Benn bigs up festivals

Festival Republic’s Melvin Benn has responded to Michael Eavis’s much reported comments that the Glastonbury Festival might “only have three or four years left” due to public apathy and the economic climate, claiming that the festival only sold out due to the “huge headliners” they were able to book every year with Benn saying that the festival business was in good health. Speaking to BBC Suffolk during last week’s Latitude Festival, Benn, who also promotes the Big Chill, and the Reading & Leeds festivals, and works with Eavis on Glastonbury, said that Eavis was wrong and said that festivals were part of “UK cultural life” and also added that Latitude had sold out as would Reading and Leeds.