Glastonbury Festival 2020 is cancelled

The organisers of Glastonbury Festival have cancelled the event’s 50th anniversary edition this summer.

The festival is regarded to be the first and largest domino, which may well trigger further festival cancellations across Europe.

This year’s festival was set to feature performances by Taylor Swift, Kendrick Lamar, Paul McCartney and Diana Ross, among others.

“We are so sorry to announce this, but Glastonbury 2020 will have to be cancelled, and this will be an enforced fallow year for the Festival,” reads a statement from organisers Michael and Emily Eavis.

“Clearly this was not a course of action we hoped to take for our 50th anniversary event, but following the new government measures announced this week – and in times of such unprecedented uncertainty – this is now our only viable option.

“We would like to send our sincere apologies to the 135,000 people who have already paid a deposit for a Glastonbury 2020 ticket”

“We very much hope that the situation in the UK will have improved enormously by the end of June. But even if it has, we are no longer able to spend the next three months with thousands of crew here on the farm, helping us with the enormous job of building the infrastructure and attractions needed to welcome more than 200,000 people to a temporary city in these fields.

“We would like to send our sincere apologies to the 135,000 people who have already paid a deposit for a Glastonbury 2020 ticket. The balance payments on those tickets were due at the beginning of April and we wanted to make a firm decision before then.

“We understand that it is not always easy to secure a Glastonbury ticket, which is why we would like to offer 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. Those who would prefer a refund of that £50 will be able to contact See Tickets in the coming days in order to secure that.

“We were so looking forward to welcoming you all for our 50th anniversary with a line-up full of fantastic artists and performers that we were incredibly proud to have booked. Again, we’re so sorry that this decision has been made. It was not through choice. But we look forward to welcoming you back to these fields next year and until then, we send our love and support to all of you.”

Ticketholders can find more information on the Glastonbury Festival website in the coming days.

Photo: jaswooduk/Flickr (CC BY 2.0) (cropped)

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