonbury to life truly made me want to go to the festival in the first place, so it’s a huge privilege to be there alongside those legends.

“People always say to me, ‘you’re so lucky you get to go to Glastonbury’! And I am at Glastonbury, but I’m not doing Glastonbury like everyone who has bought a ticket is doing Glastonbury. There is a huge amount of prep work and research that goes into each day to make sure you’re not only clued up on all the performances and performers, but you’re across the things that have happened the previous day at the festival. So, it’s making sure we have all the knowledge and a comprehensive guide to allow us to bring to life exactly what is happening at the festival at that given moment, and then cross reference that with other events or performances from Glastonbury. Everyone wants to be at this festival, all eyes are on it and it always brings about moments of joy and happiness. But it’s a lot of work and not a lot of watching of music.”

According to Stephens, the continued expansion of the iPlayer and BBC Sounds app has facilitated the increase in Glastonbury coverage.

“It has changed a lot because the iPlayer has grown so much and is massive now, as is BBC Sounds,” says Stephens of the 20-plus years in which he has been covering Glastonbury. “So, all of our resources are at Glastonbury, and we have to make the most of the festival while we’re there. It’s the best festival in the world so you have to give it the best broadcasting - the BBC is an amazing place to do that. And this year is bigger than ever.”

For Radio 1 Future Dance presenter Sarah Story, they key is to soak up as much of the festival as possible in order to illustrate as clear a picture as possible of what is happening at Worth Farm for the audience.

“A lot of it is down to the producers,” she explains. “They are the people doing the DJ bookings, making sure we’re getting the guests, so they will be doing that for months before the festival. For my show its about really focusing on who is playing at Glastonbury from the dance world and making sure we’re playing a lot of those acts and getting some of them in on the show. For me as a broadcaster I have the luxury of just being involved in picking the music, rocking up and bringing my energy. What’s really important is to get there early and soak up Glastonbury, try to get to as many places as I can so that when I’m on air on the Friday I can be painting a picture of what I’ve seen, whether it’s funny things or nice things. It’s really important to be across everything that’s happening.”

The partnership between the BBC and Glastonbury is unique in the world of live event coverage. It could be argued that there isn’t another event in the world, be it in music, sport, or entertainment, that is subject to such demand for, and indeed, consumption of content. For Saunders, it was watching that content as a fan that made him want to go to Glastonbury in the first place.

“I’d grown up watching all those great BBC presenters and it made me want to be at the festival,” he tells us. “I specifically remember that Beyoncé performance and the buzz from the presenters and it looked like such an amazing moment. It’s been a really lovely journey for me and I’m very grateful. It’s one of the best jobs in the world.”

While the stellar line-ups and performances on the Pyramid and other stages always generate plenty of excitement, Glastonbury, as anyone who has ever been will concur, is about so much more than the music. This, it seems, is why the fascination with festival amongst music fans across the world continues to this day. And, having notched up multiple decades of collective Glastonbury experiences between them, Saunders, Stephens, and Story have each seen the magic and the madness of Worthy Farm.

“It’s down to the heritage of the festival and what it stands for,” says Saunders. “It was a very hippy festival when it started, very liberal, and the way it’s grown has been very attractive to other styles, genres and cultures for being so welcoming. Indie music got its first run out there with The Smiths in 1984 and that spread the word of that genre making its way in. You then had dance music in the early ‘90s and then UK rap and grime, with Stormzy going on to give arguably one of the best headline performances ever at Glastonbury. Then Kendrick last year. It’s always been very open and is a platform to celebrate all culture.

"No matter what you enjoy, there will be something for you at Glastonbury and the other cultures will welcome you in equally. It’s its own bubble and time zone and the real world goes out the window. Everyone talks about it like this and there is a reason why everyone talks about it like this, because it is genuinely such a unique experience. And it’s not until you go that you can truly understand just how special and unique it is. I’m sure those who haven’t been are sick of hearing how spectacular it is, but it’s true

“My first year working there with the BBC was 2019,” he continues, discussing some of his earliest memories of the festival. “I was bringing the festival to life for the Radio 1 audience, so they were crossing over to me every half an hour with updates and we were doing this game of me having to trade up a button and seeing what I get by the end of Glastonbury… and it ended up being a pair of stage soaked pants from Laurie from the band Slaves, now known as Soft Play… he literally took them off in front of me live on Radio 1, and being speechless is not a great thing on radio, but I was very much left speechless. That was my first year and a great induction with the BBC.”

Stephen also described his first ever Glastonbury experience and hailed the festival’s ability to keep evolving without losing its identity.

“My first year I remember sitting on a car bonnet looking art David Bowie on the Pyramid Stage, and the scale of it was unlike anything else,” he recalls. It’s massive, it’s lovely and it’s so exciting. I remember Stevie Wonder bringing out Michael Eavis and we all sang happy birthday to him, that was incredible. I remember seeing Christine and the Queens on the Other Stage and that was really special. PJ Harvey played when the Brexit result came in and she played an incredible set that year. I remember the excitement of Jay-Z on the Pyramid Stage and being right at the front just in awe. There are a lot of lovely memories. Dolly Parton, Diana Ross in the legend slot. So many.

“The organisers are fantastic at listening to the next generation and next audience. If Glastonbury had stayed the same, it would probably be over by now. No festival can stay the same, you have to evolve, and they do it with such energy with an amazing team of people. They are very open to ideas and because of the Eavis family’s nature. It’s the same with the line-ups - they’ve always pushed forward. And it’s not just about the headliners, it’s about every other band and artists. It’s not even about the music; it’s the energy of the whole place. It’s a lot of things to a lot of people and that’s why it’s so exciting every year.”

“My first ever Glastonbury was 2016 and I remember it well because it was Brexit,” says Story. “We found out the result on the Friday morning and there was this weird energy, everyone was just walking around like lost puppies. But then there was a sense of, ‘right, we’re at Glastonbury, we’ve just got to crack on’, and then it was chaos. I just remember feeling pretty overwhelmed by the whole experience. You can never really imagine how huge it is. It was a really lovely experience and I met so many lovely random people at Block 9 and sitting on the hill watching acts.”

For dance specialist Story, her Glastonbury experiences have been a little different to those of Saunders and Stephens, spending the vast majority of her time away from the main stages and immersed in the vast festival within a festival that is the dance component of Worthy Farm.

“I mainly go for the dance music, so I’ll pass through, maybe watch a couple of acts on the Pyramid Stage, but you have Silver Hayes for instance, and I played there last year and the calibre of DJs there was so vast,” she elaborates, highlighting the enormous presence of dance music at the festival. “That area is a massive hub of stages and is huge for dance music. You also have Shangri-La, Block 9, then my favourite club is NYC Downlow. It’s a gay club and you have to get in by wearing a moustache. There is always a massive queue but if you have a moustache you get in faster. I’ve seen so many amazing DJs there.

“But that whole area is just where you go every night. The Arcadia has some incredible people on this year. But if you’re curious about dance music and you want to discover a bit more it’s everywhere at Glastonbury and you’ll probably miss all the bands because you’ll get sucked into the dance world madness. There is also a club next to NYC Downlow called Maceos, and it’s just so good. The music is always really vibey, not really bangers, but you get some amazing characters in there.”

So who are they most excited to see this year?

“I’m looking forward to going to the Healing Fields because everyone always talks about it but I’ve never made it there,” says Story. “So, I’m going to go there on Wednesday and get a bit of calm before the storm. And in terms of acts I’m looking forward to, Palms Trax, Interplanetary Criminal, Gabriels, and Fed Again.. I knew he was great but I saw him for the first time last year and he was unbelievable. And I’m looking forward to doing my live shows.”

“I think Raye is going to have the most unbelievable moment on the Pyramid Stage,” adds Saunders. “That is a set not to be missed. It will be interesting to see who The ChurnUps are. They are playing before Royal Blood and Arctic Monkeys on the Pyramid Stage. All the rumours are pointing towards it being Foo Fighters… if it’s Foo Fighters, Royal Blood and Arctic Monkeys that might be one of the greatest Pyramid runs ever. There is a brilliant line-up of DJ as well; Fred again..s set will be a really big moment. It’s heating up to be a good one.”

“I’m a massive fan of Phoenix and they are headlining the Woodsies stage on the Sunday so I’m very excited to see them,” concludes Stephens. “Elton John I think is going to be spectacular, Arctic Monkeys will be great, Lizzo is going to be spectacular, but to be honest, because I’m working I’m only going to be able to work out who I’ll see in the flesh once I’m there. I’m there to work is what I’m trying to say – what a hero!”

You can read and listen to extended interviews with Saunders, Stephens, and Story at these links.

Saunders, Stephens, and Story will be broadcasting from Glastonbury as part of the BBC coverage of the festival (Wednesday 21 – Sunday 25 June) on BBC TV, radio, BBC iPlayer and BBC Sounds.