Glastonbury Glamponers perdono i biglietti e £ 40.000 mentre l’azienda crolla

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*Charlotte Alt | Will Humphries, Southwest Correspondent, May 22 2025, The Times*

**Yurtel is going into liquidation with no sign that guests will get their bed, chauffeur or money back — some may not even be let into the festival**

A luxury glamping provider serving Glastonbury festivalgoers is going into liquidation, leaving its wealthy guests without their yurts or chauffeured rides to the Pyramid Stage.

Yurtel, a pioneer of luxury camping, operated for 17 years and boasted of running “the only luxury camp that can drive our guests straight into the festival to our on-site festival reception”.

The yurts and bell tents, restaurant, cocktail bar and wood-fired hot tubs are beyond the festival’s borders but customers could enjoy a five-minute drive to the hospitality area behind the Pyramid Stage.

Guest chefs who have designed menus at the camp include Thomasina Miers, the MasterChef winner and founder of the Wahaca restaurant chain, and Ravinder Bhogal, who is behind the Jikoni restaurant in London.

Glamping sites that are not part of Glastonbury can pay the organisers for an allocation of hospitality tickets to offer to guests, but the festival said that Yurtel had not paid for any tickets prior to entering liquidation, so no tickets were secured for their guests.

Yurtel’s founder, Mickey Luke, 49, whose full name is Michael Geoffrey Paul Suenson-Luke, lives in Bath with his wife, who is a jeweller, and their three children.

The company’s registered office address was a £2 million grade II listed detached home in the village of St Catherine, on the outskirts of Bath.

**‘Tickets have not been purchased on your behalf’**

The company dealing with the liquidation emailed customers on Monday afternoon to say it could not fulfil “any ticket and accommodation bookings” because Yurtel “ceased normal trading operations on May 8, 2025, due to insolvency and will commence formal liquidation shortly”.

The email said: “Tickets to enter the festival have not been purchased on your behalf.”

Customers have also been told by the liquidators they cannot get a refund from the company because “Yurtel did not hold customer monies in trust” as they “formed part of the company’s operating capital”.

**‘We might have to pay another £40,000’**

Alice, 32, from Ormskirk, Lancashire, and her partner were looking forward to their tenth Glastonbury when they got the news. “If we just lost out on the yurt with a nice bed and a nice shower, that’s fine, but we’d lost our actual ticket,” she said. “When I found out I just burst into tears. I was at work as well — it was awful.

“Last year we stayed at Yurtel and it was fabulous, honestly. They drive you to the festival each day and you get a proper bed, there’s hot showers, toilets and of course you’ve got the tickets included. It was great.”

Her father paid £40,000 this year for three yurts and six hospitality tickets. Alice said Yurtel only accepted bank transfer as payment so there was no chance to get their money back through their credit card company.

“[We’ve been told] you need to get in touch with Glastonbury and see what alternatives they can offer,” Alice said. “Apparently, Glastonbury has asked other glamping sites to make additional accommodation available for people affected … but we would have to pay again, roughly the same price.”

Alice said they were willing to pay for alternative accommodation this year if they could find it. “We’re using a credit card this time,” she said. Asked why the festival was worth such a high price, she said: “It’s just the most amazing place in the world and there’s no way to describe it until you go.

“It’s more than the music, it’s about the food, there’s theatre, the circus, there’s a whole kids’ field, it’s the size of 500 football pitches. This will be the tenth time I’ve been and there’s still over 50 per cent of the festival that I’ve not seen. It’s just a great place to spend five days.”

**The rise of glamping**

Alice said there has been a boom in glamping sites local to the festival in recent years. “When I first started going there were maybe two, maybe three, but I think there’s about 15 now,” she said.

“These glamping places rent the land and they can do what they want with it. The more and more that keep popping up like this, the more this is going to happen in the future. It’s not the ethos of the festival.”

Glastonbury Festival said it was “sorry to learn” that Yurtel Limited had appointed liquidators but that it had no involvement with its operation.

The festival said: “Anyone who has paid Yurtel for a package including Glastonbury 2025 tickets will need to pursue any potential recompense available from them via the liquidation process as outlined in their communication to you. We are not able to incur the cost or responsibility of their loss or replacement.”

Customers are being told to contact yurtel@btguk.com to confirm their consent for them to share their details with the festival so they can help find alternative sources for tickets and accommodation.

The company’s most recently available accounts, up to October 2023, show they had £570,000 in cash and about £760,000 in debt. The company said it had £117,000 of tangible fixed assets.

In the accounts, which did not have to be audited because of the small size of the company, Suenson-Luke said he was “confident of the company’s ability to continue as a going concern”, adding: “This is with the support of the director and his associated companies.”

His events company Eclat Events Ltd, of which he is the sole director, reported capital and reserves of £150,000 in its unaudited accounts in March 2024.

Another events company, Riot Events, of which he is a co-director, had capital and reserves of £160,000 in March 2024.

Suenson-Luke is also co-director of Your Audience Ltd, a public relations, events and advertising agency, which reported net assets of £90,000 in October 2023 in its unaudited accounts.

Glastonbury is headlined this year by the 1975, Neil Young and Olivia Rodrigo. Rod Stewart fills the Sunday afternoon “legend slot”.

“Alice said Yurtel only accepted bank transfer as payment so there was no chance to get their money back through their credit card company.”

Just a cheeky wee £40k bank transfer that comes with no protection if anything goes wrong. Fools.

“It’s the size of 500 football pitches. This will be the tenth time I’ve been and there’s still over 50 per cent of the festival that I’ve not seen. It’s just a great place to spend five days.”

Alice, finally making it to the Pyramid Stage on Friday night, was disappointed to find The White Stripes were not headlining, “What you mean the band – and stalls – change every year???”

Alice said they were willing to pay for alternative accommodation this year if they could find it. “We’re using a credit card this time,” she said. “We’d hate to robbed.”

Paying forty thousand pounds a ticket Alice was asked she’d pay for it again, “Oh yeah, triple – and this time, we’re taking out M&S insurance – to be on the safe side”.