While music fans were left disappointed when Glastonbury Festival organisers announced the five-day event was cancelled for a second year running, with a live-streamed event instead taking place this on 22 May, it looks like an actual IRL event might be happening later this summer and yes we are pretty excited.
The go-ahead for a live concert at Worthy Farm was approved by Somerset council this week and it sounds all kinds of epic, especially after so many events have been cancelled over the past year.
Unlike Glastonbury, the new music festival will take place for one day only and was approved 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 that’s been approved allows for a live concert of up to 50,000 attendees. However, overnight camping isn’t permitted on the premises.
So far, details about the actual performer lineup as well as when tickets will be released haven’t been revealed yet – all we know is that organiser Emily Eavis told NME the concert is set to be called Equinox.
She told the publication before the licence was approved that the September festival would be “a large[r] version of the Pilton Party” – the annual ‘thank you’ fundraising gig for villagers, workers and local people.
“We do that every September, but it will just be bigger and the public can come down,” she said. “We’ll call it Equinox if we do it. We’ve got a licence hearing and we’re working with the authorities to see what we can do, but it’s just one step at a time, really.”
Erm, guys you might want to keep every weekend in September free just in case!
Until then, Live at Worthy Farm streams this Saturday, 22 May, from 7pm. The five-hour global livestream concert is set to feature live performances filmed from the Glastonbury festival site from the likes of Coldplay, Damon Albarn, Haim, George Ezra, Michael Kiwanuka, Wolf Alice, Idles, Jorja Smith, Kano and Roisin Murphy.
