He was speaking as he picked up an award for environmental work at the Midem music conference in France. "You'll be amazed when you hear the headliners we've got coming this year, and we've already sold 90% of the tickets for this year already," he said. He was honoured with the Green World Award at the Midem music conference for the festival's history of environmental fundraising and ecological initiatives. The festival raises money for Greenpeace, Oxfam and Water Aid, while Mr Eavis' other green measures include recycling food waste on the working dairy farm, meaning he has not needed to use chemical fertilisers for almost 40 years.
The event also recycles 1,000 tonnes of rubbish a year, has introduced biodegradable tent pegs and sent seven tonnes of abandoned Wellington boots to be used in Senegal. "And they used every single one of them," Mr Eavis said.
Opera Crunch - New York's Metropolitan Opera has cancelled major productions and must find further cuts to avoid financial crisis, its general manager has warned. Peter Gelb told the New York Times the value of Met funds had dropped from $300m (£200.8m) to $100m (£66.9m). Donations for 2008/2009 were down by $10m (£6.7m) with ticket sales likely to fall several million dollars short of predictions, he said. Senior staff already taken 10% pay cuts, he added. The rest of the staff would be asked to do the same at the end of April. Mr Gelb would also be asking principal singers to perform for less money, he said. "The economic crisis has had an effect on all cultural institutions and the Met is no exception. It's affected our endowment, it's affected our cash flow, it's affected our revenue streams - what we don't want is for it to affect our artistic productivity."
Awards Latest - Kylie Minogue will present the Brit Awards alongside Gavin and Stacey stars James Corden and Mathew Horne. Kings of Leon, Duffy, Girls Aloud and the Pet Shop Boys are among the stars who will appear on the night. U2 will also be performing at the awards, which will be held at London's Earls Court on 18 February. Brits committee chairman Ged Doherty said the show was going to be a "must-see event". Nominations for the awards will be announced today. Last year's big winners were Take That, who scooped best live act and best British single.
Folk Revival - British 1960s folk singer Donovan has received a prestigious cultural honour from the French government. The hippy icon, whose hits included Mellow Yellow, Hurdy Gurdy Man and Sunshine Superman, was made an Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters. French culture minister Christine Albanel pinned the medal to Donovan's long dark purple velvet jacket during the ceremony in Cannes. Other recipients of the award have included Bob Dylan, Salman Rushdie and Kylie Minogue.
Donovan, 62, is also working with US film director David Lynch to encourage meditation in schools as a way to improve pupils' concentration and behaviour. "David and I have been travelling the world and we're raising millions of dollars and we're putting the programme into schools," he said. "60,000 students around the world are now meditating in schools for 10 minutes in the morning, 10 minutes in the afternoon. The whole school is meditating. It reduces fear and anxiety and doubt."
(Jim Evans)
