The 'Glastonbury Fair' of 1971 was instigated by Andrew Kerr after being found and introduced to Michael Eavis by David Trippas and organised with help from Arabella Churchill, Jean Bradbery, Kikan Eriksdotter, John Massara, Jeff Dexter, Thomas Crimble, Bill Harkin, Gilberto Gil, Mark Irons, John Coleman, and Jytte Klamer. Other billed acts of note were Steamhammer, Quintessence, Stackridge, Al Stewart, Pink Fairies and Keith Christmas. The original headline acts were The Kinks and Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders but these acts were replaced at short notice by Tyrannosaurus Rex, later known as T. Organiser Michael Eavis decided to host the first festival after seeing an open-air concert headlined by Led Zeppelin at the 1970 Bath Festival of Blues and Progressive Music at the nearby Bath and West Showground in 1970. There had been a commercial UK festival tradition which included the National Jazz and Blues Festival and the Isle of Wight Festival. The first festival at Worthy Farm was the Pop, Blues & Folk Festival, hosted by Michael Eavis on Saturday 19 September 1970, and attended by 1,500 people. The next festival is scheduled to take place between 21 and 25 June 2023, headlined by Arctic Monkeys, Guns N' Roses and Elton John in his final UK performance. The festival returned for 22–26 June 2022 with the headliners Billie Eilish, Paul McCartney and Kendrick Lamar. There have been two consecutive 'fallow years' since then due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 2018 was a 'fallow year', and the 2019 festival took place from 26 to 30 June. The festival was held intermittently from 1970 until 1981 and has been held most years since, except for ' fallow years' taken mostly at five-year intervals, intended to give the land, local population, and organisers a break.

Michael Eavis hosted the first festival, then called Pilton Festival, after seeing an open-air Led Zeppelin concert in 1970 at the Bath Festival of Blues and Progressive Music. Vestiges of these traditions are retained in the Green Fields area, which includes sections known as the Green Futures, the Stone Circle and Healing Field. Regarded as a major event in British culture, the festival is inspired by the ethos of the hippie, the counterculture of the 1960s, and the free-festival movement. Most festival staff are volunteers, helping the festival to raise millions of pounds for charity organisations. While the number of attendees is sometimes swollen by gatecrashers, a record of 300,000 people was set at the 1994 festival, headlined by the Levellers who performed on The Pyramid Stage. Glastonbury is attended by around 200,000 people, thus requiring extensive security, transport, water, and electricity-supply infrastructure. Films and albums have been recorded at the festival, and it receives extensive television and newspaper coverage. Leading pop and rock artists have headlined, alongside thousands of others appearing on smaller stages and performance areas. In addition to contemporary music, the festival hosts dance, comedy, theatre, circus, cabaret, and other arts. Glastonbury Festival (formally Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts and known colloquially as Glasto) is a five-day festival of contemporary performing arts that takes place in Pilton, Somerset, England.

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