Will Glastonbury Festival Stand with Abused Animals by Renaming Pyramid Stage?
25 June 2025
Will Glastonbury Festival Stand with Abused Animals by Renaming Pyramid Stage?
Glastonbury, Somerset – Ahead of this year’s Glastonbury Festival, PETA sent a letter to co-organiser Emily Eavis with a creative request: rename the iconic Pyramid Stage, which was explicitly modelled after the Great Pyramid of Giza, to The Sanctuary Stage in solidarity with horses and camels suffering in the tourism industry at the Egyptian site.
PETA Asia’s latest investigation into the historic site documented handlers violently beating exhausted horses and camels who are forced to haul tourists in the blistering heat and without shade. Injured and malnourished horses were seen eating from rubbish dumps, and the bodies of dead horses were found discarded at rubbish heaps outside the Giza pyramids. Camels considered too old, sick, or injured to be useful were often hauled to a slaughterhouse, where their throats were slit while they were still conscious. One camel on video can be seen continuing to kick for agonising minutes after her throat has been cut.
“Renaming The Pyramid Stage, an iconic piece of festival architecture, to The Sanctuary Stage will remind adventurous, compassionate festivalgoers that it’s cruel to climb onto the backs of abused animals and that the horses and camels abused in Egypt deserve to live out their lives in safety at a sanctuary,” writes PETA Vice President of Programmes Elisa Allen. “We’re sure you’ll agree that this compassionate name much better fits Glastonbury’s spirit of freedom, empathy, and respect.”
UK-based Aero Travel just became the most recent company to drop horse and camel rides from its tours after hearing from PETA, joining more than 50 other businesses that won’t promote or sell animal rides at the pyramids, including Airbnb, Audley Travel, British Airways Holidays, easyJet holidays, Exodus Adventure Travels, Flash Pack, Hays Travel, Marriott, Scott Dunn, and Travel Republic. PETA is now calling on Stubborn Mule Travel and On The Go Tours to do the same.
PETA – whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to abuse in any way” – points out that Every Animal Is Someone and offers free Empathy Kits. For more information, please visit PETA.org.uk or follow PETA on Facebook, X, TikTok, or Instagram.
Contact:
Lucy Watson +44 (0) 20 7837 6327; [email protected]
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