nitrous ban in Glastonbury Festival's sacred space

Glastonbury Festival 2015

Wednesday 24th to Sunday 28th June 2015
Worthy Farm, Pilton, Shepton Mallet, Somerset, BA4 4AZ, England MAP
£220 (secured with a deposit) - SOLD OUT

Daily capacity: 198,000

Glastonbury Festival Green Fields co-ordinator Liz Eliot has written to Festival goers to appeal for them not to bring Noz (Nitrous Oxide) to the Festival this summer.

She has written:

"I'm writing to ask for your help in reclaiming the King’s Meadow – our Festival’s Sacred Space – as a place where people can gather in peace, for fun and spiritual awakenings.

Sadly the King’s Meadow has lost its way. It’s become known as a place where people take nitrous oxide, a damaging drug which pollutes our beautiful field with noise, litter and N2O gas (a greenhouse gas which is 298 times more polluting than carbon dioxide). Nitrous oxide is also dangerous: an exploding canister was the source of a major injury at last year’s Glastonbury.

It breaks our hearts to see our Sacred Space used this way – and we know from many messages we’ve received over the last few years that lots of you feel the same way.

For those who don’t know, the stone circle represents the major stars of constellation Cygnus. Its swan flies towards the Midsummer sunrise, with the sun rising exactly over the stone representing the swan’s head. Our hope is that if anyone enters the sacred space, consciously or unconsciously, they will be irrevocably changed by their interaction with Spirit.

But the arrival of so much nitrous oxide in the King’s Meadow – some two tonnes of canisters were picked up, by hand, at Glastonbury 2014 – has darkened the field’s atmosphere. Now, though, is the time to reclaim the spirit and lighten up the energies. Nitrous oxide will not be welcome in the King’s Meadow at Glastonbury 2015, and we will be asking people not to use it.

Each year we come together to share the magic of this truly wonderful festival. Please show your love for the event and each other by showing your appreciation of the land and our spiritual connection to it.

Help us – please do not bring nitrous oxide onto the site and support us by not using it in the King’s Meadow.

Thank you.

Liz Eliot
April 2015."

The woosh of pressurised laughing gas inflating the balloons, and the discarded silver gas pellets have been a blight at many festivals in recent years, with Shambala Festival asking attendees not to partake on site some years ago.

The Home Office has written to organisations which hold music events such as Glastonbury Festival to ask them to include a mandatory ban on the synthetic substances, and have published figures which suggest 470,000 people aged 16-59 used nitrous oxide in the past year, up 100,000 from 2013. It’s particularly popular with young people: 7.6% of those aged 16-24 used nitrous oxide in the past year, a greater proportion than had used cocaine (4.2%), ecstasy (3.9%) or ketamine (1.8%).

Ministers have also asked the organisers to refuse entry to any festival-goers carrying nitrous oxide, or “laughing gas”, which is increasingly being used as a recreational drug. So don't expect Glastonbury to be the last Festival to ask attendees to leave the Noz at home.

Acts confirmed so far include Friday headliner Foo Fighters, and Saturday headliner Kanye West, with Father John Misty, Courtney Barnett, Lionel Richie, Patti Smith & her band, Florence + The Machine, Pharrell Williams, Alt-J, Motorhead, Mary J Blige, Alabama Shakes, Paloma Faith, The Waterboys, The Fall, George Ezra, Rudimental, Deadmau5, The Vaccines, The Maccabees, Suede, The Chemical Brothers (live), Belle & Sebastian, Clean Bandit, Jungle, Jamie XX, Gregory Porter, Super Furry Animals, Jon Hopkins, Sharon Van Etten, Kate Tempest, Wolf Alice, Perfume Genius, Fat White Family, La Roux, Death Cab For Cutie, Kasai Allstars, FFS (Franz Ferdinand & Sparks), Modestep, Circa Waves, Peace, Young Fathers, The Moody Blues, Chronixx, Mavis Staples, FKA Twigs, Caribou, Goat, Future Islands, Run the Jewels, Hot Chip, Flying Lotus, Azealia Banks, Todd Terje, Ryan Adams, Spiritualized, Roy Ayers, The Mothership Returns: George Clinton, Parliament, Funkadelic & The Family Stone, Jamie T, Ben Howard, Mark Ronson, Ibeyi, Rae Morris, Enter Shikari, Lianne La Havas, Jessie Ware, Death From Above 1979, Years And Years, Sleaford Mods, Charli XCX, The Pop Group, Catfish & The Bottlemen, Ella Eyre, Hozier, and the entrants for the Emerging Talent competition Declan McKenna, Shields, K.O.G & the Zongo Brigade, MoD, Princess Slayer, Lucy Kitchen, Isaac Lee-Kronick, and Jakl.

This year's sold out Glastonbury Festival runs for five full days from Wednesday 24th until Sunday 28th June 2015 across over a 1,000 acres of beautiful countryside at Worthy Farm, Pilton in Somerset.

As ever, entry includes a free programme. Once again, the Festival will be raising more than £2 million in funds for Oxfam, Wateraid, Greenpeace and and hundreds of other worthy causes, both local and international.

The full complete line-up will not be announced until next month. Expect something like 2,000 performances at over 100 venues including music, cabaret, theatre, circus, a fantastic Kidz area, poetry, green crafts and information, site art, decor, and loads, loads more ... much more than just the music, so make sure you check it all out!

As usual eFestivals will bring you the very best-sourced rumours, allowing festival-goers to see who is playing long before the bands are formally announced - keep your eyes on the Glastonbury 2015 rumours, updated as we receive information.

discuss this news on the Festival Forums