Now a staple in the British music and entertainment calendar, this year's Glastonbury Festival would be significant as a general election is coming up on July 4. 

Both events also occur while Taylor Swift's Eras Tour is ongoing, with most of the shows in the United Kingdom already booked. 

Glastonbury would feature some of the world's most popular musical acts this year, including Dua Lipa, Coldplay, SZA, and more. 

The BBC revealed that Glastonbury would also feature Seventeen as the very first K-pop group to perform in the festival and Voice of Baceprot, an all-girl Indonesian metal band. 

It is understood that the festival, held every summer, began as a small-scale event in the 1970s and exponentially grew in scale and popularity.

Glastonbury 2023 By the Numbers

Insider Media reported that the Glastonbury Festival released an economic impact report for its 2023 season. 

That year, the festival, which lasted five days and featured 100 stages, attracted over 140,000 attendees and generated a total income of £168 million ($212.5 million). 

On the other hand, festival costs totaled £62 million ($78.42 million), most of which were paid for by 922 organizations that pitched in to provide services for the event.

Meanwhile, the festival saw attendees spend an estimated £1.6 million ($2.02 million) in the wider Somerset community, where Glastonbury is located. Of this figure, around 25% went to local food and drink businesses, while about another 50% was spent in local shops and supermarkets for provisions and suppliers for the event. 

The report also detailed that, while most attendees camped out with their tents on the festival grounds, around 900 stayed in local hotels and B&Bs, contributing around £450,000 ($569,205) to the region. Some festival-goers camped on farmlands near the festival grounds either for a minimal fee or none. 

In addition, an estimated 4,000 festival-goers stayed in privately run offside campsites adjacent to the festival ground, which generated around £6.5 million ($8.22 million). 

The Glastonbury economic report added that jobs were also created during the event as it expanded as a music and arts festival and as a market event featuring food, crafts, and even allotted spaces for wellbeing.

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Undertones of Election Year, Current Issues

Reuters reported that several voter turnout campaigners brought their advocacy to the party, given the proximity of the Glastonbury Festival to the UK's general election.

The Just Vote campaign installed a large black cube representing a ballot box, aiming to encourage young voters attending the festival to "use your superpower."

This year's election is expected to see Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and his Conservative Party battle it in the polls against Sir Keir Starmer and the Labour Party. While surveys project an easy Labour victory that would propel Starmer into becoming prime minister, the party told its candidates to push through with its campaign as the Conservatives could use the trend to their advantage and stay in power for another term. 

YouGov polling showed that a vast majority of voters aged 18 to 49 wanted the Conservatives out of office after five successive prime ministers, 14 years in government, and countless scandals and social issues. 

However, many young voters attending Glastonbury said that they would rather avoid both Conservative and Labour and vote for small parties instead, especially those that align with causes that matter to them. 

It is understood that former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn addressed the crowd at Glastonbury in 2017. He has since been booted out of Labour for his hard-left politics, which allowed Starmer to shift the party towards the center. 

Corbyn is now an independent MP in Westminster.

The Independent reported that several MPs and journalists would also attend political events on the sidelines of Glastonbury, with topics such as the general election, sustainable and green initiatives, and the war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas. 

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