Glastonbury organizer Emily Eavis has hinted that the festival could take a year off in 2026.
Speaking to DJs and radio hosts Annie Mac and Nick Grimshaw on a special Glastonbury episode of their BBC Sidetracked podcast, the longtime festival magnate revealed that the iconic British festival “might do a fallow year” after its 55th edition in 2025.
Glastonbury, which is held annually at Worthy Farm—a functioning cattle farm in Pilton, Somerset, England—periodically takes a year off to allow the land on its roughly 1,200-acre festival site to fully recover from the week-long festival.
Glastonbury’s last fallow year came in 2018, though the festival also took two years off in 2020 and 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We are due a fallow year,” Eavis said. “The fallow year is important because it gives the land a rest, and it gives the cows a chance to be out for longer and reclaim their land.”
“I think it’s important. I think it gives everybody a little time to just switch off,” she continued. “And I think it’s quite good not to just seem to be cashing in and stuff. It’s so important, that ethos, now more than ever. Sometimes you just need to go, “Let’s just calm it all down, have a little break, and come back with a renewed excitement.’”
Eavis, who is the daughter of Glastonbury founder Michael Eavis and grew up on Worthy Farm, officially became a festival co-organizer in 1999, stepping in to help her father once he reached retirement age.
Among other accolades, she was responsible for booking Glastonbury’s first hip-hop headliner, JAY-Z, in 2007, and is currently in charge of booking all of the festival’s main stages, alongside her husband Nick Dewey, Glastonbury’s Head of Music Programming.
Listen to the full BBC Sidetracked podcast with Emily Eavis here.
Featured image from Glastonbury. Credit: Anna Barclay.
