Football, holidays and gigs – the events clashing with summer election

The UK is set for its first summer election since 1945 and the campaigns will need to capture voters’ attention as major events and school holidays take place in some areas.

Many will have been planning to spend June watching the football and tennis, attending festivals or having an early summer getaway.

Now voters will also be weighing up who they will cast their vote for on 4 July when the country goes to the polls.

Here is what the UK’s jam-packed election summer looks like – and how to make arrangements to vote if voting day clashes with plans.

The vote falls in the middle of the UEFA Euros football tournament in Germany, which starts on 14 June.

We do not yet know if there will be televised debates between the party leaders, but broadcasters might well have to decide how best to fit them in around live games.

Should England or Scotland progress to the quarter-finals, they could play a match less than 24 hours after the polls close on 4 July.

Mark Dittmer-Odell, the British consulate in Munich, estimated in March that 500,000 fans from the UK would travel to Germany for the tournament.

That means hundreds of thousands could well be out of the country at the time of the vote and will need to think about whether they want to organise a postal or proxy vote (more on that later).

Sophia Walker, a TV producer from London, told the BBC she planned to be in Germany for the tournament and was already arranging a postal vote.

“If England do well, we’ll be through to the knock-out stages. A lot of fans that might not have gone [to Germany] will go out and try and get tickets,” she said.

The Wimbledon tennis tournament gets under way on Monday 1 July, with players in the men’s and women’s competition on the courts on election day.

Every year, people who did not manage to get tickets in the ballot form a massive queue outside the arena in the hope of securing last minute admission.

Voters with plans to join the queue – which often starts the evening before and grows longer every morning – will have to plan around casting their ballot.

Polling stations will be open between 07:00 BST and 22:00 BST on 4 July, meaning those traveling from further afield may have to consider alternative arrangements.

David Sink, from Surrey, won Wimbledon tickets in the ballot.

He also booked a holiday before the election date was set, and said he organised his postal vote “as soon as the announcement was made”.

“I was surprised [Rishi Sunak] called it as early as he did – I always thought it would be in the autumn,” Mr Sink said.

Festival-goers will be recovering after Glastonbury, which draws to a close the weekend before the vote.

Clean-up teams working after the close of the Worthy Farm festival – headlined this year by Dua Lipa, Coldplay, SZA and Shania Twain – will still be picking through the thousands of tonnes of waste left by the crowds when the polling stations open the following Thursday.

Meanwhile, crowds planning to see The Killers at the O2 Arena will have had to cast their ballot earlier in the day.

Many will also be in the grip of “Swiftie mania” with Taylor Swift in the middle of the UK leg of her Eras tour.

Hundreds of thousands of people will be attending the 10 gigs she will play during the campaign period, though none clash with election day.

By the time 4 July rolls around, some schools in Scotland will already have broken up for their summer holidays.

Scotland’s First Minister John Swinney described the timing of the election as the “latest act of disrespect” from the UK government.

The election also falls three days after schools in Northern Ireland break up for their summer holidays.

It means some parents who have already booked holidays will be looking to make alternative voting arrangements.

The same is true for university students, many of whom will have handed in their final exam papers and be heading home for the summer.

Students are allowed to vote at more than one address – their term-time address and their home address – although they can only vote in one place on the day.

Anyone who is registered to vote in the UK can choose to vote by post or proxy.

To apply for a postal vote – which can be sent off ahead of polling day – voters need to visit the gov.uk website and fill in a form. They will need a National Insurance number or another way of verifying their identity if they do not have one.

Alternatively, they can get someone to cast their ballot for them in person on the day by applying for a proxy vote. They can apply on the gov.uk website if both the voter and the proxy are registered voters.

Voters in Northern Ireland can apply for an absent vote with the Electoral Office for Northern Ireland.