Costs and administrative expenses wiped out almost all the festival’s sales receipts recorded last year

The company behind the Glastonbury festival has declared a pre-tax profit of only £764,000 after costs and administrative expenses wiped out almost all of the £35m of sales recorded last year, when the sell-out event saw headline performances from Arctic Monkeys and the Rolling Stones.

Among the costs to the business, which is owned by Michael Eavis, on whose family farm in Somerset the event takes place, were a string of payments to companies linked to him and his relatives totalling just over £2.6m. These payments included compensation for loss of farming earnings, land rent, Pyramid stage hire, staff costs and management fees.

During the year Eavis’s business also made £348,000 of charitable donations.

The festival firm had made a loss of £544,000 for 2012, when Eavis declared a “fallow year” to allow Worthy Farm and event organisers to take a rest. Glastonbury 2012 was reportedly cancelled in part because of a sharp rise in the cost of hiring portable toilets in the same summer as the London Olympics.

Accounts for 2013, filed with Companies House this week, show that by the end of the year the Glastonbury festival had taken advance ticket sales for this year’s event of £6.58m, or £7.9m including VAT. This was an increase from advance ticket sales for Glastonbury 2013, which had been £5.6m, or £6.72m including VAT. Glastonbury 2014, which took place in June, featured Arcade Fire, Kasabian and Dolly Parton.

Last week 135,000 tickets for Glastonbury 2015 sold out, yet again in record time, despite the price of £225 and no confirmed acts announced. It has been rumoured that Fleetwood Mac and Queen might make appearances.