Glastonbury 2021 Canceled Due to Covid-19 Pandemic

The Glastonbury music festival has been canceled once again due to the Covid-19 pandemic, festival organizers announced on Thursday. 2021 will mark the second summer in a row where the international festival was not held, after the 2020 event was canceled last March.

“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,” festival founder Michael Eavis and his daughter, Glastonbury co-organizer Emily Eavis, wrote on Twitter. “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.

They added that tickets for this year, rolled over from 2020, will remain valid for the 2022 festival: “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!”

Additional ticket information can be found on the festival’s website.

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 Eavises had previously remained confident that Glastonbury would return in summer 2021, with Michael Eavis stating that the festival would be held provided that the “majority” of the U.K. population was vaccinated against Covid-19 by June. Earlier this month, Emily Eavis denied claims made by former Spice Girl member Mel B that this year’s Glastonbury had been canceled.

As of January, about four million people in the UK (less than 1% of the population) have received their first dose of the coronavirus vaccine, with many still requiring the second dose. Speaking to NME, Dr. Michael Head, a senior research fellow of global health at the University of Southhampton, warned that the vaccinated population of the country might not be sufficient enough to hold large-scale social events, like music festivals, until the end of summer 2021: “We’d want a bare minimum of 50% of the population to be vaccinated [before festivals can happen], but probably more like 60%. That would probably take us toward the end of the summer at around August or September. If you were planning something very large like Glastonbury, I’d probably be waiting until next year for sure.”