I always thought he would have made an amazing headline act especially if you see some of the shite they have headlining these days he would have gained a whole new audience I mean its one of the biggest festivals in the world if not the biggest. Prince would have just blown everyone else away headlining the pyramid stage such a shame.

I can 100% absolutely guarantee you that it was Glastonbury Thread Backlash, i.e. the 4,310 "Will Prince Play Glastonbury This Year?????" threads that cluttered the Org for months at a time, every single year.

RodeoSchro said:

I can 100% absolutely guarantee you that it was Glastonbury Thread Backlash, i.e. the 4,310 "Will Prince Play Glastonbury This Year?????" threads that cluttered the Org for months at a time, every single year.

Ive only been on here a couple of weeks so I didnt know.

funkypixie said:

Money (they don’t pay enough and rely on prestige) and TV Rights (you have to the performance be broadcast on British TV at least in part).

Well he didnt have a problem with doing the brit awards which was broadcast.

lonelyalien said:

He was so close to doing it aswell

jaawwnn said:

Glastonbury is booked and planned 6+ months in advance, Prince rarely played gigs with more than a week's advance notice in his final decade. Michael Eavis wanted a signature and a guarantee that was never gonna happen. [Edited 1/23/18 12:59pm]

Prince played the 2011 Hop Farm Festival in England to a crowd of 30,000. True, that's a much smaller crowd than Glastonbury (which has an attendance of around 175,000, though split across many different stages and areas) but it does show that Prince was willing to headline a large open air festival, that presumably would have needed many months advance planning and notice.

But as people have said, it most likely has more to do with tv rights. The Hop Farm Festival isn't televised, but Glastonbury is, it's heavily linked to the BBC which has full coverage of it, with bigger acts having their entire sets being broadcast live and also streamed online with sets availble to watch on demand afterwards. Prince might not have been comfortable with that.

[Edited 1/23/18 13:23pm]

lonelyalien said:

RodeoSchro said:

I can 100% absolutely guarantee you that it was Glastonbury Thread Backlash, i.e. the 4,310 "Will Prince Play Glastonbury This Year?????" threads that cluttered the Org for months at a time, every single year.

Ive only been on here a couple of weeks so I didnt know.

LOL, it was a running joke around here. And it ran for at least 10 years, maybe longer.

But actually, the point about TV rights is, I think, the main reason why Prince never played it. But no one outside of Prince and the Glastonbury officials probably really know.

ShaggyDog said:

Ive been thinking maybe he didnt like doing festivals because the crowd arent necessarily there to see him a hangover from the rolling stones incident perhaps.

It was a massive missed oppurtunity to boost his flagging profile with younger audiences in the UK - but did he need that? 21Nights proved he didn't need them.

laytonian said:

laytonian said:

According to Michael Eavis, they were negotiating for him to appear in 2016. http://www.independent.co...57366.html Don't forget, he appeared at Coachella in 2008 -- so he was not against huge festivals. So much lost. [Edited 1/23/18 19:03pm]

According to Michael Eavis, they were negotiating for him to play in 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012 etc.

KeithyT said:

Cos he did Hop Farm instead, rather well I might add

It was pretty good.

How did they get him to do Coachella?

laytonian said:

According to Michael Eavis, they were negotiating for him to appear in 2016. http://www.independent.co...57366.html Don't forget, he appeared at Coachella in 2008 -- so he was not against huge festivals. So much lost. [Edited 1/23/18 19:03pm]

No offense meant, but Coachella is not quite Glastonbury in terms of heritage and status (globally). You can phone it in (it's not televised, right?), and a no-show, is just a no-show. No biggie.

The TV rights issue may have been a thing, but he did perform concerts live on TV in '88, and twice in '90 (Japan and Spain).

.

He should have done Glastonbury. It would have been great for his image.