The biggest music festival in the world takes place in the south west England town of Glastonbury at the end of June. More than 150,000 people are expected to descend on Michael Eavis’ Somerset farm in order to listen to some of the best known bands and musicians in the world including the Who, and the Arctic Monkeys.

Traditionally, the Glastonbury festival has taken place on the weekend after the Summer Solstice, and many of the revellers start their party on the way down to the festival site by stopping off at Stonehenge in order to watch the sunrise over the Sarsen Stones at the monument on the Solstice.

The whole festival is as much a celebration of the alternative lifestyle as it is a musical event, and many thousands of the people who visit the festival go for the fringe events that take place in the fields around the music stages rather than to listen to the bands.

There are healing fields where people chant in order to clean their spirits from the taint of the modern world, and tents where people can listen to comedy and watch movies. Glastonbury is two festivals in one, and has become one of the most popular events in the whole of Europe.

This year, the forecast is for rain, and the whole festival ground is likely to resemble a gigantic swamp when the festival opens on Friday, but it isn’t all bad news for the people attending, the previous wet Glastonbury festivals in 1998 and 2005 have been described as being the best ones, and indeed many regular festival goers reckon that in years when the heavens open you get the best music, most memorable performances and iconic acts that come to define the era.

Of course, the promise of amazing entertainment for three days is scant consolation when your belongings are floating away inside your tent, so if you’re planning on going to Glastonbury this year, and don’t fancy the wet, this could be the year when you upgrade from a tent to a motor home, and watch the rains fall from behind the protection of your windows, and wait for a dry spell before going down to the main stage for the music.