Transcription
I have grown up here on our worthy farm. I now co-organize a festival with my dad, Michael, who started it in 1970. We've been farmers here for over 200 years, so the nature—the land, the trees, the grass, the cattle, the birds—is all part of who we are. Growing up here was very quiet and very peaceful. We spent a lot of time just roaming the fields, to be honest. Now my children are growing up on the farm like I did, so it's lovely.
The festival, when I was growing up, was quite small; pretty much just occupied these two fields. People used to drive up, leave their car there, and camp next to their tent. Now it's expanded to occupy ten farms and beyond, really, with car parks. The festival is quite different now, and a lot has happened to it, I suppose, over its evolution. We're always thinking of green initiatives. We want to incentivize people to leave less waste, to pack consciously, to not buy single-use items that they will just be disposing of or leaving here. This year we're banning the sale of single-use plastic bottles. If you were just saying, "There's no way you're going to be able to do this," because we had to get all the soft drink companies, all the traders, all the wholesalers, and everybody on board, we've been working on it since 2018. It's been a vast, huge job, but it's so satisfying to be able to say that we can do it. We're selling water in cans instead; we're also having 60 refill points—a combination of kiosks or self-service options. I think it will probably take two to three years for something to really kind of bed in because it's so large, so we'll be learning a lot from the first couple of years.
I'd say it's quite appealing as a family festival; kids are free, and everything's free when you get here. But it's quite hard to pack light when you're bringing lots of small children. We are asking people to use less disposable items, like wet wipes. You just have to consider these things because we've got so many items left over. We're really asking people, from the very first stage, to be aware and conscious of what they're packing. The best feeling for me is when people arrive on Wednesday, because the festival site turns into this enormous city of celebration, and the atmosphere is just so amazing and high. People are so excited to be here, and that is the moment where you go, "This is like the best place in the world." It's amazing, the attitude of the festival-goers and the whole atmosphere that they create every year. That's what's really special and unique about it. I mean, we all want to live and to love and have great lives and to feel fulfilled and feel happy and satisfied with our contribution to life. [Laughter] [Music] [Applause] [Music]