Twelve months have flown by and once again the gates have opened onto The Glastonbury Festival. The best part of 200,000 people is expected to attend over the duration of the event at Worthy Farm to see and listen to acts as diverse as Metallica and Dolly Parton.

Queues began to form before dawn this morning as the pedestrian gates opened. However, I hope that they have all packed waterproofs and wellingtons as it looks likely that they are going to facing a wet weekend, with heavy downpours predicted for the area on Thursday, which means they face in all likelihood a mudbath on Friday. On the bright side the predicted rain is not expected to be like that which came down in 2005 when flash flooding left areas of the site under water, but more showers are expected on both Saturday and Sunday.

If you are putting up your tent on site the advice is to get it done early as conditions on the first day are going to be best, with the ground not too hard, and the dry conditions continuing into the evening, but on Friday the rain will arrive.

A number of lesser known acts begin performing today on the smaller stages but on Friday bigger names take to the stage with the likes of Lily Allen and Blondie on the bill. Topping this on Friday night are Arcade Fire, the indie-rock band from Canada whose live sets often include glitter cannons and fake palm trees.

When the legend that is Dolly Parton performs her set the audience is being encouraged to perform a special dance routine when she plays her signature tune ‘Jolene’, and instructions and video have been posted online so they can get some practice.

Organisers have asked everyone this year to avoid bringing plastic bottles of water with them this year as part of a project to make Glastonbury the UK’s most environmentally friendly music festival. Almost a million bottles were thrown away during last year’s festival so this year reusable bottles are being given to staff and performers, with more on sale to those attending the festival, and four hundred drinking water taps have been provided across the site as well. Although with the predicted weather you might be able to fill them up simply by holding them in the air.