Experts reveal what Glastonbury could look like in 2050 (2024)

With almost 20 times as many fans flocking to Worthy Farm, Glastonbury has come a long way since its humble beginnings in 1971.

And while many of those original festival-goers may hardly recognise the festival due to open next week, the festival of the future could be even stranger.

From cooling tents to beat the summer heat to holographic performers and haptic dancefloors, experts reveal what it might be like to visit Glastonbury 2050.

With climate change set to make summers hotter and wetter, festivals will need to find new ways to keep fans safe against the extremes of a changing climate.

But as technological advances change the very way we think about live music, future fans may be able to enjoy more immersive performances than ever before

Cooling tents

In 2019, Glastonbury coincided with a heatwave which sent temperatures climbing to31°C (89°F) and left dozens in need of treatment by ambulance crews.

Those temperatures may have seemed bad enough, but the experts say that things are only going to get worse.

Last year the UK set an all-time heat record as temperatures hit40.3°C (105°F) on July 19 in Lincolnshire.

This year already looks set to be no different, with experts already declaring the hottest Spring and Winter on record.

In the future, Professor Ilan Kelman, an expert on climate risk risks from UCL, told MailOnline festivals will face heat 'in realms that we have never experienced.'

He says: 'Looking at how our weather patterns will change, the main concern is going to be heat and humidity.'

If you are able to stay cool and hydrated inside heat may not be too much of a worry, but for thousands of campers out in a field drinking more booze than water things can get dangerous.

Professor Kelman explains that this becomes particularly deadly when people are unable to cool down overnight.

He says: 'Our bodies can withstand remarkable heat, provided we have that chance to recover but if it's not cooling down for the night then we don't recover and the heat stress builds up and eventually our organs fail.

But due to the build-up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, heat exits the atmosphere much slower so it takes longer for the air to cool down during a heatwave.

'Human-caused climate change means that it doesn't cool down as much at night, and those extra degrees Celsius could mean the difference between life and death,' says Professor Kelman.

And as anyone who has ever spent the night in a hot tent can tell you, that problem is particularly bad if you're camping.

Professor Kelman says that the solution is a combination of accurate weather forecasts for the days of the festival and cooling areas to help people recover.

While it might be impossible to cool the entire festival, organisers will need to set aside spaces to keep people safe and have teams dedicated to ensuring people use them.

Professor Kelman says: 'We have to have cooling centres that people can get into in a safe manner during heatwaves.'

Flood defences

If the idea of hot, sunny days at a festival doesn't seem overly alarming there is also a more familiar problem that Glastonbury will need to face: the rain.

While rising temperatures make heat waves more likely, they also increase the risk of severe rain.

Professor Kelman says: 'It's straightforward: warmer air holds more water, so when it does rain there's more water to fall.'

One study published in 2023 predicted that extreme rainfall events may become up to four times more likely by the 2070sdue to climate change.

This year, parts of the UK have already seen up to a month's worth of rain falling in a single day.

Revellers getting ready to attend Glastonbury this week have been warned to pack both a sunhat and their wellies as meteorologists predict high temperatures and thunderstorms.

In 2005, two inches of rain fell in just an hour during Glastonbury which sent streams flowing through the crowded campsite.

In order to stay open, or avoid a repeat of previous years' disastrous mud baths, Glastonbury is going to need to invest in flood defences and better drainage.

The festival might dig irrigation ditches asStandon Calling, a 17,000-capacity festival in Hertfordshire, was forced to in 2022.

Or the festival might take inspiration from 'sponge cities' like SHanghai and use natural defences like trees and wetlands to prevent flash floods.

Renewable power on site

Come 2050, installing renewable power options on site might not just be a way for festivals to burnish their green credentials: but a necessary expenditure.

Professor Kelman says that power outages will be the 'number one' infrastructure problem caused by climate change.

That is not because of flooding knocking out power lines, but simply because keeping festivals cool will draw a huge amount of power.

Once temperatures reach35°C(95°F) or higher, fans are no longer effective at cooling people down.

Professor Kelman says that at these extremes all a fan will do is blow hot air, 'so we dehydrate ourselves faster and can kill ourselves.

This means that festivals must use air conditioning or artificial cooling systems to keep fans safe but this will require huge amounts of electricity.

He says: 'It's challenging enough to air condition the tube lines in London.

'Just imagine taking a venue with tens of thousands of people who are (quite rightly) screaming and dancing, and trying to keep that a reasonable temperature for a few hours.'

While Professor Kelman says that it may be better to cancel the event altogether in some cases, festivals which want to keep open despite the heat may need huge power supplies on site.

Glastonbury has already started experimenting with providing its own renewable power through solar and wind energy.

In 2023 the festival ran entirely fossil-fuel free thanks in part to the installation of a temporary wind turbine which generated300kWh per day - enough to power 300 fridges.

In the future, Glastonbury could install more solar panels or wind turbines to provide the power needed to keep a modern festival cool and green.

Virtual artists

But the future of music festivals won't all be doom, gloom, and climate annihilation.

In fact, some bands trying to cut their carbon footprint could lead to a total rewriting of what it means to play music live.

Back in 1992, Adrian Bossey, now an academic at Falmouth University, was the manager of a band called Carter and the Unstoppable Sex Machine who played a headline slot on the Friday of Glastonbury.

'At that time they were the first band to put screens on stage except you couldn't get big enough screens so we used to drive around with an articulated lorry full of old TV sets,' Mr Bossey told MailOnline.

'But when we got to Glastonbury and did that we got critiqued for "not being real live music".

'So that's when I first got interested in this idea of technology and how we could change the future of music.'

Fast forward to 2013 and Mr Bossey found himself setting up a very different type of show for Elton John.

But while Elton would be played to a crowd in LA, Mr Bossey and a handful of students watched as one of 12 remotely controlled pianos played itself in time with the LA gig.

Just like when Unstoppable Sex Machine first brought screens to Glastonbury 1992, Mr Bossey says this futuristic approach was met with a lot of resistance from those in the industry.

But after the Covid lockdowns, the outlook of the industry is totally different and the future might look a lot more like Elton's remote performance.

Fans at Glastonbury 2050 won't just get to see bands playing in person but will also be able to see virtual avatars and live-streamed performances from all over the world.

Even though this sounds far-fetched, there are already a number of popular performers today moving in this direction.

Abba Voyage, in which holographic avatars perform Abba hits, had already sold more than one million tickets as of January this year and shows no sign of slowing down.

Meanwhile, international digital-superstar Hatsune Miku has performed twice at Coachella despite being nothing more than software and a virtual animated character.

For artists keen to reduce the carbon footprint that comes with travelling to festivals, a digital performance could be the perfect solution.

Artists may even be able to collaborate with each other without needing to share the same stage through high-speed streaming.

Mr Bossey says: 'This idea that all the digital stuff isn't working that people were saying to me five years ago; it's all been totally blown out the window.

'There's sort of no rules in terms of live music festivals. '

Haptic performances

From the crush of the crowd to the smell of stale beer, any avid festival goer knows that seeing a live act is about more than just sight and sound.

But by 2050 performers may start looking to include all of the senses into their acts.

One of the ways this could happen is through 'haptic' technology which adds a physical stimulus to the musical experience.

Mr Bossey explains: 'Haptic technology turns found into felt vibrations. Even if you've got perfect hearing there are still frequencies you can't hear, but those frequencies nevertheless create a vibration.'

Using modified gaming accessories like haptic vests and vibrating dance floor tiles festival-goers can feel, rather than hear, the music.

This is particularly useful for deaf or hearing-impaired music fans who want to enjoy music through the sense of touch.

Mr Bossey recently collaborated with Deaf Rave to bring haptic vests to a six-hour Boomtown Fair.

Haptic dancefloors, meanwhile, have been piloted at prestigious venues like London's Roundhouse and at festivals such as Meltdown and Cheltenham Jazz Festival.

Government estimates suggest there are around 16 million people in the UK living with some form of disability.

And as the audiences at festivals get older, the number of people with disabilities such as hearing issues wanting to attend festivals will only grow.

Mr Bossey says: 'There's a huge financial incentive to music festivals to engage with these kinds of technologies to increase the access for people who are deaf, disabled or neurodivergent to festivals.'

And even for those who can hear, incorporating haptic technology has the possibility to enhance the live music experience.

And, as technology advances into the future, Mr Bossey thinks that there is no reason to stop with vibrating vests and floors.

Elon Musk's Neuralink and a few other companies are already paving the way for Brain-Computer-Interface (BCI) devices.

These small implants connect to the neurons in our brains and allow information to transfer back and forth.

Although their applications are somewhat limited at the moment, they could one day be used to enhance musical performances with extra-sensory information.

Mr Bossey says: 'The festivals of the future are going to increasingly incorporate these technologies as we increasingly incorporate these technologies as a species.

'Presumably, at some point in the future you will not only be able to stand on a haptic floor and know what music feels like but, through a brain implant, maybe know what music tastes like.'

VR tickets

But by 2050 you might not even need to go all the way to Glastonbury to join in on the fun.

Glastonbury has an upper limit by its licence to a maximum capacity of210,000, but in last year 21.6 million people watched the festival from home.

Mr Bossey says: 'It's not sustainable to constantly keep increasing the capacity of Glastonbury because there's 20 million people that want to come.'

And for green-minded festival organisers, audience travel to and from the venue is one of the biggest contributions to climate change.

Research from the University of Manchester found that an average Glastonbury visitor generates 20kg of CO2 per person just for travel to and from the site.

Across 2100,000 fans, 81 per cent of which arrive by car, that creates an enormous carbon footprint.

To solve both of these problems simultaneously, future festivals might start to sell virtual tickets which bring the action to the fans rather than the other way around.

'The future from a sustainability point of view is smaller festivals which are better connected via live streaming and other technologies,' says Mr Bossey.

'That might be going to people's homes or it might be going to where people have gathered with other people they don't know.'

By combining VR with haptic technology, music lovers will be able to get a fully immersive festival experience from the comfort of their own home.

Not only would this let more fans attend while slashing carbon emissions, but would also open up a potentially massive new revenue stream for festivals all around the world.

Lab-grown burgers

No festival experience would be complete without some overpriced food butcome 2050, future festival goers won't be tucking into a greasy burger.

Instead, hungry fans will be able to enjoy a variety of alternative meat products ranging from carefully designed plant proteins to lab-grown meat.

At current production scales, lab-grown or 'cultured' meat products produce up to 25 more CO2 emissions than their real alternatives.

But as production ramps up in the future, scientists hope to cut those emissions down to the point where the alternative becomes better for the environment.

Lab-grown alternatives don't require large amounts of land to be cleared for cattle farming nor the production of water-intensive feed crops like soy.

Festivals have always been hubs for vegan and vegetarian food so it would be no surprise if other eco-friendly options became available in the future.

AI assistants

In a crowd of 210,000 people getting lost at some point is almost an inevitability for most festival goers.

Thankfully, the festivals of the future will be equipped with helpful AI assistants to make sure you never stay lost for long.

Much like the customer service bots of today, these AI will be able to answer customer questions, provide directions, and help with ticketing issues at any time.

Festival goers will be able to access dedicated chatbot services either through their phones or AI help stations around the festival.

Speaking to the MailOnline last yearCEO of Midder MusicWill Fenton said: 'By leveraging natural language processing and machine learning, these AI systems can offer efficient and accurate support, reducing the burden on human customer service representatives and providing attendees with instant assistance.'