Glastonbury Festival will get a new name when it moves to a temporary location in 2019

Glastonbury Festival will go by a different name in 2019 when it moves to a temporary new location.

Founder Michael Eavis confirmed recent speculation that the festival will move "100 miles away, towards the Midlands" in 2019 to allow the land on the usual site to recover.

As for the name? Speaking in a radio interview with Glastonbury FM [via NME], Eavis announced the festival’s new name for 2019 was ‘The Glastonbury Festival team presents The Variety Bazaar’.

“That’s a good name don’t you think?”, he said said, adding of the new site: "It’s half way to the Midlands from here… and there’s only one landowner. I’ve got 22 landowners where I am now. I just wonder whether the next generation will want to negotiate with so many people. It’s a very difficult job to hold it together.”

Eavis also admitted that he was taking “a huge risk” by changing the festival’s name and location for 2019. He said: “I’ve been a risk taker all my life. In 47 years of taking risks, so far touch wood, I haven’t come unstuck. This might be one risk too far, I don’t know."

Glastonbury 2017 will be held at its traditional location in Pilton, Somerset and will take a year off in 2018. So far, Radiohead are the only confirmed act for the festival, while The Avalanches and Kris Kristofferson have also strongly hinted that they will perform.

UPDATE

Michael Eavis' daughter Emily has since taken to Twitter to confirm that the new 'Variety Bazaar' is a new event and that "Glastonbury Festival will always be called Glastonbury". 

pic.twitter.com/e3Zo2pdyAc

— Emily Eavis (@emilyeavis) January 17, 2017

Article image: Rex