In any other year, The Guide would be arriving from Worthy Farm, home of Glastonbury festival. Not in 2026: for the first time since the Covid pandemic, which wiped out two consecutive years, Glasto is a no-show. The reason is one of its occasional fallow years, allowing the dairy farmland to recover from half a decade of camping, trampling, and moshing. It also gives organisers a rare window to recharge and plan for the future, and its detractors a year off from declaring headliners "the worst ever."
Bittersweet but Beneficial
For long-term Glasto-goers, the fallow year is always bittersweet—the last was in 2018—but this year it feels like a bullet dodged, as the event would have landed in the middle of a truly dangerous heatwave. Moreover, the fallow year often works a treat: when the festival returns, it tends to be re-energised, with new stages, stronger lineups, and well-rested people running the show.
I'd argue that Glastonbury's fallow period is so successful that others might do well to follow its lead. Not other festivals, with their tight overheads and profit margins, but certainly other cultural institutions could do with a breather every now and again. Might Eurovision, flatlining in the ratings and beset by controversy, benefit from a year off to resolve political tensions, lure back boycotting countries, and fix its easily gameable voting system? Or could Star Wars, suffering from audience apathy and fatigue over its overly congested fleet of films and TV shows, hit pause on the universe's relentless expansion?
Pop Stars and Overexposure
For some pop stars, a year off could also be liberating. Taylor Swift, after a long period of near-total ubiquity, seems to be in a brief, welcome fallow moment, musically at least (a pretty gigantic wedding on the horizon keeps her in the public eye). Her sole contribution in 2026 has been a song for the Toy Story 5 soundtrack, heralded by critics as a return to form after the disappointment of The Life of a Showgirl, a rushed, content-machine-pleasing release that earned Swift career-worst reviews. Perhaps Charli xcx, still on an exhausting cycle of post-Brat self-promotion (endless touring, six film roles, a new album announced), could do with a fallow year too. Adele has shown the value—both commercially and in terms of personal wellbeing—of regularly receding from the spotlight.
A fallow year would also solve problems posed by overexposure. Take Romesh Ranganathan, a far more talented comic than he's often given credit for, but one who has become a punchline for his sheer ever-presence on primetime TV. (Reviewing Ranganathan's latest gameshow, the Guardian's Rhik Samadder wondered if the comedian's "auto email responder is a copy-paste of the word YES.") The best way to combat that? A fallow year.
TV Drama and Reality Shows
TV drama, once committed to yearly churn, now largely operates under its own sort of fallow-period logic—though long breaks between series aren't down to anyone taking time off; production simply lasts far longer. Still, there are exceptions: I do wonder if The Bear, a show praised for its year-on-year punctuality, might have actually done with a fallow period, given the diminishing returns of its later seasons (though I am hearing positive things about the show's fifth and final run, which landed on Disney+ today). And lord knows there are plenty of shows in the fast-and-loose world of reality TV that could do with an enforced, extended holiday, either to tighten up ethics, standards, and practices or just to refresh a stale format. (Be honest, had you any idea a series of Love Island was currently airing?)
A Unique Outlier
This is all a little fanciful, of course. Vanishingly few shows, film franchises, and performers could realistically book in a year off for rest and renewal: fan demand, share prices, and most importantly, people's need to make a living dictate otherwise. Glastonbury is a complete outlier: the festival is not-for-profit; its founders have an entirely separate stream of cattle-based income; and many of its employees have other jobs away from the festival too. It's a situation that isn't necessarily replicable elsewhere.
Still, in our ceaseless 24/7, feeding-funnel culture, there is definitely something to be said for pausing for a period of reflection and renewal. Which is why I'll be back with the rest of the newsletter after a short fallow period of my own, focusing on my other great passion: dairy farming … OK, OK, fine—I'll be eating crunchy nut cornflakes while doomscrolling on my phone.
