Glastonbury teams up with V&A to launch new digital archive

Glastonbury Festival has teamed up with the V&A for an online archive to celebrate the history of the iconic event.

The London museum has hosted archive material from the festival since first joining forces in 2014, including a wide array of “posters, stage designs, costumes, interviews, films and other memorabilia”.

Now, the new initiative will see the items being made available online for the first time, alongside a selection of contributions from the public to mark Glastonbury’s 50th anniversary.

It is currently in the early stages of development, but will prospectively launch in 2021.

V&A senior curator Kate Bailey said: “It will allow us to increase public, digital access to the festival’s performance history, and to create research opportunities that trace the extraordinary creativity and impact of the festival’s past, present and future.”

Festival co-organiser Emily Eavis said: “The memories and experiences enjoyed and shared by festivalgoers are what makes Glastonbury so special, and I’m so pleased that such a wealth of fascinating content will now be accessible to everyone.”

It comes after the museum called for festival-goers to share their memories of the event in June. 

Last month, Glastonbury boss Emily Eavis said the event is still aiming to go ahead in June 2021.

Previous reports had suggested that the festival could move to a September date, but Eavis dismissed the idea on social media.

She wrote on Twitter: “For those who have been asking, we have no plans to move next year’s Glastonbury to September 2021 – we’re still very much aiming for June.”

Eavis also gave an update on ticket re-sales following the cancellation of this year’s festival due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

She explained that there will be no ticket resale this October because “so few people have asked for a refund (next year’s Festival remains sold out), meaning we don’t have enough tickets to resell.”