It has been announced that Latitude Festival will go ahead this summer, as organisers confirm that the event will run at “full capacity” as long as “the prevailing situation in the UK is deemed safe”. The festival is expected to take place from July 22nd-25th at Henham Park in Suffolk, the event’s typical location since its launch in 2006.
Melvin Benn, the creator and founder of Latitude Festival, posted the following message on the festival’s official website: “Latitude is a very special festival and we can’t wait to get back to Henham Park, but we will only do that if the prevailing situation in the UK is deemed safe by the government’s Chief Medical Officer and all necessary safety protocols are in place at the event. To that end, I have been working very closely with a number of leading doctors including the Public Health Department at Imperial College London to demonstrate that it can be done safely.”
He continued, “We are confident that our hard work in conforming to the protocols, plus the fact that all UK adults are due to have been offered the vaccine before the festival takes place, PLUS the news of large scale test events rolling out in April and May, will mean that we really can go ahead.”
Having already been announced as part of the 2021 line-up back in May 2020, Bastille and Lewis Capaldi are still set to headline the festival on Friday 23rd and Saturday 24th respectively this July, whilst the headline act for Sunday 25th remains unconfirmed. However, the festival has also announced Swedish folk duo First Aid Kit for the Saturday and Snow Patrol as a ‘Very Special Sunday Afternoon Guest’.
The acts that have been unveiled thus far suggest that the festival will not deviate from its indie roots. Before it was cancelled, Latitude Festival 2020 was also set to continue this trend with Haim, Liam Gallagher, and The Chemical Brothers announced as its headliners. Currently, the only act that is part of the 2021 line-up that was also part of the 2020 line-up is Snow Patrol, but there is plenty of time for that to change in the coming months.
Notably, Latitude is a multi-arts festival whose entertainment value stretches beyond simply music. As with previous years, the forthcoming event will undoubtedly feature an array of theatre, poetry, dance, cabaret, and comedy shows. In 2019, this included a screening of National Theatre Live: War Horse; an appearance from UK Poet Laureate Simon Armitage; and stand-up performances from the likes of Russell Kane and Lolly Adefope.
The festival has now joined the ever-growing list of British festivals that have announced that they will be going ahead this summer, including Splendour, All Points East, and Reading and Leeds Festival. With plenty more festivals probably set to follow suit, the buzz is certainly growing for a festival-filled summer period.
