Tales of Michael Eavis working serious overtime to convince The Rolling Stones to play Glastonbury 2013 were over the top.

The Somerset farmer says the only sticking point about getting Jagger to do his elastic dancing on the Pyramid stage was finding a year to fit into the band’s schedule.

The hardest he worked to convince an artist to perform was with 1980s new wave trio the Thompson Twins.

“Years and years ago I got on a train and then a double-decker bus to chase after the Thompson Twins,” he explains ahead of his appearance at The Space in Brighton next week.

“I went all the way down Station Road on this double-decker bus, miles and miles and miles, and got into the offices, where a chap called Andy was waiting. He said, ‘It’s bad news. They’ve cancelled all their dates.’ So that wasn’t very good.

“They were a good band but the whole thing folded up. They were stressed, I think. Mind you, they weren’t as stressed as I was!”

He howls with laughter, then potters away from the phone. The postman has arrived. He’s holding packages Eavis has to sign for. There’s more banter in the farmhouse, which sounds like bedlam. On his return he reveals the Thompson Twins never made it.

“I had to come all the way back on the same bus and the same train. I didn’t get back til midnight and I didn’t even have the band.”

Nowadays, booking artists is all conference calls and email conversations. A three-way meeting with Jay Z’s manager and agent made for a tricky charm offensive.

A classic British guitar band, such as Radiohead, Oasis or Coldplay, was his preferred booking that year (2008). When it turned out they were doing other things, Eavis turned to his daughter, Emily, now Glastonbury Festival co-organiser, for advice. She suggested the US rapper.

“I phoned them and it went on for 45 minutes but I persuaded them to do it. His guy was saying, ‘We are city guys. You lot come from the Welsh mountains.’ “I said, ‘What? We aren’t even in Wales!’ I could see where they were coming from – they are from Brooklyn, New York City, so they thought we were country folk and farmers – all that sort of thing.

“Anyway, I talked them into it.”

The 150,000 tickets for 2008 sold slowly, only selling out at the last minute. Eavis calls it “my worst experience of all the years”.

As ever, Noel Gallagher had a view. He said booking Jay Z was “wrong” because the festival was “built on a tradition of guitar music”.

Eavis refutes the idea.

“Jay Z was an incredible success in the end. It was something different. And we’ve turned a page on the Anglo-Saxon stuff, haven’t we? We caught up with youth culture. We gave people what they wanted. Jay Z has been enormous in Europe ever since but the public are slow to catch on, that’s the trouble.”

Hubris? Maybe. Maybe not. It’s difficult to disagree with Eavis when he calls the festival the market leader – even if such terminology seems incongruous with his image as socially- conscious Methodist and dairy farmer.

In a tough year, Glastonbury sells out and, with staff and volunteers, 200,000 people move in for the event over 1,200 acres of farmland. Eavis says it’s because people like the ethos.

“There are not shareholders and we give away the profits and reinvest. The ethos is what saved us. That is our biggest asset. People like that in this day and age of business and hardcore capitalism. This is a more gentle approach to business and commerce.”

Getting artists to play “is a doddle because everyone wants to play".

“But you can’t assume it’s going to sell out. We need to sell 150,000 tickets to make it work. We give £2 million to charity and we’re involved in lots of social projects in Somerset.”

Arguably the biggest turning point in recent years has been the installation of the fence.

“We needed a fence. After 2000 there were just too many people here. We had to get a proper fence. I knew within days. It was just uncontrollable and dangerous.

“That same year, nine people died at Roskilde festival [in Denmark] when they got crushed in a big crowd. That was scary. I was scared, so we needed that fence.”

Still, many music fans believe we’ve seen the heyday of UK music festivals.

“I said this a few years ago and all the other promoters started screaming at me. But I thought it was on the way down. I still think it is, but we are in the fortunate position to be capturing good headliners. And we have a 44-year reputation to live up to.

“But I am not sure whether there is a market for 400 events. A lot of those are going to go down. I don’t know which ones. I am not confident it will go on for ever.”

He’s aiming to be around for Glasto’s 50th anniversary, though, which will be in 2020. Before then there’s the small matter of 2014, whose confirmed artists so far are Arcade Fire, Dolly Parton, Lily Allen, Disclosure, Blondie, The Black Keys, Lana Del Rey and Warpaint.

  • Michael Eavis will be in conversation with Lisa Holloway for The Space, at Emporium, London Road, Brighton, on Thursday, April 10. He will be joined by film visual effects artist May Leung, who has worked on films including The Dark Knight Rises, Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince and Inception. Starts 8pm, tickets £10. Visit www.thespace.uk.com