Glastonbury festival remains cancelled for a second year in a row due to the coronavirus pandemic, but organisers are hoping for some form of scaled-down celebration later in the summer.
Emily Eavis announced that “we have put an application in for a licence for a concert at the farm in September. Of course, we’ve no idea yet whether we’ll able to do that, but we wanted to get the application in to be in with a chance. Unlikely we’ll have any news for a couple of months – but will let you know right here when we do.”
A Glastonbury spokesman did not offer details of the planned capacity, but said the application was for a two-day live music event. Any confirmed event would not necessarily last two days.
Eavis also announced an application “for a family-friendly (ie not for partying!) campsite at the farm for this summer … It’s so good to dream up plans and hope that some of these things could potentially happen later this year.”
Prior to the cancellation of the festival, in January, Eavis had mooted the possibility of livestreaming concerts from the site. “We’re actually looking into the possibility of streaming some things from here if we can’t run the full show,” she said in December 2020. “We really want to get busy with planning some gigs – even if they’re to be streamed.”
Whatever the length, any event will certainly be scaled down from the 200,000-strong crowds usually seen at the festival, who had been hoping to see headliners Paul McCartney, Taylor Swift and Kendrick Lamar at the 50th anniversary of the festival in 2020.
Glastonbury was the first major event to cancel its 2021 edition as well, with further events including the 80,000-capacity Download festival also since cancelling. Isle of Wight is among the festivals moving to a late-summer date, and other optimistic events, such as London’s All Points East festival, have since announced their dates and lineups for late summer.
