What dreadful timing! The week before Glastonbury, which comes but once a year, and there’s some rather unfortunate news for Sir Michael Eavis.
It seems Eavis, founder of the hippie field gathering turned middle-class mecca, may be plotting some light tax avoidance. In October last year Eavis, 89, showed some cold-blooded business acumen with a distinctly un-hippie vibe. He passed his shareholding in Glastonbury Festival Events Ltd to his daughter Emily, while three quarters of his shares in Glastonbury Festival Limited went to a family trust. Last year, by the way, the festival made £5.9million profit before tax (thanks to a couple of years of sunshine and the need to rebuild “vital financial reserves” post-Covid), while the whole thing is worth anywhere between £150m and £400m.
