“Who’s going to take the chance to go back on tour?”
The question, posed by a prominent music scheduling agent in the United States, captures the feeling of turbulent uncertainty across the music industry now. When President Joe Biden said this week that America will have enough Covid-19 vaccines for each adult by the end of May, it signaled that the end of the pandemic could finally be in sight, and for big players like giant Live Nation shows and tickets. Entertainment – which expects to host outdoor amphitheater shows by mid-summer, CEO Michael Rapino said in a conference call last week – the news kicked off optimistic talks about a quick return to large-scale indoor and outdoor shows free.
“All signs point to 2021, going back to the summer concert season that we all know and love,” said Bob Ruox, president of Live Nation for shows in the USA. Rolling Stone in a statement Thursday. “With vaccines available to everyone in May, we are confident that events can return to normal capacity soon after.” Live Nation says 83% of fans chose to retain tickets instead of asking for a refund, reflecting the wide demand from fans for returning shows. Last week, following the UK’s announcement that the shows could return there in June, Live Nation also sold 170,000 tickets in three days to the Reading, Leeds and Creamfield festivals.
But despite the enthusiasm of the show promotion giants, the big shows in the summer of 2021 are still not a block.
For most of the other players involved in scheduling and coordinating concerts in the live music market – which has been battling global concert closings, massive loss of revenue and rising debts since March 2020 – Biden’s words are not changing his considerations considerably. plans. That’s because live music, with its high-density internal audience and complicated group logistics, cannot be profitable unless the whole system starts working at once. Many music experts say that a large-scale return to concerts and tours is not feasible until the fall or even the beginning of 2022.
“You have an event that is a super propagator, and it can still happen – you want to be far from it.”
“You have an event that is a super propagator, and it can still happen – you want to be far from it. I still think about a national tour level, no, wait until next year ”, says the agent, who works with several important artists and asked for anonymity due to the financially delicate nature of the discussion. Rolling Stone.
Live Nation and its competitor AEG said that they are both unwilling to resume indoor concerts unless they can operate close to full capacity. And despite news of the vaccine schedule in May, Taylor Swift even canceled her postponed tour, citing uncertainties: “Many of you kept your tickets and I also kept the idea that we could reschedule,” said Swift in a tweet. “This is an unprecedented pandemic that has changed everyone’s plans and no one knows what the touring landscape will look like in the near future.”
Sources say that even the greatest artists are unlikely to embark on full national or global tours until they can guarantee that it is safe to perform in most markets where they would play on a normal tour cycle – meaning that the U.S. does not only need to have vaccines available , but widely administered. “There will be punctual last-minute reservations, some shows with limited capacity, there will be things we booked in the fall and small events in the summer. It will all be regional ”, says the agent. “I am confirming the dates for the fall and summer now.”
Another top executive from the live industry says that Biden’s vaccination schedule “increases the optimism that there may be shows, and it looks like there is a way.” But as summer and fall shows are not guaranteed, the executive is maintaining alternative plans for his 2022 roster – and fears to announce any 2021 tour too soon.
“I am optimistic that, if the vaccine implantation advances in this new schedule, we will be able to have shows in the amphitheaters at least until August, September, October”, says the executive. “But the variable in all of this is what happens with these variants. And that is the major concern for everyone ”.
“For the business to really return, we really need to be able to have full-capacity shows across the country.”
The executive adds: “You cannot do Swiss cheese routing. If there are holes because some states have not been opened, it will generally not work. Now, some artists who tour more than weekend to weekend – which is more about how country works – they could play some of their weekends. And an artist who could sell 4,000 or 5,000 tickets could go to an amphitheater with a capacity for 20,000 and do a socially distant show and potentially be fine with it. There are some deals that can happen without having a full green light for full capacity shows, but for the business to really come back, we really need to have the capacity for full capacity shows across the country. “
Rob Light, head of music at the CAA booking agency, told music industry sources in a chat at the Clubhouse in February that he was confident of a broader return by the end of the summer or fall of 2021, adding that he expects the industry has a clear schedule by April. He added that he expects shorter lead times for ticket sales, reverting to previous decades in the live industry, before tickets went on sale months in advance.
The US festival circuit also appears to be heading towards the fall. Life Is Beautiful in Las Vegas recently announced the dates for mid-September, and Milwaukee’s Summerfest, one of the largest music festivals in the world, said it will take place on the first three weekends of September. (Coachella, however, changed its dates from spring 2020 to autumn, then to spring 2021, and then discarded those plans as well; has not yet announced new dates for 2021).
Still, health experts say that guessing the reopening schedule is not easier now than it was a year ago – especially with new variants of the virus circulating around.
“If the variants don’t circulate widely, we can do well. But the second condition is what percentage of the population will end up being vaccinated, ”says Dr. Michael Osterholm, an epidemiologist and director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. “If we see up to a third of the population refusing to be vaccinated, it can still cause enough individuals to become infected and transmit the virus to make the continued occurrence of cases something that would happen with some regularity across the country.”
Osterholm hesitates to say that any form of live music on a large scale can be safe, as researchers are still studying the effectiveness of vaccines with the new variants.
“There may be a situation in which the variant may circumvent its immune protection,” he points out, adding that “I would not recommend [any live events] even U.S better understand what that means. “
Live music leaders are particularly frustrated with tour planning in the United States, where very different rules govern different states. Although the federal government issued a set of security guidelines, states like Texas and Mississippi have chosen to reopen and remove their masking mandates. Some cities can also be much more relaxed about dating than others, making it difficult to know when certain markets will open for tours. (The scattered reopening contrasts with plans in the UK, where the government has set “very useful” limits and timelines to unlock a “huge explosion in consumer demand,” said Live Nation President Joe Berchtold.)
“Texas has allowed a lot of shows in clubs, and many of the country artists there have done shows. That existed and has only been part of the business in Texas, ”they say. “But it is a unique thing and does not really help a large-scale national tour.”
In New York, Governor Andrew Cuomo said music venues could start reopening at 33 percent capacity on April 2 – but with a maximum limit of 100 people indoors, making it financially useless for many venues to try. “For most independent GA music venues, 100 percent is probably where you need to be [to profit], ”The site owners said Rolling Stone Last week.
Zach Ernst, a talent buyer for Antone’s Nightclub in Austin, Texas, says he felt hopeful about the drop in cases and rising vaccine rates. But although Texas is “opening”, he does not foresee returning to the shows immediately.
“I think we are all hopeful that this type of vaccine news will positively affect all sectors. And that is really a hope for a few months from now ”, says Ernst. “It’s complicated because you need to put the programs on sale anywhere between a few weeks [beforehand], a month, six weeks or more – usually much more. We all had the carpet pulled under us so many times and moved shows so many times and all that, that we are all a little hardened. “