Glastonbury Festival organisers "grateful" after being awarded £900,000 from Culture Recovery Fund

As Music Week reports, Glastonbury Festival is among 2,700 organisations being offered nearly £400 million in grants and loans as part of the UK government's latest round of the Culture Recovery Fund.

Co-organisers Michael and Emily Eavis revealed on Twitter today (2 April) that they're "grateful to have been offered an award from the Culture Recovery Fund". They added, "After losing millions from the cancellation of our last two Festivals, this grant will make a significant difference in helping to secure our future."

We’re grateful to have been offered an award from the Culture Recovery Fund. After losing millions from the cancellation of our last two Festivals, this grant will make a significant difference in helping to secure our future. @ace_southwest @DCMS @ace_national #HereForCulture

— Glastonbury Festival (@glastonbury) April 2, 2021

Glastonbury's Cullture Recovery Fund grant comes just days after they announced their Live At Worthy Farm livestream event, which will take place on 22 May and will feature performances from Damon Albarn, Haim, Kano, Coldplay, Jorja Smith, IDLES, Michael Kiwanuka, Wolf Alice and Honey Dijon.

The £900,000 will go towards the festival's events planned for this year, as well as helping the festival through to 2022.

Music Venue Trust's Strategic Director Beverley Whitrick said of the latest round of the Culture Recovery Fund in a statement, "Music Venue Trust has worked hard to support eligible grassroots music venues (GMVs) in their applications to this fund and we are delighted that members of the Music Venues Alliance (MVA) have now been awarded almost £16million in support. This represents an 80% success rate for MVA members, many of whom had never applied for public funding prior to this pandemic. This money is aimed at securing venues until the end of June 2021."

The statement continued, "We are grateful to Arts Council England who worked so hard to deliver the fund, and to the DCMS for listening to the needs of the GMV sector. However, as with all grant funding, this news is hard on those venues who were ineligible due to the structure of their business or which have not been established long enough to provide the accounts required, and on those who applied but were unsuccessful or awarded only a small percentage of the money they need."

Whitrick concluded, "After Easter we will be reviewing the needs of our entire membership and assessing which venues are secure until the end of June, when we hope that life may be returning towards something resembling ‘normality’. Some venues currently on our ‘Red List’ will be able to be removed thanks to a combination of donations and grant funding. Inevitably though there will be venues to add to the Red List so Music Venue Trust’s campaign to #SaveOurVenues will continue."