Many music fan’s Summers were again changed this year with the announcement of the cancellation of the legendary music festival Glastonbury. Due to this cancellation, the BBC will bring Glastonbury from the famed Somerset fields to its many stations and streaming services.

The Glastonbury themed spectacular entitled ‘The Glastonbury Experience 2021’ will take place from Friday 25th June until Sunday 27th June 2021 and will be available across all of the network’s channels. Including the BBC television channels, iPlayer, BBC’s radio stations and BBC Sounds. Due to the unfortunate news that the Festival has been cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic and restrictions for the second year, BBC has taken it upon themselves to devote an entire weekend to Glastonbury. The network plans to make available a variety of special content from highlights from past years to airing special performances.

Included within BBC’s celebration of all things Glastonbury are 50 sets from the archive which will be available on BBC iPlayer as well as 30 sets which are available on BBC Sounds available from Monday 21st June 2021. The sets recorded within the ‘Live At Worthy Farm’ online event will also be included, the performances which aired online on Saturday 22nd May 2021 gifted viewers at home sets from Coldplay, HAIM, Idles, George Ezra, Jorja Smith, Wolf Alice, Michael Kiwanuka, The Smile, Honey Dijon featuring Rosin Murphy, Kano and former Blur member Damon Albarn. As well as more recent sets, viewers will also be able to watch classic performances from the festival’s archive across the weekend, available to watch on BBC Two and Four. The classic sets will include a never before aired performance from multi-instrumentalist Fela Kuti from 1984. Also available from the festival’s cannon are sets from Radiohead in 1997 and the princess of pop Kylie from 2019.

Following on the same theme of classics, BBC Two will also air a 60-minute documentary entitled ‘Live At Worthy Farm: Backstage’, and will be presented by suitable figure, Jo Whiley. The Queen of indie music and Glastonbury will show how the special event was created thus charting the festival’s success and will also show how the festival became a musical Mecca for any music fan. The documentary will be followed by a hand-picked collection of performances by artists involved in the festival’s special event as well as hand-picked performances from ‘Life At Worthy Farm’.

Whiley has spoken with the BBC concerning the event, the music icon reminisced on her favourite memories from past festivals and invited fans to celebrate Glastonbury with her. The famous DJ said “Whilst we can’t be together in the fields of Pilton just yet, I can’t wait to go back in time and share a selection of my favourite Glastonbury memories and performances with you all. I have incredibly fond memories of the 90s at Glastonbury, so join me on Friday 25 June to re-live some of the very best moments from that unforgettable decade. I had a fantastic time at Live At Worthy Farm in May, so I’m also really looking forward to showing viewers exactly what went on behind the scenes.”

Other features from ‘The Glastonbury Experience 2021’ include a pop-up channel, that will be available across the weekend on BBC iPlayer. Included on the steam are documentaries, more sets from the vault and further exclusive content. The content will see multiple DJ’s present programmes concerning different periods of Glastonbury, the 1990s will be discussed on Friday, Saturday will cover the 21st century and finally, Sunday will be dedicated to festival Legends. The programmes will be presented by Jo Whiley from BBC Radio 2, Clara Amfro from Radio 1 and finally Lauren Laverne from 6 Music. Also included in the special event is a weekend full of programmes, all of which will follow the Glastonbury theme. These will include more classic sets along with more highlights from the recent ‘Live At Worthy Farm’ event, all will be available through Radio 1, 1Xtra, Radio 2 and 6 music.

Radio presenter Clara Amfro also spoke with the BBC and shared her personal connection with Glastonbury.

“As a nation of music lovers, Glastonbury is truly a part of our DNA. Whether it’s two or twenty performances, we all have a collection of them seared into our memory from many a previous weekend on this Somerset farm! Sharing some of my personal faves is a real treat and a testament to the hard work from the Eavis family and these brilliant artists.”

Even though it seems that the Summer festival experience will be out of reach for the UK this year, the BBC has seemingly taken it upon themselves to bring Summer’s most popular festival to our homes.

For a full line-up of the special content click here.