Festival farrago

The official Glastonbury Festival site is very strict in saying they won't publicise the name of the website offering tickets for next year's (still only mooted) Glasto because they're "clearly trying to profit from all the hard work" (presumably Ticketmaster and the other people who sell tickets with a booking fee are public spiritedly attempting to take money out of an overheating economy.

But surely if you're trying to keep the name of the company secret, calling the images used to illustrate the story by something very close to the company's name and saying where they're based is surely an invite to Google.

What's really interesting is when you find the online ticket shop's website they're asking £175 for a fictional ticket, a figure the official Glasto people describe as exhorbitant. (We, of course, think the whole festival has become an exhorbitant price anyway).

Interestingly, the site sniffs that "the festival makes no assumption that it will get a license", which must make planning really, really difficult - surely if they're distributing information to interested traders they must work on the very basic assumption that they will get a licence? They're inviting demos, and according to the music press some artists have already been sounded out - all of this doesn't sound like the activity of a site that isn't working on the assumption of licensing, does it?

Meanwhile, today Mendip Council are holding an open meeting to canvass local people's opinions on next year's festival; that means from young people (or rather the prematurely middle-aged) who want to speak up for the weekend as well as those who seek to condemn the concept of rock music, cow muck and swearing; Thursday 12th is the decision day when the licence will come up for consideration by the licensing body.