After restocking his display of Mars bars and muffins, John Sutton shuffles across to the hot water dispenser and begins making a cup of tea.
"I haven't done many of these so far today," he laughs. "But I think I'm going to get plenty of practice."
For one week each year, John and friend Karen Vinnell run a kiosk in the car park of Castle Cary railway station in Somerset.
And it is a decent money-spinner - doling out chocolate and sandwiches, hot drinks and water to many of the 20,000 people expected to use the station to get to and then depart from the Glastonbury Festival, held just a couple of miles down the road.
'Fantastic'
After days of music, mayhem, and maybe mud, weary festival goers are unlikely to dwell too much on who sold them that hot drink as they were waiting for a train home.
But when it is all over - and life in the area returns to its more typically sleepy state - John will go back to work, teaching first aid and training lifeguards.
Karen's thoughts, meanwhile, will turn back to her army of paperboys and girls who deliver free newspapers and leaflets in the area.
"This is great fun because the people are fantastic," says John as he helps newly arrived punters with directions to the shuttle buses that will take them to the festival site at Pilton.
"And isn't it strange that it just happens to be this week that I tend not to have any other work."
Job generation
This seemingly inconsequential story about a small kiosk, two friendly locals, and a stack of sugary food and drink gives a small insight into the peculiar economy that is the Glastonbury Festival - one that is estimated to have generated more than £73m at last year's event, with local businesses among the main beneficiaries.
"We do far better during the Goddess Conference and the Crop Circle Symposium than we do during Glastonbury"
The economic report, commissioned by Mendip District Council, suggests that in the local authority's area alone, the economic benefit was about £35m last year.
This, it says, was the equivalent of generating more than 900 jobs, as local and self-employed trades people have enough guaranteed work to ensure their business can be viably based within the local area throughout the year.
And as the train station kiosk perhaps demonstrates, the report concludes that the festival creates a greater than average entrepreneurial culture among local residents and businesses.
Fruits of labour
Several local firms are geared up primarily for the festival - from offering luxury boutique camping to running helicopters that ferry artists in and out of the site.
But many smaller traders are also taking short-term opportunities to be involved.
Glastonbury-based firms, including Blue Note Cafe and arts and craft shop Gallery Eight, are trading with their own stalls on the festival site.
And in Shepton Mallet, about three miles from Pilton, Suzie Nixon's Right Price DIY is doing a good trade in the tents, camping chairs and wellies she has ordered in for the occasion.
Meanwhile, as he carries crates of coriander and basil into the back of his Fruition greengrocer shop, Tim Bates explains that while he was too late in applying to run a salad bar on site, he is instead supplying two large caterers with their fresh fruit and vegetables, most of which is locally sourced.
"Apart from the day before it all starts and the day afterwards, the town is absolutely dead and the roads are quieter than on a wet Sunday morning"
"It's wonderful that local companies can tie in with the festival economy and everyone gains," he says.
"If a truck is coming from Covent Garden Market it's going to be much less flexible to the requirements of the caterer than somebody local.
"It's great to be on site and see so many trucks with local names on the side. The net benefits are so positive."
Wrong image
However not all businesses are feeling so involved in having perhaps the world's most famous music event on their doorstep.
In the monastic splendour of Glastonbury Abbey, festival goers are offered 2-for-1 admission and a chance to "chill out" somewhere a touch more tranquil than in front of the Pyramid Stage.
But having seen trade fall by 43% during the two weeks of last year's festival, its custodian Matthew Clements is not overly optimistic that it will be enough.
Even a concert held in the abbey grounds, organised and paid for by the festival's founder Michael Eavis, does not cover the lost trade, he adds.
"Just look at this," Mr Clements says, running a finger down a list of bookings, shaking his head ruefully.
"Normally we have about 250 school children coming to visit us every week. But it is only 30 this week and the next it's zero - absolutely none at all."
The reason, it seems, is partly the perceived risk of school children bumping into inebriated festival goers or, perhaps worse, Amy Winehouse.
"We had plenty of bookings for this fortnight but then schools called to cancel," says Mr Clements.
"They said that that when parents found out they were due to visit while the festival was on they would not be happy - so the teachers didn't have a choice."
And then there is the widely acknowledged problem of people assuming that the festival is actually held in the town of Glastonbury, rather than some seven miles away.
"There's a commonly held perception that because there's such a large event, the roads will be jammed, the town will be filled and it will be a place to stay away from," Mr Clements says.
"But that's not true at all. Apart from the day before it all starts and the day afterwards the town is absolutely dead and the roads are quieter than on a wet Sunday morning."
Despite festival organisers trying to get the message across that Glastonbury itself is very much "open for business", it is something all acknowledge will take time.
Charity boost
Meanwhile, at Beckets Inn on Glastonbury High Street, trade is slow.
"This used to be one of our busiest times," says Brigid Crome, standing behind the near-deserted bar.
"Now it's probably our quietest time, which is very, very sad.
"We do far better during the Goddess Conference and the Crop Circle Symposium."
And right on the edge of the site, the Crown Inn closes down completely because, says landlord Terry Phelps, festival organisers ask them to. Pilton Stores is closed too.
And yet, local officials insist that the whole area benefits from the festival, at least in the long term.
It is a payday for local organisations - including charities and Parent Teacher Associations, which have stalls or provide services such as car park patrols in return for payment.
And donations to Pilton village have helped build a new working men's club, tennis courts and football pitches and repair the roof of the Methodist chapel.
The council's economic report suggested that more than 60% of people who come for the festival say they will return to the region.
The festival also plays a part in attracting new visitors. insists Mendip Council's tourism manager Martin Lofthouse.
"They know its somewhere in the South West so it's a good local landmark.
"The name Glastonbury is quite iconic so even if people don't go to the festival they hear about it through the media and it locks into their psyche."
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