The meeting, which finished in the early hours of this morning (if they'd started earlier yesterday surely they have finished less dramaticly late?) saw Michael Eavis use all his powers of Colin Powel style persuasion having this to say awterwards:

"After losing it last time we were worried, but we did a spanking good presentation. I've never worked so hard as this in my life with getting people to come along and speak at the meeting. It was a really good meeting and we will now concentrate on the problems of the villages for this year's festival. No-one cares more about Pilton (the local area) than I do."

Mendip District Council's Regulatory Board officially granted the application for a licence for Glastonbury Festival 2003 this morning after a vote of 10-4 in favour, with a further vote of 8-2 to raise the total attendance figure to 150,000 after Michael Eavis assured them of provision of several key points:

Crime reduction team
Village liaison manager
Money for extra police (not dodgy rent-a-mob security) in villages
30 new cctv cameras in villages surrounding the festival
10 Mobile phone cctv cameras (?)
One less stage (which one tbc)
Clampdown on car parks
The giant steel Security fence (with or without horses again, tbc)

Glastonbury Festivals Melvin Benn said: "I believe this is the most complete application that has ever been submitted for Glastonbury, a top-class festival which has become part and parcel of British culture."

so now tickets will start being printed and sold, as usual acts won't be confirmed for months yet, but REM are confirmed to headline the first night (at the moment) with persistant rumours of The Rolling Stones being on at some point, and you can expect the usual bunch of jazz/world music acts to dig themselves up to get down to Pilton for the festival, unless it's one of their stages that's been dropped.

Also our sources have this to say: "apparently PJ Harvey is playing new stuff for the mashed up hippies shouting the predictable "get ya babs out darling". Short-arse, pop-genius, Prince (or whatever name he's goin' under now) is rumoured to have the 'veteran' slot. Queens of the Stone Age, Muse, Radiohead, Massive Attack, Dolly Parton and iDLEWiLD are all strongly rumoured to be there too. Oh and you're bound to get that once a year chance to see Jools Holland and Rolf."

The festival takes place on the normal end of June weekend, this year the 27th-29th. Check out glastonburyfestivals.co.uk for up to date info and tickets.

DiScuss: So, will you be going? are you going to wait untill the last minuite to get a ticket like an idiot and find they've all sold out? which stage is going to be dropped? who's going to be playing? do you really care? And why are (large shareholders) Mean fiddler keeping so quiet about this?