The 50th Glastonbury festival has been cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic
This year's Glastonbury festival has been cancelled.
The 2020 edition was due to take place on Worthy Farm on June 24-28, but has been pulled due to the coronavirus pandemic.
"We are so sorry to announce this, but Glastonbury 2020 will have to be cancelled, and this will be an enforced fallow year for the Festival," wrote bookers Michael and Emily Eavis on Facebook.
"Clearly this was not a course of action we hoped to take for our 50th anniversary event, but following the new government measures announced this week - and in times of such unprecedented uncertainty - this is now our only viable option.
"We very much hope that the situation in the UK will have improved enormously by the end of June. 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."
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135,000 were due to attend this year's Glastonbury festival, which was scheduled to host Kendrick Lamar, Taylor Swift, Paul McCartney and more.
"We understand that it is not always easy to secure a Glastonbury ticket, which is why we would like to offer all those people the chance to roll their £50 deposit over to next year, and guarantee the opportunity to buy a ticket for Glastonbury 2021," say the Eavis'.
"Those who would prefer a refund of that £50 will be able to contact See Tickets in the coming days in order to secure that. This option will remain available until September this year. For those who are happy to roll their deposit over, that will happen automatically. Further information - including details on rolling over coach packages, official accommodation bookings and local Sunday tickets - will be added to our website in the coming days.
"The cancellation of this year's Festival will no doubt come as a terrible blow to our incredible crew and volunteers who work so hard to make this event happen. There will also inevitably be severe financial implications as a result of this cancellation - not just for us, but also the Festival's charity partners, suppliers, traders, local landowners and our community.
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"We were so looking forward to welcoming you all for our 50th anniversary with a line-up full of fantastic artists and performers that we were incredibly proud to have booked. Again, we're so sorry that this decision has been made. It was not through choice. But we look forward to welcoming you back to these fields next year and until then, we send our love and support to all of you."
Glastonbury is the latest festival to be affected by the coronavirus pandemic. SXSW festival in Austin, Texas, was forced to cancel earlier this month, as was Download Japan, Download Australia and Knotfest Japan. Similarly, Coachella was postponed and will now take place in October.
