Organisers of Glastonbury Festival have said the 2021 edition of the UK’s flagship music festival is “not cancelled yet” amid concerns over its feasibility due to Covid-19.
Co-organiser Emily Eavis – daughter of Glastonbury founder Michael Eavis – also stressed that the festival, which was cancelled in 2020 due to the pandemic, was still “a long way” away from being able to confirm next year’s event.
One ticket holder tweeted: “I will only believe that Glastonbury is cancelled next year if Emily Eavis rings me personally to tell me,” to which Eavis simply replied: “Not cancelled yet!”
Not cancelled yet!
— Emily Eavis (@emilyeavis) December 21, 2020
Eavis said in a recent interview with the BBC that the organisation team is considering its options on how to ensure the delayed 50th anniversary can go ahead.
“I can’t tell you how much we’d love to welcome everyone back to the farm,” Eavis said. “It’s been way too quiet here this year and we want to get people back here as soon as we possibly can.
“Obviously the vaccine news in recent weeks has increased our chances, but I think we’re still quite a long way from being able to say we’re confident 2021 will go ahead.”
Michael Eavis spoke recently about the possibility that “massive testing arrangements” could be put in place at next year’s event. “The testing is going so well now, there could be massive testing arrangements,” he said.
Earlier this month, Emily Eavis also appealed to the government to provide “direct financial support” for the planned 2021 Glastonbury due to the continued uncertainty surrounding live events in the wake of the pandemic.
The 2020 edition of the largest greenfield festival in the world, originally scheduled to take place in June at Worthy Farm, was expecting more than 210,000 punters after an agreed increase from last year.
In March, organisers apologised to the 135,000 people who had already paid a deposit for their tickets and acknowledged the difficulty in securing a Glastonbury ticket. It offered all those people the chance to roll their £50 deposit over to next year, and guarantee the opportunity to buy a ticket for Glastonbury 2021.
Image: Andrew Egerton / CC BY 2.0 / Edited for size
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