The return of Glastonbury Festival after a year off feels like “a big family reunion”, according to organiser Emily Eavis.

Headliners for this summer’s event include The Rolling Stones – performing at their first-ever Glastonbury, Arctic Monkeys and Mumford & Sons, who still plan to take to the stage despite their bassist’s recent hospitalisation for a blood clot.

About 135,000 music fans are expected at the festival which is held at Worthy Farm, a 364-hectare site in Pilton, Somerset.

The last Glastonbury Festival was held in 2011, with a year’s break for the Olympics and to allow the land to recover.

Eavis, who runs Glastonbury with her father Michael, said she had to pinch herself when thinking of this year’s star signing.

The work that the Gyuto Monks do in the West has my full support- Dalai Lama

She told the Press Association: “We still can’t quite believe they’re doing it. The Stones at Worthy Farm! We’ve always wanted them to come and play but with a band like that, you never really expect it to happen.

“I still get a shiver thinking about the moment we got the call after all the waiting saying ‘it’s on’.

“I think people expect these huge headliners, but actually we don’t have a blank cheque to offer – so we rely on people really wanting to do it for the love of it and that makes it even more special for us.”

Tickets for this year’s festival, which cost £205 (€240) each, sold out in a record one hour and 40 minutes. Other highlights fans can expect are appearances from Primal Scream, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Smashing Pumpkins, Elvis Costello, The xx, Public Enemy, Professor Green and Dizzee Rascal.

As usual, the festival is also offering some more unusual acts alongside the chart toppers – with Sir Bruce Forsyth playing on the Avalon Stage on Sunday, country star Kenny Rogers taking to the main Pyramid Stage the same day, and the Dalai Lama’s Tibetan monks appearing on Thursday, the day before the main musical performances begin.

The Gyuto Monks of Tibet, who live in exile in north India, will be performing chants at the Green Fields site to mark the 100th anniversary of the Tibetan declaration of independence and will also be making a sand mandala, a ceremonial sculpture of coloured sand which is dissolved upon completion.

The Dalai Lama himself has given his support for the monks’ performance, saying: “The work that the Gyuto Monks do in the West has my full support.”

Festival-goers should look out for special treats during the Glastonbury weekend, said Eavis, but she added that there would be no “secret acts” on the Park Stage. In past years, The Park, cultivated by Eavis herself, has seen unannounced performances from some of the biggest names in music, with Pulp and Radiohead attracting huge crowds in 2011.

She said: “We haven’t booked in any ‘special guest’ slots on the Park Stage this year as it was starting to become a bit too predictable. But as always, there will be a few surprises happening around the festival over the weekend, so be alert!”

As well as the three main music stages, there are more than 20 other areas for festival-goers to explore, each with their own individual character.

Also appearing on the Pyramid will be Rita Ora, Jake Bugg, Rufus Wainwright and festival veteran Billy Bragg.

Big names on the Other Stage include Portishead – almost 20 years after they released their debut album Dummy – along with Mercury Prize-winners Alt-J and John Lydon’s band PiL.

The Lumineers, Alabama Shakes and Foals are also included on the bill.

Elsewhere on the huge rural site there will be performances by 1970s’ disco pioneers Chic, Tom Tom Club, Dinosaur Jr, The Horrors and Johnny Marr.

The festival in numbers

135,000 – The number of tickets sold for this year’s festival.

1 hour and 40 minutes – The amount of time it took for them to sell out.

205 – The cost of a ticket in pounds, plus booking fee, in 2013.

1 – The cost of a ticket in pounds at the inaugural festival in 1970. And free milk was thrown in.

57 – The number of officially listed stages at the event. There are thousands of performances listed on the official line-up with poetry readings, comedy, circus acts and speeches taking place alongside the music.

600 – The cost in pounds, not including entry to the festival, of a five-person pre-erected yurt at Worthy View, the new off-site camping area.

3,225 – The number of loos on-site.

300 – The number of people who work to keep the loos usable over the duration of the festival.

11 million – The number of litres of water expected to be used on the site over the main five days of the event. There are over 150 hand basins, and a further 100-plus taps for drinking and washing.

0 – The total number of legal marriages at this year’s Glastonbury. The festival is not a licensed venue, but there is often the chance for couples to take part in non-legally binding “blessings”.

8.5 – The perimeter of the site in miles. The festival is set across 364 hectares in the myth-rich Vale of Avalon. It is more than a mile and a half across, so factoring in the crowds, bottlenecks, day-long hangovers and the possibility of either cloying mud or draining sunshine, it can take a long time to get around.

1,300 – The number of recycling volunteers who will work on the site, most of them giving their service in exchange for a ticket.

780,000 – The cost in pounds of disposing of all the rubbish left at the festival. If Water Aid – one of the charities which benefits from Glasto – were given that money it would allow 52,000 people in poor countries to access safe water.

350 – The number of cows who normally wander the fields of Worthy Farm. They will be tucked out of harm’s way for the duration of the event.

Colourful moments

There have been many colourful moments in Glastonbury Festival’s 43-year history – although some fans may argue that if people can remember them, they were not really there.

Here are a few tales of Glastonbury past:

1970: Marc Bolan of T-Rex was one of the headline acts at the event, then known as the Pilton Festival, in its first year, when tickets were £1 and free milk from the farm was included in the price. He arrived in a velvet-covered car but when festival organiser Michael Eavis approached and tried to stroke it, Bolan is said to have screamed at him: “Don’t touch my car, man.”

1978: Travellers arrived at the site fresh from Stonehenge, having heard that something was taking place – despite the fact there had been no Pilton Festival since 1971. After much discussion, a free mini-festival took place, with the stage powered by an electric motor in a caravan, with the cable running to the stage. Some 500 attended, staying at Worthy Farm for 10 days, in what became known as the “impromptu” festival. A more organised event was held the following year.

1982: Fresh from their first taste of chart success, girl group Bananarama played Glastonbury in 1982. Legend has it that backstage they asked for somewhere they could wash but, because there was no running water, they were instead handed a bowl of water.

1984: Mancunian masters of miserable The Smiths played through a hail of gladioli and scores of fans made it on to the stage to drape themselves over lead singer Morrissey.

1989: Both Suzanne Vega and bassist Mike Visceglia received threats in the days leading up to the festival, saying they would be shot at while on stage. But the pair refused to pull out. Both wore bulletproof vests – but a gunman did not show up.

1995: Sheffield band Pulp was called up late in the day after The Stone Roses had to pull out when guitarist John Squire broke his collarbone in a mountain biking accident. But, despite the disappointment of some, Pulp played an acclaimed set and went on to become one of Britpop’s biggest successes.

1995: Fresh from quitting boyband Take That, Robbie Williams was eager to work on his rock star image. He even persuaded Britpop champions Oasis to let him on stage to dance along with them – but it backfired, with the Guardian describing the episode as “more than faintly pathetic”.

1997: Troubled by equipment failure and cold, wet weather, Radiohead called this one of their most difficult performances. But Eavis called it Glastonbury’s finest ever set.

2004: Young and old, punk or hippie, everyone enjoyed a sing-along with Sir Paul McCartney, who played plenty of Beatles classics.

2008: American rapper Jay-Z caused controversy when picked as a headliner, attracting the scorn of Oasis guitarist Noel Gallagher. His presence was also blamed for slower ticket sales. But when he took the stage – opening with his own version of Wonderwall – the crowd were mesmerised.

2009: Determined to wow the crowd, Bruce Springsteen landed the event’s organisers with a £3,000 (€3,513) fine for running 40 minutes over the strict curfew with his 25-song set.

2011: Pop superstar Beyoncé won over her critics with a spellbinding set on the Pyramid Stage, with even the hardest of cynics dancing along to hits including Single Ladies.