After the announcement of the cancellation of Glastonbury 2021 which left thousands of fans broken-hearted, show founder and organiser Michael Eavis has now said that he is planning on organising a smaller event in the month of September 2021.
In an interview with LBC, Eavis confirmed that he was working on organising a smaller event in the month of September to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Glastonbury, which was supposed to have taken place last year. Eavis said, “I would like to do something in September. “I would like to do something smaller somewhere around the anniversary date of when we started, which was the 18th of September 1970. “I would like to consider possibly doing something around that time.”
Eavis also confirmed that a line up of big-artists was being organised for the event but also that he needed the green light “and the reassurance from the ethics people”. When asked if the September 2021 event, or the Glastonbury 2022 would be the “biggest ever”, Eavis responded by saying, “I just hope it’s going to be the best we’ve ever done”.
Eavis explained the cancellation of Glastonbury 2021 by saying that the decision had been made after multiple conversations with health experts at the Imperial College London. Eavis also said that he had hoped to organise a smaller event with 50,000 people instead of the 200,000 crowd Glastonbury usually hosts, but that the attempt “didn’t bear any fruit”.
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. Tickets for this year will roll over to next year. Full statement below and on our website. Michael & Emily pic.twitter.com/SlNdwA2tHd
— Glastonbury Festival (@glastonbury) January 21, 2021
The event in the month of September 2021 might actually happen, as its announcement came shortly after the managing director of Festival Republic Melvin Benn’s statement, to NME, “I feel very positive because I know that it’s possible. The Prime Minister has said that 88% of hospitalisations and deaths will disappear once the over-70s and frontline workers are vaccinated. The Health Secretary said: ‘When that’s done, cry freedom’ – I’m crying freedom. At that point, I’m saying let’s get on with it. I’m super confident about the end of the summer, I’m super confident about the beginning of the summer. If everyone over the age of 60, or definitely the age of 50, is vaccinated by the end of May, then Jesus – there should be no stopping us.”
Dr. Michael Head, Senior Research Fellow in Global Health at the University of Southampton also said that before festivals could resume again, “We’d want a bare minimum of 50% of the population to be vaccinated but probably more like 60%. That would probably take us towards the end of the summer at around August or September.”
