Will the 2021 festival go ahead?

[Lycra]

All this hope and speculation on how vaccination will play out. I bet similar discussions are being had in government and amongst leading experts. It's sticky bum time. No wonder Emily and GF don't know what to plan for 😣

[incident]

1 hour ago, zahidf said:

From the glasto point of view, they've got their loyal ticket holders who will go in 2022, so if they have to postpone another year without having to make a loss, makes it a no brainer really. Saying that I think they'll decide in Jan, later depending if they have insurance or a govt fund

Even if they took a decision to cancel today, and minimised all costs, they'd still make a 7 figure loss in 2021 as staff salaries (or redundancy payments) would need to be paid for and even if they're using the furlough scheme that'll only take them up to March.

The last official fallow year, they lost over 2 million quid and that break was planned and accounted for.

[eFestivals]

6 minutes ago, MrBarry465 said:

Look at it this way, we have a vaccine for Flu and have for many years. People still die from it.

And that is precisely why I think the govt will take the same approach to covid.

Everything they've said and done to date has been about hospital overload and not about stopping covid existing within the population.

 

6 minutes ago, MrBarry465 said:

The vaccine isn't a silver bullet - we just need to see how much it does bring the deaths down by.

It's the only silver bullet there might be, so it'll be treated as that silver bullet. 

As Van Tam himself said: "99% will be prevented" once the oldies and vulnerable have been vaccinated.

[zahidf]

2 minutes ago, eFestivals said:

And that is precisely why I think the govt will take the same approach to covid.

Everything they've said and done to date has been about hospital overload and not about stopping covid existing within the population.

 

It's the only silver bullet there might be, so it'll be treated as that silver bullet. 

As Van Tam himself said: "99% will be prevented" once the oldies and vulnerable have been vaccinated.

Yup. If there was no vaccine, theyd be looking at some form of 'herd immunity' instead. Vaccine is a big help for that

[eFestivals]

1 minute ago, Lycra said:

All this hope and speculation on how vaccination will play out.

it's not really speculation. We know from some exceedingly detailed research what effects the vaccine has on deaths and hospitalisations.

There's more to find out about what the vaccines do but those are much more likely to be positive things than negative things (such as the vaccinated not being able to pass covid on).

I'm being hopeful that the vaccines are everything they've claimed themselves to be, that's all. It's not me leaping in the dark, it's me leaping onto data.

[xxialac]

36 minutes ago, Big durbs said:

i was told it was 10 days after first jab to give "some" level of protection , then second jab at 21 day's and 7 days after that for full protection.

 

Actually with the Pfizer one, they're now saying "high" level of protection at 10 days.

[Zoo Music Girl]

That Emily interview is quite a sombre read, although it doesn't really tell us anything we don't already know. Apart from the planning for live streamed gigs, which I thought was interesting. On the one hand it's a bit of a worry they are thinking that way (but you have to cover all eventualities). On the other, interesting to think how that might work. Could they use them to raise money by people buying tickets to watch the stream? Maybe even sell a few socially distanced tickets for people to actually attend the events? 

[Lycra]

12 minutes ago, eFestivals said:

it's not really speculation. We know from some exceedingly detailed research what effects the vaccine has on deaths and hospitalisations.

There's more to find out about what the vaccines do but those are much more likely to be positive things than negative things (such as the vaccinated not being able to pass covid on).

I'm being hopeful that the vaccines are everything they've claimed themselves to be, that's all. It's not me leaping in the dark, it's me leaping onto data.

One thing to consider when we're discussing vaccination......Currently only have limited supplies of 1 potentially very effective one. The AZ appears much less effective and has not yet been approved.

[xxialac]

3 minutes ago, Lycra said:

One thing to consider when we're discussing vaccination......Currently only have limited supplies of 1 potentially very effective one. The AZ appears much less effective and has not yet been approved.

True, albeit the more effective one is being used on the people who need it most. 

[parsonjack]

1 hour ago, eFestivals said:

I've heard there's currently a hold on spending until at least January.

Fingers crossed, at that point in January they'll decide to hold out for another month before making a decision - because I'm thinking the vaccine effect will be very decent by then, making it much easier to make decent predictions for the following months.

If they can hold out for another month then my confidence increases exponentially.

Edited December 16, 2020 by parsonjack

[Lycra]

7 minutes ago, xxialac said:

True, albeit the more effective one is being used on the people who need it most. 

The whole PB order is for 40 million doses, enough for 20 million people, to be delivered by end 2021. The bulk of it is expected in H1 though.

[paulshane]

23 minutes ago, Zoo Music Girl said:

That Emily interview is quite a sombre read, although it doesn't really tell us anything we don't already know. Apart from the planning for live streamed gigs, which I thought was interesting. On the one hand it's a bit of a worry they are thinking that way (but you have to cover all eventualities). On the other, interesting to think how that might work. Could they use them to raise money by people buying tickets to watch the stream? Maybe even sell a few socially distanced tickets for people to actually attend the events? 

I'd buy a 'streaming' ticket, if it came with something physical too, like a wristband or car sticker with the festival dates on it. Obviously, I'm hoping to be there in person as i have a ticket carried over, but who knows.

[Zoo Music Girl]

1 minute ago, paulshane said:

I'd buy a 'streaming' ticket, if it came with something physical too, like a wristband or car sticker with the festival dates on it. Obviously, I'm hoping to be there in person as i have a ticket carried over, but who knows.

I'd buy a steaming ticket without the need for something physical as I've done that for other gigs this year and would be happy to give them the money. I don't imagine they'd stream a whole festival but a few separate gigs so it would largely depend who was playing for me. But I'd like to support them. 

If they did something like that this year I would see that as separate to the tickets being rolled over. So if they did sell in-person tickets for socially distanced events there would be a fresh sale for them. Something like what Hot Chip did in Margate where they sold tickets both for the stream and the actual event.

I'm not sure if I'd try to come to an event in person or not as a long way to travel for one gig, but could maybe make a weekend of it.

[MrBarry465]

44 minutes ago, eFestivals said:

it's not really speculation. We know from some exceedingly detailed research what effects the vaccine has on deaths and hospitalisations.

We know from trials, it hasn't been tested at this scale yet.

[Chrisp1986]

Time for a revote?

[Deaf Nobby Burton]

The flipside of vaccinations not being that successful is what then?

Life as it is now is not sustainable, society and the economy will eventually crumble if we carry in as we are.

I personally don’t place much importance on how successful it is, it just needs to do ‘something‘
 

If it doesn’t work exactly as hoped, then we aren’t going to spend another year as we are trying to work on other vaccines that will work better.

Some people seem to think the current situation is an actual choice we have that we can just continue with indefinitely, we can’t.

I appreciate that doesn’t mean festivals will definitely happen this summer, but festivals are on a par with or similar to a myriad other events and aspects of our society which are currently on hold at the moment, which cannot stay in hold indefinitely.

Its not going to be zero deaths and zero public health impact before life gets back to normal, it’s going to be when is the absolute soonest we can get life back to normal?

 

[DeanoL]

 

2 hours ago, eFestivals said:

except it's not that and can't be that.

The average person comes into close-enough contact with perhaps 100 people over the festival weekend, so any 'super spreading event' will be limited in scope, and not much different to what would be likely to happen if that super-spreader spent their spreading-time within their normal life.

If the govt was so concerned with superspreaders they'd have closed the airports and closed the borders.

The problem is with a 5 day festival, the 20 people a superspreader has contact with on Wednesday are then spreading themselves by Friday/Saturday and it swiftly multiplies. And 100 people might not sound like loads, but it's ten times the close contacts someone has on an average weekend.

And to put that into perspective, the vaccine currently looks to be 90% effective. So even if you have it, the vaccine reduces your chance of catching it to 10%, then going to Glastonbury increases your contacts by ten times, essentially "cancelling out" the benefit.

1 hour ago, Lycra said:

There is a lot of hope and faith placed in vaccines even when approved for use they have only been tested on a few tens of thousands of people. Putting a vaccine into general release is a continuing experiment, only a whole lot bigger. Will the promise of phase 3 results be upheld? Will efficacy drop significantly? Will the vaccine prevent the host becoming ill but still afford asymptotic transmission? Will significant side effects come to light? These will all be found out over the coming months/year. There are numerous instances of vaccines being approved only to subsequently disappoint.

Yeah, we don't know yet, though it's worth noting that the effectiveness rates and such published are produced as a result of scientific endeavour, not marketing. So it's not like a product that says "save up to £50 on your bills every month" and it turns out that's the absolute best case, and most people save a fiver. It's just as likely to be wrong in the other direction - being more effective than stated, rather than less.

 

[DeanoL]

2 minutes ago, Deaf Nobby Burton said:

The flipside of vaccinations not being that successful is what then?

Life as it is now is not sustainable, society and the economy will eventually crumble if we carry in as we are.

I personally don’t place much importance on how successful it is, it just needs to do ‘something‘
 

If it doesn’t work exactly as hoped, then we aren’t going to spend another year as we are trying to work on other vaccines that will work better.

Some people seem to think the current situation is an actual choice we have that we can just continue with indefinitely, we can’t

Why do you think we can't?

I mean, I don't think we will, at all, but I'm sort of intrigued by the thought experiment.

You're sort of right, in that we can't carry on as we are *right now* as we are, I guess you would say "living in hope" - we just need a successful vaccine and normal returns, hence everything is on pause, waiting to restart, because the assumption is it will be able to. So the world isn't moving on.

But if it were demonstrable that a vaccine was impossible, I also don't think we would instantly jump to "okay, loads of people need to die then". I think we would get there eventually, but it *would* be a choice. If the death rate was 20%, not 1%, we almost certainly would. We've adapted to far worse things as a human race. Yes, whole sectors and industries would go away, but new ones would start, pubs and restaurants would reconfigure to be much safer, and the world would keep moving.

[mike46]

Some positive news! If the figures that just 2% of the population vaccinated reduces the risk by 40%, we’re well on our way already. 
 

Things are going to look very different come March/April, might be too late for Glastonbury but late spring and summer is going to be a lot better. 

[parsonjack]

11 minutes ago, Chrisp1986 said:

Time for a revote?

What we need is some sort of barometer where we can vote, say a maximum of 1/day, that shows current confidence.  Not sure if such a thing exists online somewhere.... 

Would mean we don't have to keep posting fresh polls.

[Deaf Nobby Burton]

13 minutes ago, DeanoL said:

 

The problem is with a 5 day festival, the 20 people a superspreader has contact with on Wednesday are then spreading themselves by Friday/Saturday and it swiftly multiplies. And 100 people might not sound like loads, but it's ten times the close contacts someone has on an average weekend.

And to put that into perspective, the vaccine currently looks to be 90% effective. So even if you have it, the vaccine reduces your chance of catching it to 10%, then going to Glastonbury increases your contacts by ten times, essentially "cancelling out" the benefit.

Yeah, we don't know yet, though it's worth noting that the effectiveness rates and such published are produced as a result of scientific endeavour, not marketing. So it's not like a product that says "save up to £50 on your bills every month" and it turns out that's the absolute best case, and most people save a fiver. It's just as likely to be wrong in the other direction - being more effective than stated, rather than less.

 

I think personally it’s more the optics when it comes to a festival, by June you might have 25% of the population vaccinated and we’d have to be comfortably at a minimum of 20% with antibodies with 18 months of the virus circulating. It wouldn’t be a stretch to say about 30/40% of attendees couldn’t catch/pass the virus on. If we’re at the levels we were at last June only about 10/20 people would actually have it who enter the gate and that’s without any testing or other measures to mitigate that further. I’d probably say it was a big stretch to say an infected person would come into close contact with 100 people over the weekend (possibly 40% of them wouldn’t matter anyway) it would depend on their behaviour of course, but when you’re in a closely packed crowd you’d only really be able to infect the 5/6 people immediately surrounding you, but you wouldn’t necessarily infect all of them anyway.

Add to that vaccinating a quarter of the population cuts the mortality rate to the same level as flu, it really wouldn’t be a big deal in the slightest.

But because it’s a festival it will be made to seem like a big deal. 

Edited December 16, 2020 by Deaf Nobby Burton

[Leyrulion]

1 hour ago, eFestivals said:

I'm not suggesting it'll be an overnight success. 

I'm saying that by the end of Jan we should be in a position to do some decent modelling for the summer of the vaccine effect. By the end of February there should be some almost-certainty to be got from projections from the data.

I don't think it's going to be nearly as fast or as clear cut as you're suggesting. 

By mid January the people vaccinated in the last week will become immune. If all 800k doses were used that's only going to be about 700k immune people (95% effective combined with a low number not getting a 2nd dose for whatever reason).

A large proportion of the very 1st people vaccinated are healthcare workers who are unlikely to get hospitalised anyway.

At the beginning from mid Jan going to be hard to detect an impact because of the relatively low numbers of vulnerable people vaccinated.

Realistically you're talking, as you mentioned, end of February before any confident projections about vaccination impact will be made public.

 

Edited December 16, 2020 by Leyrulion

[Huckleberry Finn]

8 hours ago, henry bear said:

Glastonbury 2021: Emily Eavis says 'we're doing everything we can' https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-55315202
 

gotta say, Emily doesn’t sound overly confident about 2021 😬

I don't think this changes a huge amount as far as the festival in 2021 is concerned, but puts the reality of the situation in the 'clearest' of terms. No one really knows.

[Deaf Nobby Burton]

4 minutes ago, DeanoL said:

Why do you think we can't?

I mean, I don't think we will, at all, but I'm sort of intrigued by the thought experiment.

You're sort of right, in that we can't carry on as we are *right now* as we are, I guess you would say "living in hope" - we just need a successful vaccine and normal returns, hence everything is on pause, waiting to restart, because the assumption is it will be able to. So the world isn't moving on.

But if it were demonstrable that a vaccine was impossible, I also don't think we would instantly jump to "okay, loads of people need to die then". I think we would get there eventually, but it *would* be a choice. If the death rate was 20%, not 1%, we almost certainly would. We've adapted to far worse things as a human race. Yes, whole sectors and industries would go away, but new ones would start, pubs and restaurants would reconfigure to be much safer, and the world would keep moving.

I think people have become weirdly comfortable with just shutting businesses down and entire Industries like it’s just an binary choice that has no negative impact.

Why do you think we can continue to do that indefinitely, or for that matter why?

[DeanoL]

This is the most telling bit to me of the Emily interview:

Quote

Your dad said Glastonbury would go bankrupt if you had to cancel again in 2021. Is that still the case?

Well, it certainly wouldn't be good news if we got to the week of the Festival - having obviously spent a huge amount of time and money building the event - and then heard a few days before gates opening that we weren't allowed to go ahead. But, as long as we can make a firm call either way well in advance, then we'll be OK. The next few weeks are going to be crucial, really. They'll hopefully give us a much better idea of what is and isn't going to be possible.

Essentially, they can't afford to risk going ahead if they might be cancelled last minute. They can afford to keep going and come back in 2022 if they make that decision in advance. 

There's practically zero chance that by March they'll be able to get a 100% guarantee they can go ahead. And even if it's 90% or 99% certain, you don't gamble the entire company on that. Especially when you know that people will come back in 2022 regardless - it's not like they're thinking "two years off, people might have forgotten about us" like many small festivals will.

I'm almost certain given that statement that it won't happen. And I'm only slightly less certain that we'll get to the end of June and everyone will go "oh, ffs, it could have gone ahead anyway".

But I don't think you risk your livelihood and indeed, the festival, on that.

Quote

Even if they took a decision to cancel today, and minimised all costs, they'd still make a 7 figure loss in 2021 as staff salaries (or redundancy payments) would need to be paid for and even if they're using the furlough scheme that'll only take them up to March.

The last official fallow year, they lost over 2 million quid and that break was planned and accounted for.

But they have that money in the bank. And they know that come 2022 they can start putting savings back in the bank from that festival - maybe even a small price hike to boost the "war chest". It'd be a totally different situation if they didn't have that money (like how the festival was run in the 90s/early 00s).