Glastonbury 2025 welcomes theatre and circus to Pyramid Stage for first time in 35 years
Glastonbury 2025 opened with a spectacular theatre and circus show on the Pyramid Stage that marked the first time in 35 years the festival has programmed a non-music act on its main stage.
Glastonbury’s full title is the Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts, but the event is most famous for its music scheduling. In a change of tradition on Wednesday evening, the Pyramid Stage was overtaken by aerialists, jugglers, acrobats and circus performers, some of which were hoisted above the audience to perform aerial stunts while hanging from cranes. Particularly interesting were female aerialists performing precariously from the top of thin polls that swayed back and forth from within the crowd.
The show was called The Dreamweavers Journey and was the preface to the annual opening night fireworks spectacular.
Glastonbury 2025: aerealists performed high above the Pyramid Stage, dangling from cranes
Licensing doesn’t permit Glastonbury festival to play loud music on the Wednesday night, so the circus acts performed without a musical accompaniment. Live drums and choirs spread throughout the crowds helped make up for the lack of speakers, but mostly the show was a visual spectacular that helped reimagine the type of work that could take place on the festival’s main stage.
The last time Glastonbury opened with a theatre and circus act was 1990.
Glastonbury’s theatre and circus fields feature hundreds of different types of live performance, including almost a hundred roaming street theatre performers, aerialists, more traditional black box theatre and high wire stunts. With cabaret performances going on until the early hours of the morning, the area is a great alternative for nightlife for people who want to avoid the crowds.
The headliners on the Pyramid Stage throughout the rest of the festival included Olivia Rodrigo, The 1975 and Neil Young. Lewis Capaldi returned to the Pyramid Stage for the first time since a bout of tourettes forced him to finish his set midway through in 2023, and on Sunday afternoon, with temperatures nearing 30 degrees Celsius, Rod Stewart played the Legends slot that was filled last year by Shania Twain.