'15,000' Join Glastonbury Festival Bid For Human Peace Sign Record

'15,000' Join Glastonbury Festival Bid For Human Peace Sign Record

Thousands of people have joined together to create the largest human peace sign at Glastonbury Festival.

Organisers estimate that up to 15,000 festival-goers and staff took part in the unofficial record attempt at the festival's Stone Circle.

The event was organised in the wake of terror attacks in London and Manchester to send a message of peace to the world.

In 2009, 5,814 people stood together to form the largest human peace sign at the Ithaca Festival in New York.

William Hawk, from Standing Rock, addressed the thousands of people in Glastonbury's Stone Circle and led prayers for victims of recent tragedies.

"We don't need this in our world," he told the crowd. "Peace and love comes about simply by giving peace and love."

SJ Smallpage, 36, who helped organise the event, held an inflatable peace sign with other volunteers from the Sanctuary at the festival.

"I feel very humbled that people have joined together for something that represents everything that is good about Glastonbury, everything that is good about humanity," she said.

"The numbers are awesome, I can't believe how many people are here.

"They were still steaming in through the entrances when it happened. It made my heart sing."

Ms Smallpage set up a Facebook group for the event and was stunned when 7,500 people said they would be attending. But organisers believe double that number actually took part in forming the peace sign.

Ben Harrison, 25, from Oxfordshire, attended the event with his brother, James, 37.

"It is nice to do something that shows the world a signal of peace," he said. "We don't have that opportunity to do that very often."

Aerial pictures of the peace sign were taken by Glastonbury Festival.

Pictures taken from a helicopter on Thursday morning show the one million square metres of public camping on the 900-acre site.

Revellers experienced the hottest day in the event's history on Wednesday, when temperatures reached 31C (87.8F).

South Western Ambulance Service attended 59 incidents, with nine people taken to hospital.

This figure only includes patients treated by the trust's paramedics and not by the medical centre on site.

The weather began to cool on Wednesday evening, and revellers awoke on Thursday to clouds and slight drizzle.

By 9am on Thursday, 100,000 of the 135,000 ticket-holders were already on site.

The main stages at Glastonbury open on Friday but activities such as power ballad yoga and a Frozen sing-along were taking place on Thursday.

Worthy Farm's vintage Heidelberg press has started production for 2017, with the first edition of the Glastonbury Free Press published.

Security at the festival, which will host a population of 200,000, is tighter than in previous years following terror attacks in London and Manchester.

The world-famous event is being headlined by Radiohead, Foo Fighters and Ed Sheeran.

Hollywood star Johnny Depp will make an appearance on Thursday, while Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn will attend on Saturday.

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