Andrew J Miller brought his unique style to the Diner & Rocket Loungscockpits in 2022

Sign writing for all Diner and Rocket signs by Andy Pyett, assisted often by Bruce Coker

Every year we get a new artist to paint to the nosecones, Banksy being the first. In 2023  our artist was the phenonomen that is SLAWN. 

​This year's artist to be announced soon...

The Diner Cockpits

In June 2005 a truck with the cockpits from 2 Airbus BAe 146 pulled onto Worthy Farm as it prepared for that year’s Glastonbury Festival.  Allister Boote found them at Bournemouth Airport for us when we asked him to find us some aero scrap.

They unloaded in front of The Deluxe Diner, part of the Lost Vagueness area.  One was converted into a bar, and the other had a Perspex floor put in and became home to the table football. We wanted some art work on the side, inspired by the Nose cone art of the second world war and we managed to persuade   Banksy to do it - he painted Marylyn Monroe with a can of Special Brew and a black tooth.

The cockpits were a big hit immediately, and Vogue even did a photo shoot in them that year.  Since then they have been repainted many times by many artists, and are a constantly evolving piece.

The planes then travelled up to Lewes where they appeared at the Lost Vagueness festival in 2005  before returning to Pilton for the 2007 Glastonbury Festival.  That year the Diner was part of Trash City, and the cockpits were duly mutated by Joe Rush of the Mutoid Waste Co. The side cowling from that mutation still exists.

In 2008, they returned to their old spot right next door to Shangri La, which replaced Lost Vagueness for the first time and has since become a permanent fixture. This and subsequent years saw various additions to the artwork, including the pink flames and Cat Scobie's rocket girl in 2009, and red flames painted by Rory in 2010.

In 2012 they were taken to London, where they were intended to be part of the ill-starred London Pleasure Gardens project. Whilst in the capital, one was painted by the the LA artist Risk, and the other by another US-artist, Ron English. English brought the Banksy back to life with fresh paint and renewd hot-rod flames, but Banksy never much liked the piece so it was eventually painted over and a Ron English print pasted over the top which didn't last very long.

In 2013 the planes returned to Glastonbury once again, where Pure Evil decorated them both, painting right over the top of the Banksy. Ron English's piece featuring the cow remained on the opposite side.

In 2014, the Spanish artist Ricardo Cavolo painted an amazing piece over Pure Evil's work. This remained until 2017 by which time it was suffering badly from exposure to the weather and was painted over by Sickboy. Following the fallow year of 2018, Kedals added his own contribution to what remained of Sickboy's pieces.

2022 marked a new beginning, both for the festival after the covid pandemic and for the cockpits, with Andrew J Millar the latest artist to inspire with the creativity he brought to these legendary pieces of machinery.

Andrew is a British artist whose work usually incorporates a variety of print and photographic processes. Andrew combines the light-sensitive properties of the polaroid with precious metal leaf and colourful acrylic to create his striking and unique collages. 

In 2023 we had upcoming Nigerian artist Olaolu Slawn paint the nosecones in his signature style. Slawn has a cult following for his art and cafe in East London which has become a cultural hub. In 2022 he became the youngest ever artist to design the Brit Award.