Dua Lipa says she wants Glastonbury set to ‘feel like a small nightclub’

Dua Lipa has said that she wants the crowd at her Glastonbury set to feel like they’re dancing in an intimate nightclub.

The three-time Grammy winner and seven-time Brit Award winner, 28, will be headlining the festival’s revered Pyramid stage in June, alongside a lineup of female headliners including US R&B star SZA and country-pop queen Shania Twain in the coveted Legends’ slot. It will be Lipa’s first appearance at the festival since playing the John Peel stage in 2017.

Lipa has said she wants the 150,000-strong crowd to feel like they’re in an intimate nightclub as they witness her set, not the fields of Worthy Farm where the festival takes place.

“It might be tight. But I’ve got to figure out a way to make 150,000 people feel like they’re in a small little nightclub,” she told the BBC.

“That’s the goal, and if there’s one place to do it, it’s gotta be Glasto.”

Last year, the festival faced considerable backlash for an all-male headliner billing. Festival organisers now hope the female-heavy leading acts for 2024 will redress that lack of representation.

“I feel so lucky to be a part of that shift,” said Lipa of the 2024 lineup. “It’s important to have more female headliners. We’ve just got to keep applying the pressure and making that change happen.”

The singer added that she thinks about her forthcoming Glastonbury set “all the time”

“Fifty per cent of my thoughts go to Glastonbury, then the rest are for everyday tasks,” she said of the preparation period.

Lipa will release her album Radical Optimism on Friday (3 May), and has said the project is inspired by Britpop.

It is the follow-up to her self-titled debut album from 2017, which spawned hits including “Be The One” and “New Rules”, and her second album Future Nostalgia, released in 2020, which produced singles including “Physical” and “Break My Heart”.

She topped the charts last year with “Dance The Night”, a song written for the soundtrack of Greta Gerwig’s Barbie. Lipa also appeared in the film as Mermaid Barbie.

In a statement about her forthcoming release, Lipa said: “A couple years ago, a friend introduced me to the term Radical Optimism. It’s a concept that resonated with me, and I became more curious as I started to play with it and weave it into my life.

“It struck me – the idea of going through chaos gracefully and feeling like you can weather any storm. At the same time, I found myself looking through the music history of psychedelia, trip hop, and Britpop. It has always felt so confidently optimistic to me, and that honesty and attitude is a feeling I took into my recording sessions.”

At Glastonbury, Little Simz, Lauper and Janelle Monae are all set to play the Pyramid for afternoon and evening slots.

Burna Boy, PJ Harvey, Michael Kiwanuka and Paloma Faith will also be playing on the main stage.

Heading up the Other stage will be IDLES, Disclosure and The National, with The Streets, Two Door Cinema Club, Avril Lavigne and breakout stars The Last Dinner Party also set to play on the festival’s second-biggest platform.

Joining these will be Camila Cabello, Bombay Bicycle Club, Bloc Party and Confidence Man.

West Holts will see performances from Jungle, Jessie Ware, Justice, Black Pumas and Sugababes, while the recently renamed Woodsies will boast acts including Jamie XX, Gossip, James Black, Sampha and Arlo Parks.