Martin FullardMichael Eavis (pictured) has warned that Glastonbury could go bankrupt should the festival not return in 2021.
In an interview with the Guardian on the 50th anniversary of the event, 25 June, founder Eavis noted the importance of being able to go ahead with Glastonbury next year.
“We have to run next year, otherwise we would seriously go bankrupt… It has to happen for us, we have to carry on. Otherwise it will be curtains. I don’t think we could wait another year,” he said.
Emily Eavis, the show’s organiser, said that they would be in a “very serious situation if we had to cancel next year’s event, but then the whole live industry will be hanging in the balance if we have another summer without festivals, and we don’t know what level of government support there will be for this industry”.
Despite the continued uncertainty surrounding the events industry, she added she was optimistic: “We have navigated choppy waters so many times. This festival has always evolved and found ways to survive, and I’m confident that we will again.”
She also admitted that cancelling the 2020 event has cost them a “sizable sum of money.”
In the interview, Eavis suggested the festival had “all sorts of irons in the fire” regarding approaches to run the 2021 event safely. One would be to partner with Melvin Benn, managing director of Festival Republic, which runs Reading and Leeds festivals, Download, Latitude and Wireless, on a testing scheme that will allow ticketholders on site after they have been shown to be virus-free, as reported by Access All Areas, 3 June. “We’ll piggyback on to that scheme if we can; that’s a last resort I think,” he said, adding that he was hopeful for a vaccine.
No formal plans have been announced on adopting the scheme, and Emily Eavis added that only loose conversations had been had.
Read the full interview on the Guardian here.