Will the 2021 festival go ahead?

[Leyrulion]

5 hours ago, eFestivals said:

except it doesn't pan out like that during a lockdown. 

R will not be that high, because the isolation measures mean that an infected person quickly runs out of new people to infect.

(yes, I know not everyone is isolated)

It didn't in the first lockdown but there are projections that R may remain high in this lockdown, indeed that this lockdown might not even be enough to reduce below 1 because of the increased transmissibility.

[ivan]

1 hour ago, eFestivals said:

yup, one of the many reasons why I think insurance isn't a viable proposition.

Every possible angle and variance would have to be written into that insurance to define what and when gets a payout, and if someone managed to do that you'd probably find festivals didn't feel it gave them the cover they want.

 

Plus you have the concern on whether the festivals have been cancelled or re scheduled.

As you know in the past if an artist has had to postpone a gig , but can  reschedule it they keep the ticket money.  

That is one of the reasons AC/DC went with AXL Rose to finish their tour.

[Colorblindjames]

Like in Germany I fully expect the government to provide insurance for the summer festival season which will enable planning for Glastonbury to continue. Doesn’t mean it will go ahead but it will allow the festival to reduce the risk of paying those suppliers in advance. (Do bands get and advance?)

[xxialac]

10 minutes ago, Colorblindjames said:

Like in Germany I fully expect the government to provide insurance for the summer festival season which will enable planning for Glastonbury to continue. Doesn’t mean it will go ahead but it will allow the festival to reduce the risk of paying those suppliers in advance. (Do bands get and advance?)

Yeah, I was wondering that. 

Do bands normally get paid part of their fee several months upfront?

[The Nal]

1 hour ago, xxialac said:

Yeah, I was wondering that. 

Do bands normally get paid part of their fee several months upfront?

Yup. At the very least a hefty deposit. Some bands look for more, particularly if they're coming from overseas. Their agent/touring company isn't risking the act turning up and not getting paid. 

Theres also transport costs, the rider, hotels etc. Not sure how much of this Glasto HQ cover in their contracts. Depends on the band I suppose. There are also penalties for breach of contract and so on. On both sides.

Its a legal and financial mess if one band cancels/the venue cancels, never mind something as big as Glastonbury and the amount of moving parts there.

Music festivals will be the very very very last thing to return as normal. 

[ivan]

20 minutes ago, The Nal said:

Yup. At the very least a hefty deposit. Some bands look for more, particularly if they're coming from overseas. Their agent/touring company isn't risking the act turning up and not getting paid. 

Theres also transport costs, the rider, hotels etc. Not sure how much of this Glasto HQ cover in their contracts. Depends on the band I suppose. There are also penalties for breach of contract and so on. On both sides.

Its a legal and financial mess if one band cancels/the venue cancels, never mind something as big as Glastonbury and the amount of moving parts there.

Music festivals will be the very very very last thing to return as normal. 

What do you reckon the chances are of The National in Limerick in June ?

I still have my ticket safe from last year and my bike is re-booked on the ferries, but do you think the band  will still be able to come over for the 3 or 4 dates in Ireland ?

[kingcrawler]

19 minutes ago, ivan said:

What do you reckon the chances are of The National in Limerick in June ?

I still have my ticket safe from last year and my bike is re-booked on the ferries, but do you think the band  will still be able to come over for the 3 or 4 dates in Ireland ?

I think those gigs are around the time they're over in Europe for Primavera and Best Kept Secret, so even if gigs are safe at that time I wouldn't be surprised if they delayed the tour dates as both of those festivals happening in early-mid June seems unlikely at the moment. 

[The Nal]

11 minutes ago, ivan said:

What do you reckon the chances are of The National in Limerick in June ?

I still have my ticket safe from last year and my bike is re-booked on the ferries, but do you think the band  will still be able to come over for the 3 or 4 dates in Ireland ?

Pretty much zero unfortunately mate. We've just started a very strict lockdown (Level 5, the highest, no house visitors, schools closed etc) which will go on until Feb and then still very strict after that. Hospitals are close to being overwhelmed etc. Its a mess at the moment. 

Gigs coming back is "Level 1" here which we didn't even get close to in July/August last year and we were only getting single figure cases a day then. Our vaccine rollout has started slowly too. Embarrassingly slowly. 

I don't think we'll see Level 1 (gigs, spectators at sport) here before 2022. 

[thewayiam]

2 hours ago, The Nal said:

Pretty much zero unfortunately mate. We've just started a very strict lockdown (Level 5, the highest, no house visitors, schools closed etc) which will go on until Feb and then still very strict after that. Hospitals are close to being overwhelmed etc. Its a mess at the moment. 

Gigs coming back is "Level 1" here which we didn't even get close to in July/August last year and we were only getting single figure cases a day then. Our vaccine rollout has started slowly too. Embarrassingly slowly. 

I don't think we'll see Level 1 (gigs, spectators at sport) here before 2022. 

Don't think we'll see it anywhere pal. The UK doesn't listen to anything when it comes to rules and safety. If they don't have it then who cares.

[Chrisp1986]

InCider festival made this statement. Its at a Pointins resort so assuming mainly indoor too?

[Andy0808 v5]

I missed this the other day.

The fact she’s denying a number of claims is atleast hopeful. If it was already dead in the water she’d just ignore the comments until they wanted to cancel.

[zahidf]

I wish people would stop cancelling it online until they cancel it. Theyve got enough stuff to be doing.

[ivan]

2 hours ago, thewayiam said:

Don't think we'll see it anywhere pal. The UK doesn't listen to anything when it comes to rules and safety. If they don't have it then who cares.

We are a nation of Q ‘rs !

 

[mufcok]

🥺

[kalifire]

5 hours ago, Andy0808 v5 said:

I missed this the other day.

The fact she’s denying a number of claims is atleast hopeful. If it was already dead in the water she’d just ignore the comments until they wanted to cancel.

It's odd that there are quite a few people in recent days independently saying it's been cancelled. Are we to assume they're all vying for attention? That they've all misunderstood something that doesn't translate to cancellation? None of them, to my knowledge, have provided any screenshots or proof of this alleged notification.

[incident]

4 minutes ago, kalifire said:

It's odd that there are quite a few people in recent days independently saying it's been cancelled. Are we to assume they're all vying for attention? That they've all misunderstood something that doesn't translate to cancellation? None of them, to my knowledge, have provided any screenshots or proof of this alleged notification.

I think that there's probably a bit of both of that out there. There's a lot of rumours going around, and people like to be able to say they had the scoop.

Some of these people may well be in a (not necessarily "the") loop and have heard something that they do genuinely believe - my experience (and I've said this before COVID was even a thought) is that the staff rumour mill can be every bit as unreliable as the public rumour mill - though because there's known to be a connection claims are often taken at face value*.

Ultimately, I do think it's vastly unlikely that Emily would outright lie on this. I'm pretty confident that when an actual final decision is taken, whatever it is, we'll be told about it pretty quickly, ie within a couple of days. And if for whatever reason they do need to hold off telling the public then Emily (and the rest of GFL) would just stay silent or be non-committal rather than issue outright denials. I know it's a different circumstance, but when the festival was cancelled last March, I believe the public announcement was made the same day that the decision was taken. Organisations working with the festival (including the join charities) only had a literal few minutes notice that the plug was being pulled.

* My favourite example of this - A story was circulating amongst staff during the 2015 festival that one of the major landowners had been arrested for punching a copper at one of the gates, and as a result the festival was unlikely to return again (ever). When the dust settled, the truth was more along the lines of a neighbouring landowner, who doesn't supply his fields to the festival, had been arrested for damaging a car in a festival related dispute.

[eFestivals]

16 hours ago, xxialac said:

Do bands normally get paid part of their fee several months upfront?

No, not as standard (tho i'm sure there's exceptions).

As far as I'm aware (and have been thru this myself once or twice) half the fee is due a month in advance and the other half is due on the day or just afterwards,

15 hours ago, The Nal said:

Theres also transport costs, the rider, hotels etc. Not sure how much of this Glasto HQ cover in their contracts.

for smaller bands at Glastonbury I'm pretty sure there's none of that.

And just from a little of the info I got told around the Toots non-appearance on West Holts a few years ago, it seemed to be the case that the Toots hotel booking had naff all to do with Glastonbury, so was probably a direct cost to the band.

[xxialac]

Just now, eFestivals said:

No, not as standard (tho i'm sure there's exceptions).

As far as I'm aware (and have been thru this myself once or twice) half the fee is due a month in advance and the other half is due on the day or just afterwards,

for smaller bands at Glastonbury I'm pretty sure there's none of that.

And just from a little of the info I got told around the Toots non-appearance on West Holts a few years ago, it seemed to be the case that the Toots hotel booking had naff all to do with Glastonbury, so was probably a direct cost to the band.

Super info, thanks.

[eFestivals]

3 hours ago, incident said:

I think that there's probably a bit of both of that out there. There's a lot of rumours going around, and people like to be able to say they had the scoop.

and of course they stand a decent chance of being 'proved' right by circumstances, rather than by having good info.

[Wellyboot]

5 hours ago, kalifire said:

It's odd that there are quite a few people in recent days independently saying it's been cancelled. Are we to assume they're all vying for attention? That they've all misunderstood something that doesn't translate to cancellation? None of them, to my knowledge, have provided any screenshots or proof of this alleged notification.

Yeah, I thought this. Maybe they are just assuming it will be cancelled but rather than keeping that assumption to themselves they're coming out with it? I dont know!

I guess we wont know for certain until GF/Emily come out and say either way. As a few others have said, I'd prefer it was just cancelled and have a 'proper' Glastonbury next year. I kind of feel like we've missed a lot of this years anyway due to lack of build up. Thats a big part of it for me, being excited and planning etc. Instead all we've had is 'will it be on or wont it' 

(dont get me wrong, I'd take all the 'will it or wont it' over nothing, I just prefer the 'whos on where, the weather thread, is the fence up yet etc 😂)

 

[rivalschools.price]

1 hour ago, eFestivals said:

and of course they stand a decent chance of being 'proved' right by circumstances, rather than by having good info.

What makes me laugh is that the people claiming that the festival will not go ahead are hardly sticking their neck out with an outlandish statement in their quest to be ‘proved right’.

its not just Glasto, the social media pages of all major events are filled with comments such as ‘it’s not happening,mark my words’.

I’d give more kudos to someone who said that they had inside info that the festival was definitely happening and then the festival did in fact go ahead.

[eFestivals]

Yup ... but anyway, people from the Glastonbury/Shepton/Pilton area have an absolutely dreadful record with their claimed inside info, going back for as long as I've been doing this. I'm more likely to believe a random from London than I am a random claiming to be local to the festival.

[Fuzzy Afro]

Wonder what the chances are of the festival season being cancelled only for some hastily arranged one off events to go ahead in the summer after a big improvement in the situation. I can’t see the music industry dilly-dallying for months after the government gives the green light 

[jannybruck]

Just now, Fuzzy Afro said:

Wonder what the chances are of the festival season being cancelled only for some hastily arranged one off events to go ahead in the summer after a big improvement in the situation. I can’t see the music industry dilly-dallying for months after the government gives the green light 

I think there'll be some element of this particularly because there's so many bands ready to tour, but unless you've got an undeniably killer lineup ready to go it's risky to not have much buffer time to shift tickets, do adverts/promo, etc.

[Fuzzy Afro]

Just now, jannybruck said:

I think there'll be some element of this particularly because there's so many bands ready to tour, but unless you've got an undeniably killer lineup ready to go it's risky to not have much buffer time to shift tickets, do adverts/promo, etc.

Yep! Say we get to mid-June and then the government gives the green light for mass gatherings to resume, every major festival and outdoor gig will have long since been cancelled. But I could see some promoters and acts getting together to throw some ad-hoc “festivals” together at short notice. I remain much more confident about one day events that camping events.