Glastonbury Festival Shares Details of 2025’s Emerging Talent Competition
The new music-focused contest offers rising artists the chance to play one of the festival’s main stages.
Glastonbury Festival have unveiled details of its annual Emerging Talent Competition for 2025.
Open to new U.K. and Ireland-based acts in any musical genre, the free-to-enter contest gives emerging talent the chance to play at Woodsies, one of the festival’s main stages.
The winner will also receive a £5,000 (about $6,121) Talent Development prize from charitable funder PRS Foundation. Two runners-up will each be awarded a Talent Development prize of £2,500 (about $3,060).
Artists can enter the competition for one week only using the form on the official Glastonbury website from 9 a.m. GMT on Jan. 29 through 5 p.m. GMT on Feb. 5.
After the entry period closes, a panel of 30 of British music writers will compile a longlist of 90 acts, which will then be narrowed down to a shortlist of eight artists by judges including Glastonbury co-organizers Michael and Emily Eavis. A live final hosted in the village of Pilton, near the festival site, will decide the winning act, though a date for the event is yet to be announced.
In a statement, Eavis said: “We know how hard it is for new acts to take their first steps towards a career in music — particularly with the challenges facing small venues in this country — so the Emerging Talent Competition is a hugely important part of Glastonbury’s annual calendar. I can’t wait to hear the entries from across all the musical genres. And it’s free to enter, so you’ve nothing to lose!”
The festival team has also stated that they are committed to diversity and inclusivity and welcome entries from disabled artists, who will be supported to ensure they are not disadvantaged by the competition process.
The winner of the 2024 competition was the Jamaican-Irish rapper JayaHadADream, who has since performed at other major U.K. festivals including Reading & Leeds and Boomtown. Other previous Emerging Talent Competition finalists include singer-songwriter Declan McKenna, recent Mercury Prize recipients English Teacher and rapper Flohio.
Tickets have sold out for Glastonbury Festival, which will take place at Worthy Farm, Somerset on June 25-29. On Jan. 3, it was announced that Neil Young will headline alongside his new band The Chrome Hearts, just days after he stated would withdraw from the festival, having called it a “corporate turn-off.”
Rod Stewart, meanwhile, has been confirmed to take on this year’s traditional Legends Slot on the Sunday afternoon. Other names rumored to appear across the weekend include Charli XCX, The 1975, Sam Fender and Olivia Rodrigo. The full lineup is expected to arrive in the spring.
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