Glastonbury festival donates its anti-coronavirus kit to emergency services

The organisers of the now-cancelled Glastonbury Festival have donated essential supplies to frontline emergency services to help them deal with the coronavirus pandemic.

Michael and Emily Eavis, the father-and-daughter team behind the 50 year-old festival, have given a shipment of hand sanitiser, disposable plastic gloves and face masks which had been intended for use by festival stewards to Avon and Somerset Police.

The force tweeted a photo of the kit being loaded into the back of a police van, saying: “On behalf of the A&S Local Resilience Forum we’d like to extend a huge thank you to Michael & @emilyeavis for providing frontline emergency service workers & NHS staff with thousands of litres of hand sanitiser, gloves and face masks due to be used @glastonbury 2020,”

The festival, which was set to celebrate its 50th anniversary this year with a bill that included Diana Ross, Kendrick Lamar, Sir Paul McCartney and Taylor Swift, has been postponed until 2021.

Fans who have already paid a deposit for tickets have been told that their tickets will be valid for next year’s festival, or they can choose to have a refund.

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Announcing the postponement, a statement from the festival organisers said: “The cancellation of this year’s Festival will no doubt come as a terrible blow to our incredible crew and volunteers who work so hard to make this event happen."

“There will also inevitably be severe financial implications as a result of this cancellation," the announcement continued, "not just for us, but also the Festival’s charity partners, suppliers, traders, local landowners and our community.”

Each year, the festival raises funds for charities including Oxfam and Greenpeace. In 2017 Michael and Emily Eavis confirmed that £2.35 million was given to their three “main supported organisations”, Oxfam, Greenpeace, and WaterAid.

The festival, which draws upwards of 200,000 people to Worthy Farm in Somerset, was scheduled to take place from June 24-28.

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