This weekend sees the high point of the UK festival season at Glastonbury. Traditionally considered a gathering aimed at the ‘yoof’ in this country, it is fast becoming an event attended by a much wider age range. In fact according to SAGA, there will be over 15,000 over 50′s attending this year’s festival. And at over £200 per ticket, you can see why many of the over 50′s may be in attendance as this would seem a substantial sum for some younger fans to afford?
Pricing and corporatism aside, it is not only the attendees who will have silver hairs, many of the acts will be in the same age group. And I am not just talking about the Worzels – U2′s lead singer Bono celebrated his 51st birthday this year, with fellow countryman the Edge close behind on 49. Other ‘over 50 acts’, although they probably won’t appreciate this rather unkind labeling including Morrissey (52), Paul Simon (69) and B.B King (85).
Roger Ramsden from SAGA explains the longevity appeal of festivals to the over 50′s arguing that…”…over-50s created festivals, so to assume that they stop going purely as a result of an arbitrary age limit is ludicrous.” Research has also found that 21% of over 50′s now own a smartphone, so no doubt they will downloading the glastonbury app to keep up with the proceedings. Festival organiser Michael Eavis says that the event… “…if anything is skewed towards younger people, because to book the heavily-oversubscribed tickets you needed to have an internet connection.” Which rather implies that only younger people use the internet.
