The show may not go on amid virus fears
The show must go on? Maybe not, amidst COVID-19 fears
Minneapolis singer-songwriter Dave Simonett has been anticipating a year filled with touring, both with his band Trampled By Turtles and on his own.
The COVID-19 (AKA coronavirus) scare has put all that in doubt, however. And that scares Simonett nearly as much as the health issues.
“The whole music business, there’s a lot of fear about the summer because of all the festivals and things being called off now and what that will mean down the road,” says Simonett, who released a new solo album, “Red Tail,” on March 13 that he’s anxious to support with live shows. “Most of us, artists, make our living that way, and you’ve got everybody attached to it — crew people, booking agents.
“It’s a real wait-and-see feeling right now. People are trying to figure out what’s gonna happen, and what will happen if people don’t want to come out and go to concerts.”
Uncertainty reigns, but what is clear now is that concerns about COVID-19, declared a global pandemic last week by the World Health Organization, are wreaking the same kind of havoc on the music and entertainment industry as it is in the rest of the world.
Fan welfare
The adage that the show must go on is butting up against prudence and “an abundance of caution” from a variety of directions — including the sports world, which has suspended one season (National Basketball Association) and is playing games in front of limited spectators (NCAA).
Live Nation Entertainment, meanwhile, announced it was suspending all of its domestic and international tours, with plans to reevaluate during April and hopes to return them to the road in May or June. Several movies, notably the upcoming James Bond film “No Time to Die,” have been moved to fall, while Broadway shows in New York City have shut down for four to six weeks. Some TV talk shows are also going without audiences for the undetermined future.
The past month has seen the cancellation and postponement of major music events, including the South By Southwest conferences and festival in Texas, the Winter Music Conference and Ultra Music Festival in Florida, the National Association of Broadcasters in Las Vegas and Musexpo in California, as well as the postponement of the Coachella and Stagecoach music festivals to October and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony, slated for May 2 in Cleveland, to later in the year.
Pearl Jam, determining that “the levels of risk to our audience and their communities is simply too high for our comfort level,” Cher and the Zac Brown Band have postponed upcoming legs of planned North American tours — the latter including a show that was to take place March 14 at Detroit’s Little Caesars Arena.
Country group Little Big Town also rescheduled its Detroit show from March 12 to Oct. 1, and Blake Shelton has moved his March 20 show to a TBD date during the spring of 2021. Justin Bieber, meanwhile, cites COVID as one of the reasons for slow ticket sales for stadium dates this summer, which have been downsized to arenas — from Ford Field to Little Caesars Arena during August in Detroit.
Additionally, acts such as Green Day, Guns N’ Roses, Bob Dylan, Santana, Slipknot, My Chemical Romance, the Pixies, Joe Satriani, Whitesnake, Richard Marx and BTS have canceled dates in
Asia, South America and Europe. Kiss has called off fan meet-and-greets before its concerts, while Yes recently bailed out of performing on its own Cruise to the Edge. And there are fears and expectations of more to follow as the concert business heads toward the usually lucrative summer season that’s set up as one of the busiest ever.
Rapid changes
“Everything is so tenuous, and things change minute by minute,” says an executive with a national concert promotion company who declined to be quoted by name. “We’re on calls every day. We’re taking an abundance of precaution to make sure we’re following recommendations and guidelines. But until we have a firmer grasp on the breadth and depth of it, we can’t say, ‘Here’s what we’re doing’ because ‘Here’s what we’re doing’ changes, minute by minute.”
Indeed, the volatile situation makes promoters and venue operators loathe to converse too much about their plans and expectations.
Ilitch Companies, which operates Little Caesars Arena, the Fox Theatre, the DTE Energy Music Theatre and more — as well as Comerica Park, which has four concerts on the books this summer — issued a statement saying, “Public health and safety of our fans is our first priority at all of our venues. In addition to following CDC guidelines, we are staying in close touch with local, state and federal health agencies, industry leaders and league officials on best practices. We have also intensified cleaning/disinfecting procedures of highly trafficked surface and common areas. We will remain flexible as new information becomes available.”
At nearby Ford Field, which pushed its two nights of Monster Jam truck competition into July and has summer concerts by the Rolling Stones and Kenny Chesney on its schedule, Vice-President
of Operations Todd Argust said in a statement, “We are working closely with various event and tour producers to monitor the COVID-19 situation and how it might affect scheduled events at Ford Field. We are following the advised health and safety guidelines for the well-being of our guests, including enhancing the cleaning and disinfecting process of the facility.
“Additionally, all staff have been educated on how to remain diligent with personal and workspace hygiene in accordance with CDC recommendations. Should any events at Ford Field be postponed or cancelled, we will communicate with ticket holders directly the next steps.”
The concerns, of course, stretch beyond regular concert venues and into other events.
On Memorial Day weekend, Detroit’s Hart Plaza is slated to host the Movement Electronic Music Festival, which attracts tens of thousands — including a substantial number of international attendees. Festival organizers shared social media messages, the most recent of which said that “It goes without saying that this is an incredibly fluid and dynamic situation...Movement 2020 is still moving forward as planned with safety as a top priority. We are also in the process of exploring all possibly contingency plans should things change.”
The status is the same, so far, for other events, including the Motor City Comic Con during May in Novi, the newly moved North American International Auto Show in June, the Mo Pop Festival — which announced its lineup and a move to Detroit’s Historic Fort Wayne last week — the Faster Horses festival in Brooklyn, Mich., during July and the Labor Day weekend Detroit Jazz Festival.
While wholesale cancellations are a worst-case scenario, anything scheduled for the metro area is subject to external forces, including performer decisions and governmental edicts — which, in some areas, such as San Francisco and Washington state, has included bans or caps on attendances at public events. Van Morrison circumvented the latter last week in Paris. After France prohibited gatherings of more than 1,000, he opted to add a second concert and divide the crowd in half in order to carry out the shows.
Money losses
Finances are at stake of course. Live Nation Entertainment grossed more than $3.3 billion last year, while AEG Presents notched $2.2 billion. Promoters, venues and artists are also weighing legal liability factors for staging events during the pandemic, as well as moral imperatives.
“Imagine if you had an event and all of a sudden 50,000 people came down with coronavirus, and then all of a sudden those people’s grandparents were dropping like flies because of it?” insurance expert Paul Bassman told the touring trade magazine Pollstar. “The guilt would be overwhelming. So possibly it’s someone who couldn’t justify that loss and thought, ‘I can’t live with myself by allowing this to go on.’”
Carnegie Mellon University economics professor George Lowenstein, meanwhile, tells Billboard that the concert business is in a precarious state due to COVID fears — adding that “it feels to me like we’re at the beginning” of a crisis.
“Concert promoters might need to come up with some kind of new model for this period,” he says. University of Massachusetts-Lowell bioethicist Nicholas Evans predicts, “a fairly steep drop-off ... in the number of concert attendees,” especially for festivals.
The greatest challenge, however, is uncertainty.
“Look,” says the promotion firm executive, “(a week ago) Thursday South by Southwest was on; on Friday it was off. That’s how fast things are moving. It’s day by day — hour by hour, really. Unless we’re going to just call everything off, which I don’t think will happen, it’s going to be like this for a while.”