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Dua Lipa, Coldplay and Sza will headline Glastonbury 2024, it has been announced.

Shania Twain will perform the Sunday afternoon “legends slot” on the festival’s famous Pyramid stage.

Glastonbury organisers announced the line-up for this summer’s event today after months of speculation.

Dua Lipa performs during the Brit Awards 2024 in London, Saturday, March. 2, 2024. (Photo by Alberto Pezzali/Invision/AP)
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Dua Lipa will headline the Pyramid stage on the Friday night. Pic: Alberto Pezzali/Invision/AP

With stars including Little Simz, Avril Lavigne, Jessie Ware, Janelle Monae, Cyndi Lauper, PJ Harvey and Camila Cabello on the bill alongside Dua Lipa, Sza and Twain, it is a line-up filled with female acts.

For Lipa, it will be her Pyramid stage debut – and comes fresh off the back of Brits and Grammys performances earlier this year.

“FRIDAY NIGHT PYRAMID STAGE HEADLINE!!!!,” the star posted on Instagram. “I have dreamt of this moment all my life. Something that lived only in my wildest dreams and highest manifestations !!! I am so excited to see you all in my favourite place on earth and make it a night to remember!!”

British singer Chris Martin of Coldplay performs on the Pyramid stage at Glastonbury Music Festival, Saturday, June 25, 2011. More than 170,000 ticket-holders have arrived at Worthy Farm for the 41st festival. (AP Photo/Joel Ryan)
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Coldplay will give their fifth headline performance – breaking a Glastonbury record. Pic: AP/Joel Ryan


SZA performs during the 2022 Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival at Golden Gate Park on August 05, 2022 in San Francisco, California. Photo: Casey Flanigan/imageSPACE/MediaPunch /IPX
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SZA makes her Pyramid debut. Pic: Casey Flanigan/imageSPACE/MediaPunch /IPX

It will also be a debut for SZA, who is “quite possibly the hottest hip-hop/ R&B act on the planet”, organisers said, while for Coldplay the 2024 slot means they become the first act to lead the bill five times, having headlined previously in 2002, 2005, 2011 and 2016.

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Five-time Grammy-winning Canadian star Twain, who has sold more than 100 million records and is best known for hits including Man I Feel Like A Woman, You’re Still The One, and That Don’t Impress Me Much, shared a video post on Instagram saying she was getting her wellies and raincoat ready.

“Another jewel in my crown!” she wrote. “I feel so honoured and so excited about this one! Thinking about what to wear already… Let’s make history this summer with this ultimate dream performance.”

Shania Twain will play the Glastonbury 2024 legends slot. Pic: Cover Images via AP
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Shania Twain will perform in the legends slot. Pic: Cover Images via AP

The strong female line-up comes after organisers were criticised for having all-male headliners last year, with Arctic Monkeys, Guns ‘N’ Roses and Sir Elton John, performing his last-ever UK gig, topping the bill.

Other acts announced for this year include Idles, LCD Soundsystem, Michael Kiwanuka, Disclosure, The National, Burna Boy, Bloc Party, Jungle and Keane.

The Streets, Olivia Dean, Anne-Marie, Nia Archives, Two Door Cinema Club, Sampha, Bombay Bicycle Club, Nothing But Thieves, Fontaines DC, Arlo Parks and Brits rising star winners The Last Dinner Party are also on the bill.

Sharing the announcement, organiser Emily Eavis said there would be “even more to come over the coming weeks”.

Tickets for this year’s festival were snapped in under an hour when they went on sale in November. A resale of any cancelled or returned tickets is expected at some time in April.

The event, which hosts more than 3,000 acts and around 200,000 people on site, will take place from 26-30 June.

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Is buying vinyl bad for the planet – and what can be done about it?

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Is buying vinyl bad for the planet - and what can be done about it?

Taylor Swift’s new album helped fuel the highest weekly vinyl sales in 30 years – but is our rediscovered love of owning records environmentally reckless?

PVC (poly vinyl chloride), the plastic from which records have traditionally been made, isn’t great for the planet, and concerns have also been raised over packaging as vinyl sales have risedn in recent years.

Rou Reynolds, frontman of chart-topping rock band Enter Shikari, believes leading artists need to shoulder some responsibility to “push forward” change.

“The bigger you are as an artist, the more influence you have, the more you can push things forward and accelerate progression,” he says.

Pic: Beth Garrabrant
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Taylor Swift’s Tortured Poets Society is leading the vinyl boom. Pic: Beth Garrabrant

In an interview with Billboard in March, Billie Eilish criticised how “wasteful it is” when “some of the biggest artists in the world” make “40 different vinyl packages”, each with “a different unique thing just to get you to keep buying more”.

“Its reasonable criticism,” says Reynolds, “but I think it’ll basically dissipate as soon as it becomes the standard to use BioVinyl, for instance – that will really take away the possibility of criticism”.

Rather than make records out of regular PVC pellets, over the last few years it has become possible to use renewable sources such as cooking oil or wood pulp.

Enter Shikari at Slam Dunk Festival North in Leeds in 2023. Pic: Graham Finney/Cover Images via AP
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Enter Shikari’s Rou Reynolds, pictured on stage in 2023, says artists need to lead the way. Pic: Graham Finney/Cover Images via AP

“Traditional vinyl is an oil-based product,” Reynolds explains. “No one really wants to support the extraction of any more fossil fuels.”

Enter Shikari now insist all their records are made using BioVinyl, and Reynolds is optimistic that if more artists make demands about what their records are made from, it would become the new norm.

“A lot of independent artists, like myself, we can light these fires, then it spreads and before you know it, it will become the industry standard.”

‘The advances are incredible’

Karen Emmanuel, Key Production Group
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Karen Emanuel, chief executive of Key Production Group, has worked in the industry for 35 years

Leading voices within vinyl production want the music industry to listen.

“Along with the Vinyl Alliance and the Vinyl Records Manufacturers Association, we’re looking at the whole manufacturing chain,” says Karen Emanuel, chief executive of Key Production, the UK’s largest broker for physical music production.

“I’ve been in the business probably about 35 years and the advances that have been made, it’s incredible. A lot of the big plastics companies, for PVC they’ve found a way replacing the fossil fuel elements [which] could mean as much as a 90% reduction in the carbon footprint of the vinyl.”

The catch, at the moment, is the cost.

“It’s a bit more expensive to manufacture but if enough people manufacture with it then the price point will come down… it’s something that we’re really trying to push people towards.”

Would fans be happy to pay more for a greener product?

Lee Jeffries, from Sonic Wax, in Leicestershire
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Lee Jeffries, from Sonic Wax, in Leicestershire, owns the world’s most expensive Motown record. Pic: Sonic Wax

Lee Jefferies, the owner of Leicestershire-based vinyl pressing plant Sonic Wax Pressing, is such a big vinyl lover, he spent £100,000 buying the world’s most valuable Motown record.

“Ultimately everything works from retail back,” he says “And with retail prices already being quite high on vinyl it’s very hard for people to have the extra money to buy biodegradable vinyl.”

But a recent survey conducted by Key Production found more than two thirds (69%) of vinyl buyers indicated they would be encouraged to buy more if the records were made with a reduced environmental impact.

The findings also revealed that the vast majority, 77%, of regular vinyl customers are willing to pay a premium for reduced impact products, signalling a significant market demand for eco-friendly alternatives.

Is there a bigger problem?

Ultimately, either the consumer, artists or labels will have to shoulder the cost if vinyl is to be made more sustainably.

But while a big old hunk of PVC might feel like the least green option, are we getting ourselves in a spin when we should also be looking in another direction?

Figures from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) put global vinyl sales for last year at about 80 million – using the IMPALA indepdent music companies association’s music emissions calculator, that works out at producing around 156k tonnes of CO2 emissions.

Read more:
UK vinyl sales at highest level since 1990
Vinyl added to typical shopping basket used in inflation calculation

If you compare that to streaming, with Spotify alone – responsible for about a third of the market – its own estimates for its global carbon emissions were 280k tonnes last year, with vast amounts of electricity being used to power its data storage servers.

For Enter Shikari’s Reynolds, the potential to make vinyl greener is exciting.

“It has the same quality, the same appearance, you really wouldn’t notice the difference, which is incredible,” he says. “I think it speaks to, you know, a lot of the time people think that the transition society is about to go through, we think we’re going to lose luxuries… but I think this is just an example of why that’s not the case.

“You know, all it takes is some thought and some adaptation, and then some adoption… it’s super exciting.”

Perhaps now it’s time for the music industry to take note.

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Dabney Coleman, actor who starred in Boardwalk Empire and 9 to 5, dies

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Dabney Coleman, actor who starred in Boardwalk Empire and 9 to 5, dies

Lily Tomlin, Morgan Fairchild and Ben Stiller have led tributes to “one-of-a-kind” actor Dabney Coleman following his death aged 92.

Coleman made his career playing comedic villains, mean-spirited bosses and villains in films including 9 to 5 and Tootsie, as well as playing Commodore Louis Kaestner in Boardwalk Empire.

Lily Tomlin, who starred alongside him in 9 To 5 with Jane Fonda and Dolly Parton, said: “We just loved him.”

In her post to X, the actress shared a photo of her character Violet Newstead dressed in a Snow White costume beside a tense-looking Coleman as her egotistical boss Franklin Hart Jr.

Morgan Fairchild, who starred in Falcon Crest and Friends, described Coleman as a “great one”.

“So very sorry to hear of the death of the wonderful #DabneyColeman”, she wrote on X alongside a black and white photo of them together.

“We went out for a bit in the ’80s and I adored him. This town has lost one of a kind!”

Coleman “took his last earthly breath peacefully and exquisitely” in his Santa Monica home on Thursday, his daughter said in a statement on Friday on behalf of the family.

“My father crafted his time here on Earth with a curious mind, a generous heart and a soul on fire with passion, desire and humour that tickled the funny bone of humanity”, she said.

“As he lived, he moved through this final act of his life with elegance, excellence and mastery.”

Actor Dabney Coleman in Los Angeles in 1989. Pic: AP
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Coleman in 1989. Pic: AP

Ben Stiller, Zoolander and Meet The Parents actor, praised Coleman for paving the way for character actors.

“The great Dabney Coleman literally created, or defined, really – in a uniquely singular way – an archetype as a character actor.

“He was so good at what he did it’s hard to imagine movies and television of the last 40 years without him.”

Dabney Coleman with Lily Tomlin, Dolly Parton and Jane Fonda in 1980 Credit: Ralph Dominguez/MediaPunch/IPX
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Coleman with Lily Tomlin, Dolly Parton and Jane Fonda in 1980 Credit: Ralph Dominguez/MediaPunch/IPX

Read more from Sky News:
Presenter says she was assaulted by Rolf Harris on Blue Peter
Girls Aloud kick off reunion tour dedicated to late bandmate

Coleman starred in a number of films and TV series in the 1960s, then made his breakthrough as a corrupt mayor in the satirical soap opera Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, in 1976.

His film credits include a computer scientist in WarGames, Tom Hanks’ father in You’ve Got Mail and a chief firefighter in The Towering Inferno.

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He won a best actor Golden Globe for The Slap Maxwell Story and an Emmy for best supporting actor in Peter Levin’s 1987 legal drama Sworn To Silence.

Coleman also won two Screen Actors Guild Awards as part of the cast of crime drama Boardwalk Empire and received Emmy and Golden Globe nominations for his starring role in the NBC sitcom Buffalo Bill.

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Yvette Fielding says she was assaulted by Rolf Harris on Blue Peter and left alone with Jimmy Savile

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Yvette Fielding says she was assaulted by Rolf Harris on Blue Peter and left alone with Jimmy Savile

Blue Peter’s youngest ever presenter has claimed disgraced entertainer Rolf Harris sexually assaulted her when she was a teenage host of the children’s show.

Yvette Fielding, who joined the long-running BBC programme aged 18, told the Sun newspaper how the paedophile predator squeezed and patted her bottom after finding herself alone with him in a TV studio.

The now 55-year-old also recalled an uncomfortable experience with “grotesque” Jimmy Savile, who was later revealed to be one of Britain’s most prolific sex offenders.

Fielding has questioned the role of the BBC in allowing their behaviour, arguing people in the industry “must have known”.

Fielding in 1987. Pic: John Gooch/Shutterstock
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Fielding joined Blue Peter in 1987. Pic: John Gooch/Shutterstock

She became a Blue Peter presenter in 1987 and left five years later, going on to host a string of BBC programmes including The Heaven And Earth Show, The General and City Hospital.

Recounting the incident with Harris, she said: “It was very confusing and shocking – just bizarre to think Rolf Harris was squeezing and patting my bottom and I am standing there, thinking ‘I don’t know what to do’.

“Other people in the industry must have known what he was like and you left me alone in the studio with him.

“That shouldn’t have happened. I must have been 18 or 19.

“I think a lot of them did know.”

Yvette Fielding. Pic: PA
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The presenter says the Harris incident ‘shouldn’t have happened’. Pic: PA

Read more on Sky News:
Video appears to show Sean Combs assaulting singer in 2016

Anne Robinson confirms relationship with Queen’s ex-husband

Harris was a household favourite for decades before his dramatic downfall after being convicted of a string of indecent assaults against young girls.

Stripped of his honours, he died of neck cancer and old age in May last year, aged 93.

Jimmy Savile pictured in 2004
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Jimmy Savile was ‘grotesque’. Pic: PA

He was also known to be associated with Savile, who managed to conceal his crimes until after his death in 2011.

On her meeting with the late depraved DJ, Fielding told the Sun: “He took my hand and started stroking it. ‘Look into my eyes’, he said, ‘And tell me what you’re thinking’.”

“He was grotesque,” she added.

“I just don’t understand why the BBC allowed him to get away with that for as long as he did.”

Savile worked for much of his career at the BBC presenting programmes including Top Of The Pops and Jim’ll Fix It.

The BBC has been contacted for comment.

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