On 15^th May the festival announced the fiery lineup all over their social media accounts and website. The duo from Manchester was set to perform a DJ set at the Arcadia Spider last year but were forced to pull out of the festival and several other summer shows due to contracting COVID-19. Thankfully, the English DJ Bonobo and English duo Groove Armada stepped in to ensure EDM heads at Worthy Farm still got their electronica fill.

Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons have been the Chemical Brothers since 1995. The illustrious duo has had six UK number-one albums as well as won six Grammys throughout their career. Following the release of the single “No Reason“, the duo revealed via Instagram their tenth studio album will be released this Autumn which will coincide with a UK tour. Their last album, No Geography, was released in 2019. Watch the video for the third single from the album (and the theme tune for the BBC’s coverage of Glastonbury) “Got to Keep On” below:

Also set to play the spider this summer is progressive IDM musician Floating Points, the beloved DJ Shy FX, the boiler room fave VTSS, grime’s champion Skepta alongside Jammer, and DnB hero Wilkinson. See the poster above for the full lineup.

The awe-worthy fire-spitting Arcadia stage is a 50-tone installation built from recycled military hardware by Pip Rush and Bert Cole. First appearing at the festival in 2010, the stage returned last year after its replacement by the Pangea crane in 2019. The team behind the giant spider wrote in their Instagram caption, “The Spider’s built on creative recycling and now she’s got transformation running through her veins. This year, the entire Arcadia field runs on recycled energy – waste cooking oil turned to high-grade biofuel”.

The festival also revealed the bill for the newly named Woodsies stage (previously known as the John Peel stage) earlier this week. Stellar acts include Hot Chip, Christine and the Queen, Pheonix, Warpaint, Rina Sawayama, Caroline Polachek, Slowdive, Shame, Pale Waves, and FLO. See the full lineup below.

“Although the WOODSIES STAGE takes a new name for 2023, it will offer the same raucous, effervescent and gloriously sweaty vibes it did when it was known as the John Peel and, before that, the New Bands Tent”, the organisers have promised. This year over 1000 trees have been planted in the arena, the festival has revealed, “as part of our commitment to maintain the magic of the original Worthy Farm and to let us remember the importance of keeping the land as a haven for wildlife as well as festivals and farming”.

Earlier this month, the festival announced its lineup for this year’s Left Field including Crawlers, Billy Bragg, Cavetown, and Kid Kapichi. Headliners for Glastonbury this year were announced in March and include Elton John, Arctic Monkeys, and Guns N’ Roses.

Though tickets for this year’s Glastonbury are sold out, those feeling lucky may try their luck at winning tickets by purchasing Tony’s Chocolonely‘s Willy Wonka-style chocolate bar. As it stands two pairs of tickets are waiting to be unwrapped.

The line up was split between two different and distinct days. Saturday would’ve played host to Helix (‘Arcadia’s house & techno heartbeat’) which featured headliner Jamie Jones as well as other top DJs such as Hot Since 82, Maya Jane Coles and Alan Fitzpatrick. Sunday was given to Arcadia’s more drum and bass orientated acts, titled Radium (‘Arcadia’s bass ignition’). Acts on this day included DJ EZ, Sub Focus, Dimension, Flava D as well as some grime acts, such as Lady Leshurr and Lethal Bizzle.

Arcadia is a multimedia music experience, and is described as such on its website, “Arcadia transform the machinery of war into unifying environments while pioneering experimental technologies ranging from the world’s first recycled biofuel pyrotechnic system to multi-million volt bolts of lightning playing musical symphonies.”

In a Ar to ticket purchasers, organisers had this to say about the cancellation, “After planning for last year’s Arcadia 10th anniversary event to be a one off celebration, we received such strong feedback that we hoped to creatively evolve the event for a second year with a host of innovative new performance elements.”

“As we stand, we aren’t confident of hitting the targets that would allow us to develop that new experience and the pressures of a difficult market would risk serious knock on effects to Arcadia’s other commitments; especially Glastonbury. Taking these factors into consideration, it is with great regret that Arcadia London will not be going ahead in 2019.”

A vast new project is taking shape at Glastonbury that will lay the foundations for a new site-specific landscape and an evolving show in the sky over the next five years. Arcadia’s priority must be to honour the support that Glastonbury have shown over this past decade.”

“Huge thanks to Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park for helping make last year so special – and for being so understanding and supportive this year.”

“We’re sorry if we’ve let anyone down. We have made this decision now to minimise impact. The London festival has ceased to trade and we have spoken with all ticket outlets who will be processing refunds. Please contact the outlet through which you purchased your tickets if you have any specific questions.”

Despite the London cancellation, Arcadia is hoping to take the music experience abroad and are expected to release 2019 event information soon.