Glastonbury 2025 is almost over with hundreds of thousands of people flocking to Worthy Farm for a weekend of live music – but it won’t be back in 2026.
The Friday had barely got underway before Royals hitmaker Lorde stunned a rammed tent with a secret set, with headliners The 1975 kicking things off that evening.
Normally, fans will already be casting an eye to next year and pondering dream lineups, but there will be no Glastonbury in June 2026.
Last summer, Emily Eavis opened up on why we shouldn’t be on the lookout for any announcements.
Why is there no Glastonbury in 2026?
The organiser revealed she is ready for Glastonbury to take an elective break for the first time in a while.
Every once in a while, Glastonbury takes some time off – these are known as ‘fallow years’ – to allow the grass and farmland at Worthy Farm to get a break from the 200,000 people who visit the festival each year.
She previously told the BBC: ‘We are due a fallow year [at Glastonbury]. The fallow year is important because it gives the land a rest, and it gives the cows a chance to stay out for longer and reclaim their land.
‘I think it’s important, I think it gives everybody time to just switch off and the public as well. Then you kind of go away for a bit and it feels lovely when you come back. And I think it’s quite good not to be seen to be cashing in.’
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When else has Glastonbury skipped a year?
Next year 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 (Emily’s dad) 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.
A statement in 2018 said: ‘We will be taking our next fallow year in 2018, in order to give the farm, the village, and the festival team the traditional year off. There are no plans to hold an event at another location in 2018.’
There were rumours in 2017 that Glastonbury might well be moved to a new location in the near future, with plans for a new name even teased by Emily Eavis, but those plans were put on hold in 2019.
Last year, the festival was headlined by Dua Lipa, Coldplay (who have topped the bill a record five times) and SZA, with Shania Twain in the Sunday Legends slot.
A version of this story was first published on June 10, 2024.
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