Glastonbury Festival Officially Cancels 2021 Edition

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glastonbury 2021 cancelled

And, the start of 2021 is not looking as promising as we hoped for, as another bites the dust with the official announcement of Glastonbury 2021 being cancelled.

After they were all set to host their 50th Anniversary during the 2020 edition which had to be cancelled due to the Coronavirus pandemic, the festival hoped to come back bigger and better to mark the milestone in 2021, but with no end to the pandemic insight, they decided to cancel the summer 2021 event a couple of days ago as well.

Since it began in 1970, Glastonbury is one of the largest and longest-running major music festivals. But even for a festival that large, the pandemic has posed its fair share of struggles. In a statement shared by festival organizer Michael & Emily Eavis, they shared,
“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 & Earth, it has become clear that we simply will not be able to make the Festival happen this year. We are so sorry to let you all down.”

As for what this would mean for ticket holders from the last two years, they went on to clarify saying,

“As with last year, we would like to offer all those who secured a ticket in October 2019 the opportunity to roll their £50 deposit over to next year, and guarantee the chance to buy a ticket for Glastonbury 2022. We are very appreciative of the faith and trust placed in us by those of you with deposits, and we are very confident we can deliver something really special for us all in 2022!”

They are, however, also offering ticket holders the option to get a refund on their deposits if they wish to. Full details and FAQ’s are available on the festivals official website here.

Back in July 2020, in an interview to The Guardian, organizers Michael and Emily Eavis spoke with The Guardian and discussed the future of the festival. Putting it bluntly, Michael said, “We have to run next year, otherwise we would seriously go bankrupt … It has to happen for us, we have to carry on. Otherwise, it will be curtains. I don’t think we could wait another year.”

But then in August 2020 however, he went on to change the tone saying “I do not worry at all. I am so confident that it will survive. The only certainty I think is the year after, 2022, to be perfectly candid. So we might have to wait for two years maybe” hinting that they were already foreseeing the possibility of a 2021 cancellation.

With a second consecutive years cancellation, things continue to only get harder on the festival organizers. In a statement shared by The Guardian after the news of the official cancellation, Culture secretary Oliver Dowden wrote, “I share the disappointment of everyone that Glastonbury won’t be going ahead this year. This regrettable but understandable decision is the recognition that public health comes first.” He said the government were looking at “problems around getting insurance” for festivals, with many organisers calling for a government-backed insurance scheme to help them continue to plan their events with greater confidence.

While a festival the scale of Glastonbury might be able to battle a comeback after 2 years of cancellation, for many of the smaller festivals, this might become a point of no return if festival 2021 continues on this trend and we don’t get a grip on the pandemic sooner than later.

H/T – Mixmag

Melody Siganporia
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