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Glastonbury 2013 behind the scenes as festival got ready to welcome the Rolling Stones

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Fascinating photos show the magic of the massive site coming together following a fallow year for the Worthy Farm revels

This time 10 years ago the cows of Worthy Farm were having a field day as Michael Eavis and the Glastonbury Festival organisers declared a fallow year to help the farm fully recover from the ravages brought by the tramping of thousands of human feet.

What had been a mosh pit in front of the Other Stage was knee-high with healthy looking ears of wheat and there wasn’t a single tent or PA unit in sight. But 12 months later preparations at Pilton were well under way for Glastonbury 2013, when the lush green pastures were once again surrendered in the name of entertainment and fellowship.

As these fascinating photos from the archives demonstrate, it takes a whole lot of organising to create a self-contained enclave the size of a small city for a long weekend of partying.

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Getting the myriad areas of the festival set up is a massive undertaking that starts weeks before ticket holders have checked their tent is still waterproof, bought their travel toothpaste or worked out how many barrow journeys it will take to stagger from the car park to their chosen camping spot.

It takes an army of workers to install miles and miles of secure fencing and walkways, put up stages, sculptures and performance tents, marquees and teepee villages, and build on the skeleton of the Pyramid stage to create the iconic platform where the world’s eyes will be focused.

There’s grass to mow, scores of toilet blocks to tow into position, thousands of oil drum bins to distribute all around the site and hundreds of essential signposts to plant firmly in the soil – all pointing in the correct directions, of course.

The hubs are the festival office, with its white boards and long to-do lists, and Goose Hall, the on-site staff canteen where the advance party of hard grafters get fed and watered on a regular basis. And that’s all going on way before the performers, exhibitors and traders come anywhere near the place.

Somehow it always comes together and by the time you rocked up with your backpack, wellies and toilet rolls in 2013, Worthy Farm was ready to welcome the tramping hordes one more time to the UK’s best-loved festival, boasting Pyramid headline sets by the Rolling Stones, Arctic Monkeys and Mumford and Sons.

Read more: Glastonbury Festival 2022: Six big changes revealed as official map released for first time

Do get in touch with your favourite Glastonbury memories by commenting below, or email jackie.butler@reachplc.com.

Why not sign up here for the Worthy Welly newsletter for updates on all festival news.

For more beautiful images from the past have a look at memorylane.co.uk/ and see what you can discover.

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