MUST THE SHOW GO ON?
Whether they involve top-dollar attractions like Lady Gaga or smaller acts, concert postponements and cancellations are a headache and heartache for fans, promoters and artists alike
The circumstances may have been different each time, but the result was the same: a number of Montreal concerts that were postponed or cancelled this year left fans, promoters and the artists themselves disappointed.
On Friday, Lady Gaga will finally bring her Joanne tour to the Bell Centre, following a last-minute postponement due to illness in September. Another American pop sensation, Katy Perry, delayed her Bell Centre appearance by 10 days in September thanks to production delays, but the rescheduling did have a silver lining: Perry ended up premièring her Witness tour here.
Latin superstars Enrique Iglesias and Pitbull pushed their Bell Centre date back at the 11th hour, from July 5 to Oct. 9, after the former came down with an illness. The Bell Centre debut of American pop singer Halsey was scrapped altogether, with “unforeseen production constraints at the venue” cited as the culprit.
Then there was this year’s Osheaga festival, which was nearly wiped out by rain on Day 1. The sun eventually came out and the festival got back on track, minus a few big names, including De La Soul, Lil Uzi Vert and Solange. Promoter Evenko could not be reached for comment for this feature.
The phenomenon isn’t exclusive to Montreal. Justin Bieber performed here in 2016, but cut the final 14 dates of his Purpose tour due to “unforeseen circumstances,” while Kanye West is suing insurer Lloyd’s of London for refusing to pay $10 million after he was hospitalized and 21 shows on his 2016 Saint Pablo tour were cancelled.
A few unfortunate situations doesn’t necessarily make a trend, but with album sales cratering and streaming numbers hardly picking up the slack, more artists than ever — big and small — are hitting the road to pay the bills. Artists of Gaga’s or Perry’s status also have such mammoth, technology-dependent stage productions — with screens, platforms, costumes and more — that any minor malfunction can be a huge setback.
It really just seems to be a numbers game: more artists touring means more chances for something to go wrong, from a faulty prop to weather to an exhausted star.
In September, the POP Montreal festival faced a pair of high-profile cancellations of its own. Rap trio Swet Shop Boys and Elza Soares bowed out after the festival guides and posters went to print, while Wu-Tang Clan member RZA had his film-scoring show rescheduled to a less-than-ideal Friday afternoon slot to accommodate the rapper and producer’s volatile calendar.
“We’re a festival that books 400 bands, so it’s inevitable you’ll get a handful that cancel. No one likes it, but you have to accept it and move on,” said POP Montreal creative director Daniel Seligman.
If an artist cancels, even hours before showtime, there isn’t much a local promoter can do.
“You’re not going to sue them, even if you have a contract. What good will it do?” Seligman said.
If it’s a smaller show, money spent on marketing or production costs can be recouped with a future show. If it’s an arena-filling headliner like Lady Gaga, there are millions of dollars in play, and globe-spanning tours are often booked through huge companies like Live Nation.
“Live Nation paid X amount of money to an artist to do X amount of shows,” said Seligman. “It’s part of a whole package deal. At that level there’s so much money involved, so everyone has insurance.”
Then there are shows that are cancelled due to low ticket sales. Of course, a promoter or artist will rarely come out and say so directly.
“Generally, promoters don’t want to cancel shows,” said Seligman. “They booked them for a reason and want to see it through. The exception is if it’s not selling and you decide to pull the plug, so even if you pay a cancellation fee you’d be better off doing than paying for the venue and the production costs.”
For cancellations, Seligman says they’ll often get a message from an artist’s agent telling them to “stand by for exact wording.” This can be where crushed fans go from understanding to upset.
“A lot of the time, you never really know what the real story is,” Seligman said. “Swet Shop Boys had a pretty lame excuse, so I have no idea what the real story is.”
In the case of Halsey cancelling her Oct. 3 Bell Centre show, confusion over the official reason reigned on promoter Evenko’s Facebook page. Besides the requisite “OMG”s and demands for more information, a petition was created with the intent of getting Halsey to “come to (Laval’s) Place Bell or idk,” instead of the supposedly constrained Bell Centre. It only amassed 116 signatures.
“She (Halsey) got time to wipe us off her website but not to answer us or make a statement/announcement?” said one Facebook commenter.
“I love how it’s easy to turn the place into a hockey arena but not a stage with literally flowers and a screen with glitch art,” said another.
Halsey finally responded on Oct. 3, the original date of the show and two weeks after the cancellation, tweeting: “Montreal I know ur sad the show isn’t happening 2nite. We ran into unforeseen production issues. We’ll make it up to ya.” This was in line with what Evenko had said at the time of the cancellation.
With the cost of arena show tickets often exceeding $100, and potentially hundreds more thanks to the advent of meet-and-greet VIP packages, fans are more invested than ever in seeing their heroes in concert.
Xavier Gould, a 23-year-old queer Acadian artist and YouTuber who goes by the moniker JassSainte Bourque, travelled by train from Moncton to Montreal to see Lady Gaga in September.
“I decided to spend a week in Montreal couch-surfing at a friend’s based around the Lady Gaga show,” he explained. “I had my costume on and I was applying the last piece of glitter on my face when my friend walked into the room and told us the bad news.”
Gould estimates he spent about $600 on the trip. Work constraints will prevent him from coming to Montreal for Lady Gaga’s makeup date on Friday, but the friend who originally bought the tickets found another taker, so Gould’s seat will not go unused.
Unlike a number of Gaga’s fans, referred to as Little Monsters, Gould and his pals didn’t go to the William Gray Hotel in Old Montreal where Gaga was staying to serenade her from the street.
“We got dressed again and went to (Cabaret) Chez Mado for a Lady Gaga-themed night,” he said. “No, it wasn’t Lady Gaga, but at Chez Mado I had a great time singing Lady Gaga tunes, and we don’t have drag bars like that in New Brunswick.”
Another Little Monster, 22-yearold Dawson theatre student Joey Crête, partook in the tradition of camping out in front of the Bell Centre. During Lady Gaga’s Born This Way Ball tour in 2012-13, fans who were first in line got an opportunity to meet the singer, and Crête was one of them. Although Gaga wasn’t planning on meeting fans in this manner on the Joanne tour, Crête and others camped out for four days anyway.
“It was four days spent connecting with other Little Monsters. We’ve all become friends at this point, because it’s the same people every tour,” Crête explained.
He was in line when Gaga announced the postponement on social media.
“I went to Bruno, who is part of Gaga’s team and takes care of the lineups, and asked him what was going on. Even he didn’t know yet. About 10 minutes later they told us it wouldn’t be happening,” he said.
“At that moment it was devastating and I cried. I had been anticipating the show for so long. But a day later I was thinking about the amazing experience I had camping out with the other Little Monsters, making our outfits and getting ready.”
Crête was one of the fans who went to Gaga’s hotel. He said he got pizza, supplied by the singer, and an autographed photo. “She said she’ll make it up to us and I know she will,” he said. He’ll camp out again for the rescheduled date, but for less than four days.
This isn’t the first time Lady Gaga has suffered from poor health in Montreal: she injured her hip here mid-show in 2013. Crête was there and said he was amazed she still came out for an encore after getting hurt.
“Gaga’s a human being, and it’s hard to live that life when you’re always on the run and everyone has these expectations for you,” Crête said. “So we wanted to send the message that it’s OK to stop and rest. We don’t think badly of her at all.”
Gould concurred with the sentiment.
“I think we tend to treat famous people like iPhones,” Gould said. “You have your iPhone and you always expect it to work. But Lady Gaga is just like anybody else. If she’s sick, she’s sick, and I can’t be mad about that.”