The United Kingdom’s Glastonbury Festival is the latest large-scale event to be canceled this year as a response to the Coronavirus pandemic. The festival’s organizers announced the cancelation in a statement shared to Instagram on Wednesday (March 18).
“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,” the statement read. “Clearly this was not a course of action we hoped to take for our 50th anniversary event, but following the new government measures announce this week — and in times of such unprecedented uncertainty — this is now our only viable option.”
Glastonbury 2020 was set to take place June 24-28 and would have been headlined by Kendrick Lamar. Other scheduled performers included Anderson .Paak and the Free Nationals, Burna Boy, Danny Brown, EarthGang, FKA Twigs, The Isley Brothers, Sampa the Great, Thundercat and Diana Ross.
“We very much hope that the situation in the UK will have improved enormously by the end of June,” the festival’s statement continued. “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.”
The statement further noted that ticket holders will be able use their tickets next year or obtain refunds through the festival website.
“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,” the statement concluded. “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 either postponed or canceled in response to the Coronavirus pandemic, following Coachella, SXSW, Something in the Water Festival, Dreamville Festival and more.
See Glastonbury’s full statement below.