Billy Bragg calls Glastonbury cancellation “a bit of a shock”

The festival has been cancelled for a second year because of the coronavirus pandemic

Billy Bragg has responded to the cancellation of Glastonbury 2021, calling it “a bit of a shock”.

The Somerset festival was cancelled for the second year in a row last week (January 21) because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Speaking on BBC Breakfast today (January 25), Bragg – a Glastonbury veteran and organiser of the Left Field stage – said: “I don’t think it was inevitable.”

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“Glastonbury was one of those big things where we all thought, ‘OK that’s a landmark there. If we can get to Glasto, then… it’s a real signal to the rest of the festival diaspora that things are going to happen again’. So losing it again for another year is a bit of a shock.”

The musician added that once the pandemic ended, the demand for festivals would still be there. “Once this ends, people will want to get together and listen to music again because there’s something you can get from gathering together in a crowd to listen to music,” he said.

Glastonbury
Glastonbury Festival (Picture: Getty)

“You can’t get that on the internet. It’s just the hope that those venues and those festivals are still going to be there.”

When announcing Glastonbury’s cancellation last week, organisers Michael and Emily Eavis said: “In spite of our efforts to move Heaven & Earth, it has become clear that we simply will not be able to make the Festival happen this year. We are so sorry to let you all down.”

Tickets will now roll over to 2022, with the festival team saying they were confident they could “deliver something really special” next year.

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Since then, Michael Eavis has expressed his hopes to be able to hold a smaller event in September.

“I would like to do something smaller somewhere around the anniversary date of when we started, which was the 18th of September 1970,” he said. “I would like to consider possibly doing something around that time.”

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