Duran Duran will not play Glastonbury unless they are given a headline slot, Simon Le Bon has said, after revealing the band were offered a place in a disco tent at 3pm.
“We want the right slot,” Le Bon said. “We shouldn’t be below anybody on the bill.” He added: “So, we’ll hold out because we’re a headline act – that’s all there is to it.”
The comments reopen a long-running frustration for a band that has never played Worthy Farm despite selling more than 100 million records, winning Grammy and Brit Awards and being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. It also comes as Glastonbury is in a fallow year and will not take place in 2026, with the festival due to return from June 23 to 27, 2027.
Le Bon was speaking about the prospect of finally getting on the Glastonbury bill after years of trying. In 2023, he said the group had already had the chance to play before, but not on the main stage, and made clear then, too, that the band wanted the right slot. “We have had the chance to do it before, but it wasn’t playing the main stage and I think we’d like to be doing that for sure,” he said at the time.
The stance puts Duran Duran in line with a career that has repeatedly placed them in big-room moments rather than down-the-bill festival appearances. The band headlined the closing night of Latitude in 2024 and played the opening ceremony of the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham in 2022. They also released the single Free To Love in April 2026 and are set to play BST Hyde Park on July 5, 2026.
Glastonbury 2027 tickets are due to go on sale in November 2026, and music fans will need to register before they can buy them. No names have been announced for the festival yet, though bookmakers’ early favourites mentioned around the industry include Sam Fender, Ed Sheeran, Harry Styles and Taylor Swift.
For Duran Duran, the position is now plain. They are not seeking a nostalgia slot, a side-stage cameo or a mid-afternoon tent. Le Bon says they will wait for the top of the bill, and until that happens, the long-absent festival booking remains exactly that: absent.
