The BBC has announced that it will be bringing back ‘The Glastonbury Experience’ for a second year running.
Following the news that Glastonbury Festival has been cancelled again this year, the broadcaster will once again beam some of the best highlights from previous years into people’s homes.
From Friday June 25 until Sunday June 27 – the dates this year’s festival was due to take place on – the BBC will be airing ‘The Glastonbury Experience’ across its television channels, iPlayer, BBC radio and BBC Sounds.
‘The Glastonbury Experience’ will include more than 50 full Glastonbury sets, including Radiohead in 1997 and Kylie Minogue in 2019, both of which will be broadcast on BBC Two and BBC Four.
In addition to some of the festival’s classic sets being broadcast, the BBC will also broadcast a special director’s cut of the recent ‘Live At Worthy Farm’ livestream.
The online event, which took place on May 22, 2021, featured the likes of Coldplay, Wolf Alice and IDLES all performing intimate sets from the Worthy Farm festival site, while Radiohead side-project The Smile made their debut live performance during the livestream.
A behind-the-scenes documentary about the livestream, presented by Jo Whiley, will also air as part of ‘The Glastonbury Experience’ 2021, featuring “the story behind the staging of Glastonbury’s first ever festival without an audience, interviews with the artists, backstage footage and performance highlights from Live At Worthy Farm“.
“Since the BBC first broadcast footage from Worthy Farm in 1997, Glastonbury and the BBC have enjoyed a brilliant relationship, so I’m thrilled that they’ll be showing highlights of our Live At Worthy Farm special,” festival co-founder Emily Eavis said in a statement.
Last year’s The Glastonbury Experience proved to be a ratings smash, topping 10 million views just one week after it first aired. Adele‘s 2016 headline set proved to be the biggest draw on telly, attracting an audience of 2.1 million — the biggest for a Glastonbury show on BBC Two since 2017. Over on BBC Four, Nile Rodgers & Chic’s performance from 2017 also drew an audience of 258,000.
Earlier this week, Crowded House frontman Neil Finn has confirmed that the band will be returning to Glastonbury in 2022.
Appearing on Channel 4’s ‘Sunday Brunch’ yesterday, Finn confirmed the band were initially set to perform at Worthy Farm this year, before all touring plans were pushed back a year.
“We’ve had a tour booked for the last two summers, which is actually sold out and is now intact and coming next June,” said Finn.
