Will Any Festivals Go Ahead In 2021?

News & Features

Despite the world pinning hopes upon a vaccine, it is looking less likely that crowded festivals will be taking place this year.

A large crowd of people are watching a concert at night.
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The measures needed to ensure a 'covid safe' festival can go ahead are not financially viable.

2021 was supposed to be the year that the world got back to being more 'normal' with the lockdown restrictions left far behind in 2020. But the world is now battling a new, more easily transferable virus variant which is putting the prospect of crowded live music events taking place in doubt.


Glastonbury festival have announced the cancellation of their 2021 festival making it 2 years since Worthy Farm welcomed guests to pitch up and party. Many in the event industry have taken the announcement of Glastonbury as an indicator as to how many other music festivals will follow.


Organisers of Boomtown have laid their cards on the UK government's table to say that they will be in dire straights if the 2021 festival cannot go ahead. The measures needed to ensure a 'covid safe' festival can go ahead are not financially viable - each guest would need a test kit costing £10. That is one for each of the 66,000 guests resulting in an additional £660,000  the festival would need to find.

A group of people are sitting in front of tents at a festival.
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...who wants to be at a socially distanced festival?

Some smaller operations may be able to run scaled back festivals with additional measures to ensure social distancing. But let's face it, who wants to be at a socially distanced festival? This experience may suit those desperate for something/anything close to pre-covid times but it is expected that many will choose to skip the experience.


The toilet experience: can you imagine the staffing and measures that would be needed to ensure toilets are 'covid safe' at a festival? There are solutions but the logistics would add to costs and even more headache for organisers.


No alcohol may be another option to ensure social distancing measures are followed. This may well be something organisers have to agree to before an event license is given. Policing this is a whole other headache.


Many are already rolling over their plans for 2022 with the hope that the experience then will be more normal.

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Written by

Editorial Team • 28 January 2021

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