Glastonbury Festival canceled for second year due to pandemic



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“It sent a very bad signal,” said Olivier Garnier, spokesperson for Hellfest, one of the biggest events in France, in a telephone interview. Hellfest welcomes around 60,000 heavy metal fans each year, and its 2021 iteration, slated for June, is already sold out.

Monday, Hellfest sent a three page letter to Roselyne Bachelot, the French Minister of Culture, asking for certainty about the possibility of the event and suggesting that the festival could test participants for the virus upon their arrival.

On Tuesday, Bachelot rejected the idea that the tests would be enough to allow festivals to be held. “It’s fancy!” She told a French parliamentary committee, adding that festivals were an obvious potential site of transmission with people singing, drinking and dancing together.

The picture is not entirely pessimistic across the continent. Festivals in Denmark are gearing up to move forward, Esben Marcher of Dansk Live, an organization that represents festival organizers, said in a telephone interview.

“Of course the news from Glastonbury is a big signal to the rest of Europe,” he said, “but I have a feeling that building his site is a much longer and longer process. than for others. ” Glastonbury takes months to prepare its fields to host the event, Marcher said. Danish events could be set up in a few weeks.

In December, Roskilde, Denmark’s biggest festival slated for June, headlining rapper Kendrick Lamar has announced. Signe Lopdrup, general manager of Roskilde, said in an email that she was “cautiously optimistic” about it.



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