Bonnaroo, Punk Rock Bowling, Ride for Ronnie + Glastonbury Reveal Schedule Changes Amid Coronavirus Pandemic
While bands are being forced to adjust due to the coronavirus pandemic, so are a number of major music events. Over the past day, the Punk Rock Bowling festival in Las Vegas, the annual Ride for Ronnie fundraiser in Los Angeles, the Bonnaroo Festival in Tennessee and one of the U.K.'s longest running festival events, Glastonbury, have all revealed new plans for 2020.
The most defined of the new scheduling comes from the Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival, which has now been moved to the weekend of Sept. 24-27. Organizers revealed their plans in the statement below.
Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival will be rescheduled to take place September 24-27, 2020 out of an abundance of caution and for the health and safety of all Bonnaroovians, artists, staff and our community.
All current tickets and onsite accommodations (camping, tent rentals, RV, etc.) will be honored for the new weekend. Fans with off-site accommodations and shuttles purchased through the festival will be contacted directly with updates.
Rest assured, we will share updates as quickly as possible via email, our website, and on our social accounts.
Please continue to radiate positivity through this uncharted time in our world. Thank you for your continued support and we look forward to seeing you on The Farm this fall.
– Bonnaroo
Meanwhile, both Punk Rock Bowling and Ride for Ronnie have announced postponements for 2020. The Punk Rock Bowling Festival is now aiming for a fall return, as revealed in the below statement.
We know this comes as a disappointment, and we share that frustration with you. However, this virus loves a crowd, and we cannot put our community at risk, we must look out for each other now more than ever.
Punk Rock Bowling and Music Festival 2020 is rescheduled for this Fall (dates TBA), and we are anticipating that most of the bands currently set to play will be there. Please check the PRB website for regular updates.
All Festival tickets and bowling teams will be honored for the new dates in the Fall. Purchasers will be notified by Friday, March 27 on how to obtain a full refund if they are unable to attend.
All hotel rooms purchased through PRB and club shows purchased through SeeTickets will be refunded back to the credit card used to make the purchase over the next 10-14 days.
As for the 6th annual Bowl for Ronnie, the fundraiser is being pushed from its recently announced May 17 date at Los Encinos Park in Encino, California to a still-to-be-determined date later this year.
“While I am disappointed at having to postpone what has become an annual tradition for our organization, we also need to keep our beloved audience and supporters safe during this unprecedented global situation,” says Wendy Dio, Founder/President of the Dio Cancer Fund. “We were on the verge of announcing the exciting lineup we had confirmed for this year’s RIDE when the overwhelming concerns over the current health crisis made it abundantly clear that we could not go forward with our plans. We are exploring the possibility of rescheduling for some time in the fall.”
Plans for the annual Bowl for Ronnie, typically a fall event, remain intact, with a Nov. 12 return to the Pinz Bowling Center expected. In the interim, those wishing to contribute or learn more about the Ronnie James Dio Stand Up and Shout Cancer Fund may do so here.
Things are not looking so bright for one of the U.K.'s longest running festival events. Festival organizers Michael and Emily Eavis revealed that the 2020 Glastonbury Festival will be canceled. This was particularly difficult news as 2020 was supposed to be the 50th anniversary of the music festival event. Read their statement on the cancellation below.
We are so sorry to announce this, but Glastonbury 2020 will have to be cancelled, and this will be an enforced fallow year for the Festival.
Clearly this was not a course of action we hoped to take for our 50th anniversary event, but following the new government measures announced this week – and in times of such unprecedented uncertainty – this is now our only viable option.
We very much hope that the situation in the UK will have improved enormously by the end of June. But even if it has, we are no longer able to spend the next three months with thousands of crew here on the farm, helping us with the enormous job of building the infrastructure and attractions needed to welcome more than 200,000 people to a temporary city in these fields.
We would like to send our sincere apologies to the 135,000 people who have already paid a deposit for a Glastonbury 2020 ticket. The balance payments on those tickets were due at the beginning of April and we wanted to make a firm decision before then.
We understand that it is not always easy to secure a Glastonbury ticket, which is why we would like to offer all those people the chance to roll their £50 deposit over to next year, and guarantee the opportunity to buy a ticket for Glastonbury 2021. Those who would prefer a refund of that £50 will be able to contact See Tickets in the coming days in order to secure that. This option will remain available until September this year. For those who are happy to roll their deposit over, that will happen automatically. Further information – including details on rolling over coach packages, official accommodation bookings and local Sunday tickets – will be added to our website in the coming days.
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 – not just for us, but also the Festival’s charity partners, suppliers, traders, local landowners and our community.
We were so looking forward to welcoming you all for our 50th anniversary with a line-up full of fantastic artists and performers that we were incredibly proud to have booked. Again, we’re so sorry that this decision has been made. It was not through choice. But we look forward to welcoming you back to these fields next year and until then, we send our love and support to all of you.
Michael & Emily
For the latest updates on coronavirus and how to proceed, check out the World Health Organization and CDC websites.
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