Glastonbury to return for just one day and 50,000 revellers

The Somerset festival has had its licence approved for the day at Worthy Farm - but there won't be a campsite this year.

Mendip district council, which oversees the festival’s Somerset location, approved the licence after consulting with local residents and authorities.

Sam Phripp, the council’s chair of licensing, said: “Any event would have to be Covid-safe, and Mendip will work with other organisations and the organisers to make sure that’s the case.”

The licence allows for up to 50,000 attendees, who will not be able to camp overnight. Glastonbury organisers did not provide information on the lineup, ticketing, or the intended capacity, but organiser Emily Eavis told the NME this week that any event would be called Equinox.

Organisers had been forced to cancel the annual five-day extravaganza TWICE due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

It was first set to take place last summer, before being postponed to 2021, then ultimately cancelled.

In its place, they'd organised an online streaming event for this weekend, which will take place at the usual site but with no audience.

The likes of Coldplay, George Ezra, and Damon Albarn are set to perform.

Organiser Emily Eavis, who runs the famous festival with her dad Michael, first teased the chance of a smaller event back in March.

Writing on Instagram, she said at the time: "For those asking for an update on our plans later this year.

"We have put an application in for a licence for a concert at the farm in September (around the time we'd usually do Pilton Party).

"Of course, we've no idea yet whether we'll able to do that, but we wanted to get the application in to be in with a chance."

The pair had previously promised 2020 ticket-holders that their tickets will be valid for the festival when it finally happens, hopefully in 2022.

It is currently not known if they will now have priority to the 50,000 tickets for September - but this is just a fraction of the 135,000 spots sold.