Interest in the Big Chill has cooled, Glastonbury is too now commercial... Summer festivals need to get creative andreinvent themselves if they hope to survive, says Lena Corner

Interest in The Big Chill has cooled, Glastonbury is too commercial... Summer music festivals need to get creative and reinvent themselves to survive

Cycling from Land's End to John O'Groats was a tough gig for Warren Howard and his band, and that's before they sang for their supper – and charity – every night as well

Glastonbury Festival organiser Michael Eavis has called for Chinese lanterns to be banned nationwide. Revellers smuggle them into the festival site and send the paper, wire and lit wax candle lanterns into the sky.

Touring was supposed to be the music industry's financial saviour, but now even gigs are losing their allure. So can packing fans on to a cruise liner pay dividends? Gillian Orr finds out

Glastonbury festival organiser Michael Eavis thinks the event could end in "three or four years".

The headliners split the crowds, but this year's Glastonbury showed that the Seventies dream lives on at Worthy Farm

A "gold age power list" of the country's most influential pensioners has been published. The list – which includes The Queen, 85, Sir Alex Ferguson, 70, and Sir Mick Jagger, 67 – aims to challenge stereotypes and misconceptions about older people. It was compiled by the charity WRVS, which said the UK's ageing population was too often seen as a "looming disaster" and a "drain on society".

David Cameron said that a "big rock in my life has suddenly been rolled away" after a senior Conservative was found dead at the Glastonbury Festival.

Bear Grylls and Dave Cameron, fellow Old Etonians – and, like myself, thriving survivors of Boarding School Syndrome – were recently introduced, Grylls tells me at a screening of his new Discovery Channel series Born Survivor. "He was cool, actually," said Grylls with an admirably straight face. "He's got a real presence about him. Politics aside, I thought he was great. Actually not even politics aside: I think his politics are great!"

Muddy mayhem could make an unwelcome return at Glastonbury Festival this week, forecasters warned today.

Can't make it to the Vale of Avalon shindig this year? Never mind! As you slumber in front of the TV, how many of our 50 key predictions can you tick off?

Glastonbury Festival boss Michael Eavis is lamenting the booking of novelty group The Wombles for this year's event - and said it was a mistake.

U2, Coldplay and Beyonce are far too safe a line-up for the enduring pop festival, says Elisa Bray