This year’s Glastonbury Festival is the latest music festival to fall victim to coronavirus: the U.K. event announced today (March 18) that its 2020 edition has been canceled.
The festival, which was slated to take place June 24-28 in Somerset, England, becomes one of the highest-profile music events since Austin’s SXSW to outright cancel instead of postponing. Despite it not taking place until the summer, Glastonbury organizers said in a statement that with the social distancing measures currently in place, there’s simply no way they’d be able to get the fest ready in time.
“We very much hope that the situation in the U.K. will have improved enormously by the end of June,” they said in a statement. “But even if it has, we are no longer able to spend the next three months with thousands of crew here on the farm, helping us with the enormous job of building the infrastructure and attractions needed to welcome more than 200,000 people to a temporary city in these fields.”
Those who already purchased tickets will be given the opportunity to roll over their deposit to guarantee entry to next year’s festival, or they can opt for a refund. Refunds will be available until September 2020.
Taylor Swift, Paul McCartney, Kendrick Lamar, Diana Ross, Haim and Dua Lipa were all scheduled to perform at Glastonbury 2020. You can read the festival’s full statement about the cancellation below.
We are so sorry to announce this, but we are going to have to cancel Glastonbury 2020. Tickets for this year will roll over to next year. Full statement below and on our website. Michael & Emily pic.twitter.com/ox8kcQ0HoB
— Glastonbury Festival (@glastonbury) March 18, 2020
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