Glastonbury Festival will come back with a bang in 2027, with a new favourite now being tipped to take over the Pyramid Stage.
Although we don’t have the festival to brighten up our summer this year, its return after a fallow year could be bigger than ever thanks to Harry Styles’ highly anticipated comeback.
The former One Direction star, 31, is favourite to headline the festival in a move which could be the ‘defining moment’ of his career.
This week, Harry is the name on everybody’s lips after he began breadcrumbing his comeback and letting fans know ‘We Belong Together’ in a cryptic tease, before finally announcing his fourth studio album, Kiss All The Time. Disco, Occasionally, is set for release on March 6.
And while Harry is regularly spotted letting his hair down at star-studded Glastonbury, rumours have been swirling that this could now be the perfect time for a headline slot.
Ollie Ring at Casino Beats told Metro: ‘Harry Styles headlining Glastonbury would be hugely popular with the British public – he’s one of the few modern pop stars who arguably feels built for the Pyramid Stage. His odds of 3/1 reflect that this looks like a realistic next step if new music is imminent.
‘A Glastonbury headline slot would be a defining career moment, cementing Harry’s transition from pop star to true festival headliner. He certainly has the catalogue and cross-generational appeal that Glastonbury looks for.
‘It would also almost guarantee a younger crowd at Worthy Farm – fans who may not traditionally see Glastonbury as their go-to festival. From a production perspective, it’s a chance to refresh the Glastonbury crowd without alienating its core audience.’
It’s not the first time Harry has been rumoured to take over the main stage, after The Rest Is Entertainment Podcast, hosted by Richard Osman and Marina Hyde, claimed his team have its sights set on that coveted slot.
Discussing the pressure on artists to stay relevant and be ‘always on’, the growing gap between Harry’s album releases was brought up.
Marina said: ‘Everyone’s like “Oh my god, Harry Styles isn’t going to put out a new album, maybe until the year after next”. That used to be quite normal.’
She quoted the speculation and continued: ‘Oh, but they’ve had to really push it even further than they’d like to because they want him to headline Glastonbury that year.’
A source previously told The Daily Mail that ‘Harry was gutted not to do last year’s Glastonbury Festival’, adding he was ‘near certain to play at the next one’.
Since Love On Tour – which grossed a staggering $617.3million (£457.3m) and sold five million tickets – concluded in Reggio Emilia, Harry has made headlines with his various extracurricular activities.
Most notably, the performer has become somewhat of a marathon fiend, having run in Tokyo and Berlin with very impressive times, finishing the latter in under three hours.
He was also spotted in Rome last May, gathering at St Peter’s Square in the Vatican City for the new Pope’s announcement, which, quite rightly, baffled everyone.
Although Harry’s love for Italy is well documented, as he’s been spotted there on numerous occasions in between tour shows over the years, most recently with Zoe Kravitz by his side after striking up a romance last summer.
Why is there no 2026 Glastonbury?
There is no Glastonbury in 2026 because organisers have decided to take a ‘fallow year’, a break that allows the grass and farmland at Worthy Farm to rejuvenate.
It won’t be the first time Glastonbury has taken some time off, with the festival cancelled in 2020 and 2021 as a result of government lockdowns during the Covid pandemic.
The first time the festival took a break was in 1988 when the decision was taken to allow the grass on the festival’s home of Worthy Farm to grow again.
A second pause in proceedings came in 1991 when crowd trouble at Glastonbury in 1990 left organisers needing to update their safety and security measures.
The first fallow year to fall within a long-term planned schedule was in 1996, with then-organiser Michael Eavis saying the festival would take a year off every five or six years.
The next break came in 2001, then another arrived in 2006. The plan was to take a break in 2011 but festival organisers thought it best to break in 2012 instead during the year of the London Olympics.
The last time Glastonbury took a planned break was in 2018, with the next two – 2020 and 2021 – forced on the organisers during the height of the pandemic.
Following his split from Canadian actress Taylor Russell, 31, Harry began dating actress and singer Zoe, 37, with reports claiming they also spent Christmas together this year after becoming well acquainted with one another’s families.
Speaking about how things have become more ‘serious’ between them, a source claimed recently that Harry and Zoe are ‘barely apart’.
They told The Sun: ‘Harry and Zoe have a real connection — this is love. It’s a real honeymoon period, and they’re barely apart.
‘Zoe has to get back to work on a film, so she’s coming to the UK and will be staying with Harry while she’s here.
‘They’ve had an amazing summer together, and things are only getting more serious between them.’
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