Oxfam is offering people the chance to get into Glastonbury Festival for free through its volunteering scheme.
The charity, which is an official partner of the Worthy Farm event, is looking for 8,500 volunteers for its biggest summer of festivals yet in 2024.
READ MORE: Elton! Arctic Monkeys! Rick Astley! Glastonbury 2023’s most magical moments on Worthy Farm
In addition to Glastonbury, volunteers are needed for various other major UK festivals such as Reading & Leeds, Latitude, Isle Of Wight and Boardmasters.
Participants will be given free entry to the site in exchange for stewarding shifts among other roles, including checking tickets and wristbands at the gates, and supporting accessible viewing platforms by the stages.
Oxfam volunteers are required to complete three eight-hour shifts during the festival period, which will give them time to enjoy the live performances and take in the atmosphere when not working.
They’ll also have access to a secure camping area in the Oxfam campsite and be given a free meal voucher per shift, free phone charging, and free tea and coffee.
Applications open this Thursday (February 1), with places allocated on a first-come, first-served basis. You’ll be able to sign up here.
Yusuf/Cat Stevens performs live at Glastonbury 2023. CREDIT: NME
Last year, the participating volunteers gave over 206,000 hours of their time over the summer and helped raise £1.5million to support Oxfam’s poverty-fighting work.
Michael Lever, Head Of Festivals And Events, said: “We are so excited to welcome more volunteers than ever this year to join Oxfam at some of the UK’s best festivals across the summer.
“We have been providing volunteer stewards at the UK’s biggest and best festivals for over 30 years now, after first taking our volunteers to Glastonbury in 1993. We’ve come a long way since then and people can now join us at 15 festivals across the UK and by doing so raise money for Oxfam.”
Lever continued: “We’ve built a friendly and passionate community of volunteers and many of them have been coming back year after year with some attending over 100 festivals with Oxfam.
“We’ll also continue to have volunteers to support our campaigning and last year we provided an opportunity for tens of thousands of people to sign our Climate Justice campaign and join in Oxfam’s collective activism.”
The crowd for The 1975 at Reading 2023. Credit: Andy Ford
Desmond Fitzgerald, who has volunteered for 19 years at 104 festivals, added: “Once you do it once or twice, you really appreciate all of the benefits and the fun that you can have.
“After the festival when I go back into my own community, it makes me feel more empowered to be able to help people. We call ourselves the Oxfamily – everybody’s welcome, everybody’s included.”
By volunteering at two or more festivals in one season, volunteers are awarded priority status for the following year and can sign up before applications open to the general public.
This gives applicants a better chance at securing a role at their event of choice or more popular festivals such as Glastonbury. All volunteers receive training and develop skills such as communication and organisation.
The full list of festivals for 2024 also includes Bearded Theory, Download, 2000Trees, WOMAD, Wilderness, Boomtown Fair, ArcTanGent, Beautiful Days and Shambala.
READ MORE: Arctic Monkeys live at Glastonbury: mercurial, magical stuff from a band on fine form
Meanwhile, Glastonbury recently shared details of this year’s Emerging Talent Competition – which gives new and unsigned artists the chance to perform on one of its main stages.
Glastonbury 2024 is set to take place between June 26-30. The first two batches of tickets went on sale in November, but have now sold out. A resale is expected to be held in the spring.
No acts have been announced as of yet. In late 2023, it was reported that Madonna, Dua Lipa and Coldplay would be topping the bill next summer. Emily Eavis, however, subsequently said the rumours about the confirmed headliners were “untrue”.
In October, Eavis revealed that the Legends Slot on Sunday afternoon would be occupied by a female artist in 2024. She also hinted once again that there could be two female headliners.
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