Turtle Island on the Pyramid Stage and newly announced special guests Kaiser Chiefs on the Other Stage will officially kick off the 2014 Glastonbury festival this morning (June 27th).
Gates were opened for the more than 100,000 ticket holders on Wednesday, and a few ‘secret’ shows, specially staged gigs and DJ sets were held last night, those included performances from Metronomy and The 1975.
Also appearing today across the festival’s various stages and tents are the likes of Elbow, Interpol, Band Of Skulls, Parquet Courts, Jimi Goodwin, Wild Beasts, Temples and Drenge. The Pyramid Stage will be headlined by Arcade Fire, while the Other Stage is topped by Skrillex.
Meanwhile, online ticket outlet Viagogo has claimed around 80% of attendees would have attempted, had they been able, to sell their ticket after Metallica were confirmed as headliners.
Personalised registration brought in by the event a few years ago in a bid to ward off touts prevents tickets from being passed on to a second party, but a poll of 2,000 people conducted by Viagogo suggests plenty might not have bothered this weekend if that wasn’t the case.
“These findings support widespread media reports that Metallica was a controversial choice to headline one of the world’s most iconic music festivals,” a spokesperson is quoted as saying in The Independent. “Fans around the country have been left feeling done by, with the festival organisers holding back the headline announcement until after the final resale date,”
“We believe that once you’ve bought a ticket it’s yours and if you want to sell it or give it away, you should be allowed to do so. In this case, with an unpopular headline act announced late, ticket holders lose out because they can’t resell their tickets and Metallica fans lose out because they can’t buy them.”