Planning for any big festival takes a sufficient amount of organising before the partying starts, but Glastonbury is an entirely different beast.

The UK’s world famous music festival returns for yet another year from Wednesday 26 to Sunday 30 June, where Dua Lipa, Coldplay and SZA are all set to headline on the iconic Pyramid stage.

With the annual bash kicking off this week, some 200,000 festival goers are preparing to descend on Worthy Farm.

Here’s everything you need to know to prepare – including the weather forecast…

Most car parks at the festival will be open from 9pm on Tuesday 25 June, although it’s worth pointing out that festival-goers are not allowed to camp in them. If you’re willing, you could get there nice and early to secure a good parking spot – but that will mean waiting in either your vehicle or the entrance queue overnight.

Most people travel to the site on Wednesday, which is why it’s usually the worst day of the five-day stretch in terms of traffic delays. Thursday is significantly quieter, but that does mean you would miss the initial excitement of the festival, and, of course, potentially your preferred camping spot.

Entering and leaving the festival on Friday and Saturday is usually quite easy because it’s already the middle of the extravaganza, so traffic levels are quite low.

The National Highways’ emergency planner for the South West, John Ingram has previously encouraged festival-goers to “check our traffic and travel information channels” and to “set off early and allow plenty of time”.

He added that warm weather means it’s worth “pre-checking your vehicles for oil, fuel and coolant levels” as well as correctly inflated tyres.

Travel with drinking water too, and don’t forget to take breaks!

The busiest road is usually the M5, particularly junctions 25 and 23.

But, the A39 and A361 get pretty full too on the peak travel days.

The A303 and A37 are the main ways for drivers to travel from London too, especially the A303 eastbound.

However, the actual village of Glastonbury is five miles away from the site meaning it’s normally pretty undisturbed by the excitement of the music festival.

If you’re dropping people off, try to avoid doing so on local roads as that can lead to more build-ups (and can mean a long trek to the actual event).

Instead, try using the Bath and West Showground as a drop-off spot – festival-goers can jump on the free bus to Pedestrian Gate A.

Traffic starts to build up again on Sunday, with many choosing to leave after the headline act finishes up.

And this congestion only gets worse through Monday, with experts arriving setting off at around 6am as the optimum time (4pm is apparently the “worst time” to start that long journey home).

According to the Met Office, Glastonbury is looking like a dry one this year. For the most part, at least…

You’re going to need to lay sunscreen on thick for day one, as sunny intervals are expected throughout the day – with highs of 27°C.

Things will cool down by Thursday, with highs of 19°C, and cloud cover forecasted for most of the day (still, don’t forget that SPF!). There’s also a 50% chance of rain from around 1pm.

The Met predicts “sunny intervals changing to partly cloudy” and a high of 17°C by 1pm, but the farm should remain dry as Dua Lipa takes to the stage as the festival’s first headliner.

There should be some sun early Saturday, but cloud cover is expected by late morning. However, there will still be highs of 20°C and – thankfully! – no rain predicted.

The final day of the festival might just be the most pleasant weather-wise, as temperatures are expected to reach 19°C at 1pm and the sun is out for most of the day.

Thankfully things are looking dry for the packing up too, and by midday there will probably be some cloud cover. But still expect sunny intervals and a temperature high of 19°C by 1pm.

The sale of this year’s Glastonbury tickets has been pushed back just hours before they were due to be released.

On Thursday evening, tickets including coach travel for the annual music event were supposed to go on sale at 6pm, with general sale tickets scheduled to be available from Sunday 5 November.

However, organisers confirmed in the afternoon that the sale had been delayed by two weeks to “ensure that everyone who would like to buy a ticket is registered and therefore eligible to purchase one”.

It’s also been confirmed that coach tickets will go on sale from Thursday 16 November at 6pm, followed by general release on Sunday 19 November at 9am.

In a lengthy statement, the festival explained: “Following this year’s Festival, we alerted everyone with a registration which pre-dated 2020 of a scheduled review of the details held by See Tickets in the Glastonbury Festival registration database.

“This was in order to ensure that the details we hold are current and that we do not store individuals’ information for any longer than is necessary.”

“These registrants were asked to take action to confirm their registration if they wished to keep it,” the statement continued.

“As always, registration was then closed on Monday (30 October) ahead of the ticket sale. Unfortunately, it has come to light that some individuals hoping to buy tickets for 2024 have discovered after Monday’s registration deadline that they are no longer registered, despite believing they were.

“Out of fairness to those individuals, we will be re-opening the window for registration at 12 noon on Monday, 6 November. It will remain open until 5pm on Monday, 13 November.

“We urge everyone hoping to buy a ticket to Glastonbury 2024 to either check their existing registration now or submit new registration, which remains free of charge […] from 12 noon on Monday.”

They added: “We apologise for the late change to the ticket sale dates, but we want to ensure that everyone who would like to buy a ticket for next year’s Festival is able to confirm their registration ahead of the sale.”

Next year’s Glastonbury event will take place from 26-30 June 2024, at the event’s usual site, Worthy Farm.

Information about which acts will be taking to the stage is yet to be confirmed, but that hasn’t stopped rumours from swirling, with Bruce Springsteen and Madonna among the latest stars tipped to be performing.

Emily Eavis previously teased that two of next year’s Pyramid Stage headliners are women, neither of whom have performed at the event before, after the festival was criticised over its line-up in 2023.