Technical Glitch Blights Virtual Glastonbury Festival

Reuters file photo of people attending the Glastonbury Festival
Reuters file photo of people attending the Glastonbury Festival
TT

Technical Glitch Blights Virtual Glastonbury Festival

Reuters file photo of people attending the Glastonbury Festival
Reuters file photo of people attending the Glastonbury Festival

A technical fault on Saturday left frustrated fans unable to access Glastonbury Festival's livestream concert at the famous farm site in southwest England, after the coronavirus pandemic led to the blockbuster event's cancellation.

The five-hour virtual show kicked off with a performance by British rockers Wolf Alice, but many ticket-holders, who had paid £20 ($28, 23 euros) to access a stream of the event, complained on Twitter that they missed it as their access codes were invalid.

"You've got thousands and thousands of us tweeting you saying we can't get in due to invalid codes. Almost 10 minutes in and we've all missed the start," wrote Twitter user Aimee Young.

Event producers Driift Live tweeted: "Hello! We're looking into the issues of invalid codes urgently."

Organizers later sent out a free link in time for an atmospheric sunset performance by US pop rock trio Haim in Worthy Farm's stone circle.

They were followed by Glastonbury veterans Coldplay, who performed in front of the skeleton of the Pyramid stage, where the headline acts usually perform.

Frontman Chris Martin joked that he had "never played in front of thousands of cows before" as he and his band braved the rain to perform classic hits such as "The Scientist", "Clocks" and "Fix You".

Other performers include Blur's Damon Albarn and Michael Kiwanuka.

Organizer Emily Eavis, who announced in January that the annual event was cancelled for a second year, said had hoped the event would be "like the festival but without people".

"We're very excited to be able to show the farm in a way that people have never really seen it, with these incredible artists," she told BBC radio.

The event will also be played on delay across four international time zones, with Eavis adding there will be "a number of unannounced surprise performances".

Paul Dugdale, the event's director, said he hoped to recreate the event's sense of adventure.

"The overarching vision of it was to... just try and take people on a bit of a journey.

"Glastonbury is an adventure, and you never quite know what's around the corner and often the best parts of the festival are the parts you weren't expecting, and that's really fun," he said.



Tim Cook and Rebecca Ferguson Announce New 'Silo' Seasons from the Show's Set

CEO of Apple Tim Cook gives a presentation as Apple holds an event at the Steve Jobs Theater on its campus in Cupertino, California, U.S. September 9, 2024. REUTERS/Manuel Orbegozo/ File Photo
CEO of Apple Tim Cook gives a presentation as Apple holds an event at the Steve Jobs Theater on its campus in Cupertino, California, U.S. September 9, 2024. REUTERS/Manuel Orbegozo/ File Photo
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Tim Cook and Rebecca Ferguson Announce New 'Silo' Seasons from the Show's Set

CEO of Apple Tim Cook gives a presentation as Apple holds an event at the Steve Jobs Theater on its campus in Cupertino, California, U.S. September 9, 2024. REUTERS/Manuel Orbegozo/ File Photo
CEO of Apple Tim Cook gives a presentation as Apple holds an event at the Steve Jobs Theater on its campus in Cupertino, California, U.S. September 9, 2024. REUTERS/Manuel Orbegozo/ File Photo

Sci-fi series "Silo" will return for two more seasons, with the third chapter already shooting in the UK.

Apple CEO Tim Cook joined the series' star and executive producer Rebecca Ferguson on the sprawling "Silo" set at Hoddesdon Studios outside London to make the announcement.

"We feel great about it. We could not be more pleased. We're already filming season three," Cook told Reuters in an interview in the show's Silo 18 cafeteria, Reuters reported

"We get to walk around these environments again under new circumstances, new threats," added Ferguson. "We're back on the show and it's tense, it's wonderful and it's mysterious."

The dystopian drama is based on American author Hugh Howey's "Silo" book trilogy and is set deep underground, where the last remaining people have been sheltering for hundreds of years from what they are told is a toxic environment on the surface of the Earth.

Ferguson plays engineer Juliette, whose suspicions are aroused when she seeks answers to a loved one's death, and she becomes determined to expose the secrets of the silo. Season one ended with Juliette stepping outside of Silo 18 and the second season, currently streaming on Apple TV+, sees her world upended.

The fourth season will conclude the series, the makers said.

Five years on from the launch of Apple TV+ in November 2019, Cook said he considered the service to be "successful by any measure".

"Like the rest of Apple, we're about being the best, not producing the most," said Cook.

"We're focusing on the best quality, with the best storytellers, all original. We think 'Silo' is a fantastic example of that and of course the UK is a great place for storytellers and it's a place where people want to work, and so we're doing a lot in the UK," he said.

New episodes of the 10-part "Silo" season two are released weekly, with the show's finale premiering Jan. 17.