A new family-orientated area of the same name will also be introduced at Worthy Farm this year
It has now been confirmed that the John Peel Stage will be renamed ahead of this year’s Glastonbury Festival.
The revelation came bundled with two more headliners in Arctic Monkeys and Guns N’ Roses to have been confirmed for Glastonbury 2023, along with the first wave of performers to be revealed for this summer’s Festival line-up.
Speaking to the Guardian, Festival organiser Emily Eavis said that the John Peel Stage would be renamed to “Woodsies” as part of a push to name stages after the fields that they stand in, such as West Holts and Silver Hayes – saying: “We’ve had 20 years of John Peel and it’s been an honour to use his name.”
Eavis also said that a new family-orientated area of the same name, which will feature a campfire, will be introduced at this summer’s event.
In the same interview, the Festival organiser also said that this year, children will not be allowed in the notorious after-hours south-east corner (also known as the ‘naughty corner’) after 10pm and will be encouraged to seek out child-friendly areas across the site such as the Theatre & Circus Fields, and the campfire in the new Woodsies area.
The mentioned venue first made its debut at the Festival in 1998 as the New Bands Tent and was then rebranded in 2004 in tribute to the late BBC Radio 1 DJ following his death that year. Notable past sets on the stage include The Killers, Florence + The Machine and The XX – just to name a few.
As of the moment of writing, Glastonbury’s official website describes the venue as welcoming and celebrating “every genre” with “acts on the cusp of breaking through rubbing shoulders alongside the long-established.”
Eavis also mentioned the fact that the shift was not a response to a 1,820-registered-signature petition launched last year [2022] calling for a name change, due to Peel having married a 15-year-old girl when he was 25 (then legal in Texas, where they were wed). “I haven’t got involved in that because it’s not our area,” said Eavis. “We’ve had a really good relationship with the Peel family and everyone’s on board.”
In the same article, Eavis pointed to “pipeline” problems in regard to the fact that this year’s festival has resulted in all-male headliners.
The Glastonbury 2023 first line-up poster was shared by the Festival’s official Twitter account this morning (Friday, 3rd March) at 9:32am – about half an hour after the initial Guardian article was published.
When published, the original article featured 55 artists on the list, however, it was then amended to omit one of the acts on the line-up in Queens of the Stone Age – explaining: “This article was updated on Friday 3 March to remove the description of the headliners as “all-white”, as Guns N’ Roses feature two non-white members. The number of announced artists was also reduced from 55 to 54 after an artist had been wrongly included in the initial lineup by Glastonbury organisers.”
Along with the newly announced Arctic Monkeys and Guns N’ Roses who will be joining already confirmed Elton John at the top of the bill, other acts to perform at this summer’s Festival include Lana Del Rey, Lewis Capaldi, Lizzo – as well as Yusuf / Cat Stevens, who will take to the iconic Pyramid Stage as this year’s Sunday teatime Legend Slot performer.
Stay up to date with all the latest artists that have been officially confirmed, self-confirmed, rumoured or unlikely to play at Glastonbury 2023 via our daily updated line-up & rumours list.
IN OTHER GLASTO NEWS
Last month Glastonbury Festival announced that it is donating 10 sets of tickets, each with a once-in-a-lifetime experience to raise money for the Disasters Emergency Committee’s Turkey-Syria Earthquake appeal with Oxfam.
DEC member charities, including Oxfam, are working in Türkiye (Turkey) and Syria with local partners to support survivors of the earthquakes and by entering, you’ll be helping them to reach as many people as possible with clean water, food, sanitation, shelter and other urgent support.
Entries are now open and will be accepted until 12 noon on Wednesday 8th March, with a £10 donation guaranteeing one entry – and although there is no limit on the number of times one person can enter, only one prize per entrant will be given. Free entry (without making a donation to the earthquake appeal) is also available by post.
Prior to the Oxfam raffle mentioned above, the Festival also helped raise over £116,000 in aid of the Trussell Trust in a partnership auction to help support people facing hardship across the UK.
The money was put up in a series of 10 eBay auctions run by the food bank charity to raise funds for their network of over 1,300 food banks scattered across the country.
In this instance, similar to the Oxfam appeal, auctions offered 10 pairs of tickets which included once-in-a-lifetime opportunities for fans at the Festival.
The total from all ten Trussell Trust auctions amounted to £116,738 – with the “cheapest” pair of tickets selling for £10,200, which included the chance to watch a set from the Other Stage viewing platform
Glastonbury 2023 takes place from Wednesday 21st to Sunday 25th of June 2023 at Worthy Farm, Pilton, Somerset.
Although tickets for the 2023 event sold out late last year [2022], there will be resales of any unpaid and/or cancelled tickets that will take place later in the Spring (around April time).
As part of Glastonbury’s ongoing efforts against ticket touting, anyone who would like to attend this year’s Festival will need to have registered in advance.
As in previous years, registration remains free of charge and only takes a few minutes at glastonburyregistration.co.uk.
Those who have already registered in the past can also check their existing registration here.
In addition to the upcoming ticket resales, some other opportunities for getting to Glastonbury include working at the Festival,volunteering and entering competitions – once these options make themselves available.
To learn more about registration, the sale process and how you can maximise your chances of getting Glastonbury 2023 tickets, click here.
DON’T BE FOOLED
Glastonbury Festival would very much like fans to be aware that there are people out there who will try and sell fake Glastonbury tickets to unsuspecting, willing and innocent potential purchasers.
Although Glasto-veterans who have been going to the Festival for quite some time may recognise these scams for what they are, newcomers might not.
Therefore, please remember that tickets are only sold on one site, which is: glastonbury.seetickets.com.
