Emily Eavis, the 27-year-old

co-organiser of the Glastonbury Festival, was in town last week making a special appearance at the World Film Festival, where the documentary "Glastonbury" was shown.

Emily is the daughter of Michael Eavis, the founder and organiser of the world-famous festival. For one weekend each year, the 900-acre Eavis family farm in the southwest of England is transformed into a carnival of music, dance, contemporary arts, political protests, circus acts and general anarchy.

Since the first Glastonbury in 1970, the event has grown and grown. The original modest gathering of 900 people has mushroomed to 400 live performances attended by more than 150,000 people.

Julien Temple, the director of "Glastonbury", shot footage of the festival between 2002 and 2005, and has combined this with footage sent in by festival-goers who responded to his requests through the media. Temple also added images from the BBC and Channel 4's coverage of the festival which goes back to 1994.

The finished item shows how Glastonbury Festival has changed over the past three decades, but also goes behind the scenes to reveal the work that goes into preparing for a party on this scale. We see the tiresome confrontations with the local authorities, the perennial problem of gatecrashers, the violence, and through it all, the Eavis family's heroic struggle to keep the festival going.

Eavis answered questions afterward:

Is it true that it's easier to buy tickets for the festival in Thailand?

Actually, yes. They're hard to come by in Britain because there are eight million people trying to get 150,000 tickets every year through the phone line and agents. So international visitors are likely to get tickets easier.

How much is a ticket?

£135. That's for the full five-day festival.

When is the next festival?

Next year. We had a year off last year.

What will the line-up be like for next year?

We're sill working on it, but there'll be much more than just music. There'll be arts, cabaret, poetry reading - back to normal Glastonbury standard, actually.

How many bands are playing?

It's about 50, along with other performances like comedy, cabaret and such. Next year we'll have a world jazz stage where there'll be bands from other countries playing.

When does the festival start next year?

From the 22nd of June - it's always the last weekend of June.

Since there have been many festivals around the world, is there any exchanging of information between festivals organisers?

Well, not really. They're all quite independent, actually. There might be some kind of information exchange in terms of headline acts - for example, one agent might call us and ask what bands will be playing at Glastonbury so that they can book the band and put them in a festival the next weekend. But most of the time it's independent.

Who owns the festival field?

It's our family's field. Our family has been farming there for 300 years. So it's our farm where we have the festival, and we use the neighbouring farms for parking. I ideally we want the festival to keep running, but nobody knows how long it will last. Live music has changed so much, and you don't know what it will be like in 20 years' time.

What do you do between festivals?

We're farmers. There's great loyalty to the farm and it has been around for much longer than the festival. Farm first, festival second.

Mantra Klangboonkrong

 The Nation