Glastonbury ticket owners question ‘hasty’ decision to cancel following Reading and Leeds announcement

Festival was forced to cancel its 2021 event because it was ‘logistically impossible’ to organise amid ongoing uncertainty over lockdown restrictions

Following the announcement that Reading and Leeds Festival will take place this year, many are wondering if Glastonbury could have gone ahead after all.

In January, Glastonbury Festival’s organisers announced that the event has been cancelled for a second year running, and would return in 2022 after taking another fallow year.

Many ticket owners are now wondering if it was a premature decision to cancel Glastonbury, especially since the news that the UK will hopefully return to post-pandemic normality from 21 June.

“Bet @glastonbury regret being so hasty,” one twitter user wrote, with another adding: “Looks like Glastonbury were a bit quick to cancel rather than push back eh?”

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Despite no further statement from organisers, it’s no stretch to assume that it would be logistically impossible for the festival to proceed as normal this year.

Planning for the five-day event, including the booking of its many acts, starts as early as nine months before it’s due to take place, meaning that organisers would be hard pushed to do everything that was needed to make it a success.

A note accompanying the full statement from father and daughter team Michael and Emily Eavis said: “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.”

Fans who secured tickets in 2019 will once again have their places rolled over to the following year, now to 2022.

“We thank you for your incredible continued support and let’s look forward to better times ahead,” the statement concluded.

Reading and Leeds music festival have become the first mass-scale summer events to signal a return following the prime minister’s post-lockdown roadmap.

However, a representative from the live music sector’s umbrella organisation LIVE has since told The Independent that more clarity is needed from the government in order for events to go ahead, along with help insuring festivals to protect them against cancellations.

“These events take months to plan with large upfront costs and access to insurance will help provide greater confidence to organisers,” said CEO Greg Parmley.

“It is going to be a long road to recovery and even if restrictions can lift in the summer it will be a long way from the normality of 2019 for our industry.”