Who Could Headline Next Year’s Festival?

Given that Rosalía has spent the past decade growing into one of the most acclaimed live performers of her generation, few artists might bring as much intrigue to the Pyramid Stage as she would. 2025’s creatively fearless Lux LP cemented the Spanish star’s title as a true pop innovator, and a subsequent global arena tour has earned a wealth of five-star reviews. Glastonbury itself encompasses a expansive arts and culture program, incorporating dance and theatrical mediums across the site, and Rosalía would certainly fit in with the wider bill.

In 2020, Swift was announced to headline that year’s edition of Glastonbury before it was called off due to the pandemic. Her fellow headliners, Paul McCartney and Kendrick Lamar, both made their way to Worthy Farm when the festival returned in 2022, while Swift’s appearance was left as a ‘what if’. The superstar has since embarked on The Eras Tour, performing the biggest shows of her career, and released a further two albums (alongside four re-recordings), though any potential Glastonbury ambitions remain unresolved.

Bad Bunny’s electrifying, emotional stadium run, which hit London in June, was built around an elaborate production set-up, suggesting he would have little trouble commanding the Pyramid Stage. The Puerto Rican superstar has already achieved the kind of global dominance few contemporary artists can match, becoming a Super Bowl halftime show headliner this past February and scooping the Grammy award for album of the year with Debí Tirar Más Fotos. Bringing him to Worthy Farm would be a declaration of the festival’s evolving identity.

The first hip-hop artist to headline the festival in its history (2008), Jay-Z paved the way for other rappers to thrive at Glastonbury, with future headliners including Kanye West, Stormzy and Kendrick Lamar. He answered critics (including Noel Gallagher) with a tongue-in-cheek rendition of “Wonderwall,” and delivered the hits with a full live band, making for one of the most iconic Glastonbury sets of all time. With a run of London and Los Angeles stadium shows in the pipeline, 2027 presents an opportunity for Jay-Z to return to the fields and further cement his legacy.

Glastonbury took something of a big swing with picking Carpenter’s former Disney co-star, Olivia Rodrigo, as a 2025 headliner; a booking that reflected the festival’s growing embrace of younger pop stars and its willingness to hand slots to artists whose careers are still relatively early. 

Carpenter feels like a surefire next bet. Ever since 2024’s record-smashing Short n’ Sweet album lifted her to a new level of stardom, the 27-year-old has become an increasingly compelling candidate to top the bill, building the type of commercial pull and catalogue to suit another changing-of-the-guard booking. She performed two sold-out nights at London’s 70,000-capacity BST Hyde Park last summer, and has since released seventh LP Man’s Best Friend, yet there still feels like room for her U.K. ascent to continue.

It’s been one of contemporary British music’s most compelling – and, arguably, romantic – success stories: Charli xcx’s journey from underdog to one of pop’s defining figures. The singer’s 2025 Other Stage headline slot was one of the busiest of the weekend, a fitting reflection of the impact that her sixth studio album Brat had, earning Charli a long-awaited commercial breakthrough after a decade releasing boundary-pushing material without ever fully receiving mainstream recognition. Music, Fashion, Film, released last month, will be supported by a Reading & Leeds headline slot, as well as North American arena dates. From then on, Charli’s touring plans remain open-ended.

“It’s a must to headline Glastonbury again,” the Rolling Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood told NME in 2023, spurring chatter that the legendary rockers could eventually hit the fields once more. The band’s first appearance at the event in 2013 remains one of Glastonbury’s most talked-about headline sets, as the Stones brought their decades-spanning catalogue to the Pyramid Stage. On the recent press tour for new LP Foreign Tongues, singer Mick Jagger talked at length about the band’s desire to tour again in the future, leaving fans to wonder whether the festival could be part of those plans.

Beyond delivering a magnetic Other Stage set in 2023, for which the crowd spilled out over into the adjoining fields, Fred again… has never been shy about being seen as a Glastonbury stan. He’s made surprise appearances at dozens of other DJ and producers’ sets in recent years, joined Kurupt FM on stage for a fleeting reload and even popped up on the secluded Strummerville stage to perform repertoire of unreleased ambient music. 

It is that genuine affection for the festival that would make a potential future headline slot feel so fitting, even more so given that electronic headliners are rare at Glastonbury: Basement Jaxx were the last such act, back in 2005.

Holding court during a mid-afternoon Pyramid Stage slot in 2024, wearing a custom jeweled vest top featuring a heart-shaped portrait of her grandmother in tribute to the Windrush generation, Dean looked every inch a future headliner. The performance came before the Londoner had even begun her stratospherically successful The Art of Loving campaign, which has since elevated her profile light-years beyond where it stood just two years earlier, delivering six sold-out nights at The O2 and her first Grammy (best new artist). “I will headline Glastonbury one day,” she confidently told The Independent in 2023. That dream now feels within reach.

The Gallagher brothers have been heavily rumoured in the past, having headlined Glastonbury previously in 2004, although that appearance was considered something of a let down. Liam’s vocal issues and a somewhat detached performance left many fans feeling underwhelmed, and the band later acknowledged the set was not among their strongest.

Perhaps, then, another headline slot would represent unfinished business. Both brothers have remained closely linked with Glastonbury over the years, with Noel in particular known to attend each summer as a fan. Now, with the band’s long-awaited reunion now underway, with the gargantuan Live ‘25 Tour last year and an accompanying film due for September, the prospect of the brothers returning to Worthy Farm together has inevitably become one of the festival’s most tantalizing possibilities, fueled in part by Liam’s own social media hints. For now, the rumors remain just that – but few bookings would generate quite the same level of anticipation.

The U.K. has played a central role in the pop icon’s triumphant comeback campaign over the past few years. Madonna’s legacy-affirming Celebration tour kicked off at The O2 Arena in London in 2023, while she returned to the capital on the eve of her recent record Confessions II for an extravagant DJ set performed alongside longtime collaborator Stuart Price. Speaking in a filmed BBC special with Graham Norton last month, Madge teased that she has “something bigger” in the pipeline for “next summer” – a hint that has only intensified speculation that she could finally make her long-awaited Glastonbury debut.

Almost a decade after he emerged with the moody, searching 2017 debut single “Play God,” Fender has become one of the nation’s most beloved and decorated artists, collecting four BRIT Awards to date and taking home the Mercury Prize for last year’s People Watching LP. The record’s standout track, “Rein Me In,” recently made chart history and became the longest running U.K. No. 1 single of all time, spending 19 weeks at the top spot via a new version with Olivia Dean. Will this momentum carry him to Glastonbury headliner status? If his celebrated 2022 set is anything to go by, that possibility wouldn’t be off the table.

Could 2027 finally be the year Mr. Styles heads to Worthy Farm? Despite becoming one of the biggest pop stars on the planet, the former One Direction member has never played the festival. Since his transformation into a global powerhouse with 2022 LP Harry’s House – which spawned the Hot 100 No. 1 smash “As It Was” – a Glastonbury headline slot has felt like the obvious missing piece in his stunning solo career arc. 

A Glastonbury-goer himself, he’s previously been spotted letting loose at Block9, the ‘naughty corner’ of the site, and dancing at Jamie xx’s Woodsies headline slot last year. And, following this summer’s huge Together, Together global stadium tour, the 32-year-old’s name has well and truly entered the rumour mill – and with a rare gap in his schedule for next summer, the smart money may be on Styles finally making a home on the Pyramid Stage.