No Glasto in June for the second year
GLASTONBURY Festival has been cancelled for the second year running thanks to the pandemic.
The organisers say they ‘moved heaven and earth’ trying to make it happen but continuing uncertainty means Britain’s biggest musical jamboree – attended by 200,000 fans in 2019 – cannot go ahead.
It was due to celebrate its 50th anniversary last year but had to be called off days before the first lockdown in March.
Now organisers Michael and Emily Eavis say the 2021 event cannot go ahead.
Sir Paul McCartney, Taylor Swift and rapper Kendrick Lamar were scheduled to headline the Pyramid stage and Diana Ross was the Sunday afternoon ‘legend’. Primal Scream, Dua Lipa, Manic Street Preachers and Lana Del Ray were also on the bill.
The father and daughter Eavis team said yesterday: ‘With great regret, we must announce that this year’s Glastonbury Festival will not take place and that this will be another enforced fallow year for us.
‘In spite of our efforts to move heaven and earth, it has become clear that we simply will not be able to make the festival happen.’
They said those who secured tickets with £50 deposits in 2019 will be able to roll this over to the next event in June 2022.
Disappointed fans due to descend on Worthy Farm, Somerset, from June 23-28 said the move was understandable, but Tory MP Julian Knight, chairman of the Commons culture committee, called it a ‘devastating’ blow and criticised the government’s failure to set up an insurance scheme to save major events.
Tom Watson, head of UK Music, said such a backup scheme ‘wouldn’t have cost too much’ and if Britain’s vaccine rollout proved a success Glastonbury would have provided an ideal celebration.