Primavera Sound won’t be coming to London in 2020 after all

Spanish music festival Primavera Sound’s plans to stage a London edition in 2020 have been put on hold.

Primavera Sound had unveiled plans to expand the festival to more cities next year as part of its 20th anniversary celebrations, dubbed Primavera Sound 2020 Vision. In June, it announced a September 2020 edition in Los Angeles in partnership with Live Nation.

London was supposed to be next on the list, with the festival’s website teasing the destination by displaying a blurred photograph of the city’s skyline. But according to industry publication IQ Mag, Primavera London is off due to time constraints and concerns over permits and licenses.

The London festival was initially slated to take place in June 2020 at Drumsheds, the venue that opened in June 2019 for Field Day Festival. IQ reports Primavera London was intended to either “replace or merge” with Field Day.

“They [organisers] want it to be as perfect as possible,” a source told IQ. “They could organise it for next year, but now the feeling is it’s better to wait until 2021.”

Though a Primavera Sound spokesperson confirmed to IQ that there were “no plans” to stage a London edition in 2020, the festival’s website still shows the blurred photograph of the London skyline, with question marks filling in for details like city, venue and date.

• READ MORE: The 12 best acts NME caught at Primavera Sound’s groundbreaking 2019 edition

Primavera Sound currently has a presence in three cities: Barcelona and Benidorm in Spain, and Porto, Portugal. Standout performers on this year’s gender-equal line-up in Barcelona included Janelle Monáe, Christine and the Queens, Miley Cyrus, Charli XCX, slowthai and James Blake.