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Glastonbury Festival organiser Emily Eavis has appealed to the government to provide “direct financial support” for the planned 2021 event, due to continued uncertainty surrounding live events in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.
The festival’s General Counsel Ben Challis and Eavis herself have both maintained that plans remain in place for Glastonbury to go be staged in June 2021.
However, Eavis and her father Michael have said it’s “already getting tight” to prepare for next year’s event because insurers are still cautious about offering cancellation cover – potentially putting millions of pounds in revenue at stake, which the organisers say they cannot afford to lose.
Speaking to The Times, Emily said: “In a usual planning cycle we would already be well into organising the next festival.
“The best solution would be for the government to offer direct financial support in the event of Glastonbury, and other events, being forced to cancel once they’re well into the preparations.
“If the government can share the risk by offering direct financial support, then it gives everyone the opportunity to move forward with the planning in the hope that things will be safe to run in the summer, and in the knowledge that backing is available if we’re simply not in a position to go ahead,” she added.
Deposits have rolled over from last year’s event, which did not go ahead, when over 135,000 people paid £50 to secure their place at the festival.
The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport said: “We know these are challenging times for the live events sector and are working flat out to support it. We have invested £1bn so far through the culture recovery fund to protect tens of thousands of creative jobs… with £400m more support still to come.”
Last month (November 13), Paul McCartney revealed that he had planned to invite Taylor Swift on stage with him at Glastonbury 2020 to play ‘Shake It Off’ together.
The pair were set to headline the Pyramid Stage at this year’s festival, before it was eventually called off as the Covid-19 pandemic continued.
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