Engineers from the Wakefield-based used kit reseller installed the rebuilt 1990 Heidelberg machine on Monday (24 June).
“The organisers contacted us and wanted to buy a folder and we thought it was a really good opportunity – it’s a fantastic project to be involved with,” said Grafitec managing director Chris Barrett.
“It was a very different installation, in the middle of a field, being unloaded by a Manitou fork truck was a bit different and then they pulled down the fence to poke it into the tent.
“We couldn’t take any big 40-foot trucks in there so we had to take the machine in one of our trucks and we were praying it wasn’t muddy, but it did turn out to be dry at the time.”
Moved into a storage area after the festival, the folder will become a permanent fixture in Glastonbury’s print shop, which is on site every year producing the Glastonbury Free Press.
The publication, which features content from a range of writers, copywriters and illustrators, is published on the Thursday and Sunday mornings of the festival and printed on a 1957 Heidelberg OHZ-S cylinder letterpress, which was installed in 2013.
The press, which uses hot metal typesetting, also offers music fans the chance to see how printing by hand is done.
“In between press rolls, our loyal printing posse will be on hand to take small ads and guide the public through the mysteries of the cylinder press,” said organisers on the Glastonbury Festival website.
Glastonbury’s gates opened on Wednesday this week and the festival will conclude on Sunday (30 June).
