MAY | FEATURE
SC: Michael had a great vision for the
festival. I remember talking to him about it
in the mid-70s as we were sat on a tractor
at our farm. We both owned tractors, but
neither of us could afford a new battery,
so we left them on a hill so we could bump
start them if they failed. And failing that
we had a chain that would help tow the
other one should it break down. Michael
said his ambition was to sell a show without
announcing any bands. That was his major
aim, and one he’s certainly achieved. He took
great delight eventually in his achievements,
but back then he was just a local farmer.
SC: Serious Stages was linked with
WOMAD festival and we built a second
Alternative World Stage as Glastonbury
expanded. The Orbit staging system, with
its characteristic curved roof, had become
synonymous with Serious back then and
we installed them into hundreds of classical
shows in stately homes and parks.
HC: The Orbit concept was devised by a
Scottish structural engineer called George
Weemyss as a lozenge building shape and
they used it for on shore oil purposes, as it
was highly resilient in strong winds. Tim
Davis helped make it suitable for staging,
dividing up the building, putting a cantilever
on the front and making it into an open-
fronted stage. That was probably the time we
employed our first structural engineers and
we really had to understand the engineering
behind what we were supplying.
SC: That was an 18m stage, and we then
developed a 15m and 12m variant which were
24
Eavis gets Serious
Glastonbury founder Michael Eavis
reminisces on Serious Stages’
serious ascent
Steven turned up in Pilton on a
BSA motorbike in 1975 and told me
he’d bought Bornes Farm, but he’d
changed the name to ‘Borne Farm’,
taking the ‘s’ off, which caused a stir
at the time.
The site was previously run by
some permanent Pilton-dwelling
types, and no one knew who they
were so we were quite relieved to
have Steven here.
When he bought the site I said to
him: “That’s where the commune
was, isn’t it?” and he said, “well it’s
every man for himself here now,” and
I laughed and our friendship started
there.
Holly is a great girl, and she’s on
the Parish Council and is great at
that, and it’s nice to have friends on
the council.
Steven ran a little farm and a had
few Jerseys. He didn’t know what he
was doing, but he was trying hard.
Lovely milk though!
So Steven started building the
wooden Pyramid Stage with figures
including Roger Heighton. They
didn’t have much money but they did
really well. Steven was there every
day and eventually started his own
company.
We knew him as a young boy, and
stuck with him through thick and thin.
It wasn’t always rosy, but he came
through.
When the Pyramid burnt down
to the ground, we heard there was
a fire around 4am in the morning
and I pulled the curtains back and
I couldn’t believe it. The thing was
totally ablaze, and so I needed Steven
to bring in a stage in two weeks. I said
you’d better sweep that up, sort it out,
and start building a new stage, which
was the Orbit stage, and that was
really the beginning of something.
He pulled off a spectacular job out
of the ashes, it was really the start of
something.
It was a Tim Davis design, and we
ran the show. The next one was built
especially for the 2002 festival. We
had to test it, and he got as many
people on it as he could, and called
it a ‘load test’. He told everyone to
jump, and then shouted ‘not all at
once’. Steven now does umpteen
other stages for us.
Stages do vary greatly across the
world. I was speaking to Massive
Attack this morning, and they said
they played in Mexico last night and
they could hardly get on the stage –
there’s a lot of them in the band. So
we’re bigger than a lot of stages.
Serious Stages has grown as
Glastonbury has, in proportion to the
festival.