Glastonbury announces memorial structure burning for last night of festival

This year’s Glastonbury festival will draw to a close with the symbolic burning of a large sculpture on site.

During this year’s event, attendees will be invited to write messages about things they wish to let go of on a 40-foot sculpture shaped like a lotus. The sculpture, created by artist Joe Rush and a fellow team of artists, has been constructed from salvaged wood and canvas.

The sculpture will be based close to The Park Stage, and it will be symbolically burned at midnight on the festival’s last day, Sunday, 26th June.

In a statement about the project, festival organiser Emily Eavis said: “During the Festival, people will be encouraged to write down memories and images of people or situations that they wish to let go of, it may be people who died in the lockdown who were not properly said goodbye to, it may be failed business projects, may even be failed marriages, but the point is that all of these things will be focused on and then placed inside the Lotus.”

She continued: “At midnight on Sunday of the festival the Lotus will be ignited and while the flames roar up, the whole gear-driven inferno will be burnt to nothing and with this we will be able to let go and get some closure. A cathartic moment and one that many of us need.”

This year’s Glastonbury takes place from 21st-25th June. Last week, set-times were revealed for across the festival site.