Are we hanging our wellies up for another year?

Michael and Emily Eavis, Glastonbury’s organisers have admitted that despite efforts, they ‘simply will not be able to make the festival happen this year’. This comes after the cancellation of the festival’s 50th anniversary, which has been estimated to have cost £100m.

Glastonbury is the be-all and end-all of music festivals in the UK, and probably a signifier that everything else will follow suit. However, we have seen some more hopeful reactions.

Events like Manchester’s Parklife and London’s The Mighty Hoopla have moved back their 2021 dates from June to September to allow an extra few months for the public to be vaccinated. 

Many other organisers also seem to be optimistic, with Reading and Leeds, Isle of Wight Festival and Bestival already selling tickets for the 2021 season. 

Suggestions from UK Music’s report: ‘Let the Music Play: Save Our Summer 2021’ released at the beginning of the year include a government backed insurance scheme and extensions to ticket VAT reductions and business rates relief in the hope that the industry will be ready to restart when safe to do so. 

In the meantime, what can you do to help live music?

• You can rollover any tickets you have for next year, rather than getting a refund
• You can adopt your favourite local venue through the #saveourvenues website
• You can rep some merch from your favourite band or venue 
• You can stream gigs straight to your living room on websites like Dice

We’ll catch you in the dance tent once this is all over.