Paul McCartney, chief executive of Glastonbury this year, does not expect the festival to go ahead in 2021.
The former Beatles star told BBC Radio 4: “100,000 people are packed tightly together with flags and no masks – you know, talk about a super-spreader. I would love it [happen], but I feel like it ‘s not going to do. ”
McCartney said the festival was not on his 2021 calendar. This week Glastonbury co-ordinator Emily Eavis told the BBC they are doing “everything we can” to make sure it happens next year.
She said: “The hard part is understanding exactly what we design, and the impact that has on what we can do. But at the moment I’m not sure there’s anything we can do to make sure we welcome 200,000 people to spend six days in some areas in June 2021. ”
Eavis said if the festival could not take place in its traditional form, the organizers will consider inviting artists to perform on the farm for a series of live streams.
McCartney appeared on Radio 4 to discuss his new album, McCartney III, written and recorded in Lockdown, which the Guardian called “the most enjoyable and certainly the most personal McCartney album from Chaos and Creation in the Backyard in 2005 ”.
He added that he wanted to encourage people to get the Covid-19 vaccine: “If I can get a license, I’ll get it. In April, he blamed Chinese wet markets for the spread of the coronavirus and described bats eating as “medieval”.