Glasto Is Back: Inside the BBC’s ‘Mammoth’ 2022 Glastonbury Festival Coverage

variety.com:

Mark Sutherland Glastonbury Festival — the biggest live music event in Europe — gets into full swing today, for the first time since 2019.There will be 200,000 people on site in Somerset, in the west of England, watching thousands of performances across 93 different stages, including headliners Billie Eilish, Sir Paul McCartney and Kendrick Lamar, and Diana Ross in the highly prized Sunday afternoon ‘legends’ slot.And yet, somehow, Glastonbury is even bigger than those numbers suggest.

First held in 1970 – when 1,500 hippies got free milk in exchange for their £1 entrance fee – the festival has developed into a national and international institution, as much a part of the traditional British summer as Wimbledon.

And it’s also a musical juggernaut, attracting the biggest names from every genre and capable of making or breaking new artists in a single set.

BBC broadcaster Jo Whiley strives to convey the festival’s sheer physical and cultural enormity. “Take Coachella,” she says. “Multiple it by a thousand, add several different dimensions and put it in multi-color…Then you might have a grasp of what Glastonbury is all about.”Whiley will once again helm the BBC’s extensive TV programming this weekend, alongside the likes of Lauren Laverne and Clara Amfo.