Glastonbury likely to take a year off in 2026

Emily Eavis, co-organiser and daughter of the festival's original founder, has confirmed that the Glastonbury will likely take a year off in 2026.

She announced the news on the BBC podcast Sidetracked, where she said she was thinking of taking a fallow year. The last time the festival took a fallow year was in 2018, allowing the ground to recover before returning in 2019.

"I have a vague idea of who might be headlining next year, and then we might do a fallow year after that," she said.

"We are due a fallow year. The fallow year is important because it gives the land a rest, and it gives the cows a chance to stay out for longer and reclaim their land. I think it's important, I think it gives everybody time to just switch off and the public as well. Then you kind of go away for a bit and it feels lovely when you come back. And I think it's quite good not to be seen to be cashing in."

Later in the podcast, Eavis spoke of how Glastonbury nearly came to a halt in the 1990’s:

“In the 90s, my parents were like; ‘this is the last one’. And it wasn’t some stunt to sell tickets, they genuinely were like we probably won’t do another. So that was lovely because it kind of felt like there was this fresh, amazing appreciation of each year, because it’ll probably end."

Eavis went on to explain that after the death of her mother in 1999, she came back to help, “So here I am a few decades on. But it’s lovely because now we felt like it would be a lovely thing to continue other than for it to end, so it’s changed the mindset. And it’s been a lifeline to us.”

The festival is, set to return to Worthy Farm later this month, with acts such as Dua Lipa, Coldplay, SZA, Fontaines D.C and PJ Harvey to feature.

The full 2024 lineup, complete with stage times was released earlier last week, can be found below.

 

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