GLASTO GOES VIRTUAL; BST CANCELS

In U.K. festival news, Glastonbury is offering a global livestream, access to Reading and Leeds is likely to require a vaccine passport and BST Hyde Park has been canceled.

Glastonbury’s livestream will take place 5/22 on Worthy Farm, with Coldplay, Damon Albarn, Haim, Michael Kiwanuka and Jorja Smith on the bill. Idles, Kano, Wolf Alice and DJ Honey Dijon will also perform alongside a number of unannounced surprise guests.

The event, shot by Grammy-nominated director Paul Dugdale, will last five hours and will be interspersed by a spoken word narrative, written and delivered by special guests. U.K. livestream business Driift are co-promoters and producers alongside BBC Studios Productions.

It will be broadcast in full across four separate time zones, with staggered livestreams for the U.K., Europe, Africa and the Middle East, East Coast North America and Central/South America, West Coast North America, and Australia, New Zealand and Asia. Tickets are on sale now for $27.50 here. Proceeds will go to Oxfam, Greenpeace and WaterAid as well as helping to secure Glastonbury's return in 2022.

In other festival news, BST Hyde Park will no longer take place in July 2021. Organizers say that the decision was made following a review of the most recent government advice, with the timeline meaning that they are “unable to deliver with certainty the quality BST Hyde Park is known for in the time available.”

“By making this decision at this stage we allow artists, crew, fans and everyone that comes together to help create these shows to plan accordingly.”

2021 headliners Duran Duran and Pearl Jam are set to play the festival’s 2022 edition instead and will be joined by Pixies, Nile Rodgers & Chic with further acts TBD. Ticket holders can either keep hold of their tickets for next year's event or get a refund.

Reading and Leeds Festival is one of the many events still determined to take place in the summer, although boss Melvin Benn has now said that attendees will “almost certainly” require a vaccine passport. He told the BBC: "I'm taking the prime minister at his word that from June the legal restrictions will be off and as he and the culture secretary said: 'We are looking forward to a summer of fun’. If it is canceled everyone gets a refund—that's pretty normal—but I'm certainly anticipating it going ahead.”