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5 Mar 2021
The live event industry was rocked by the global pandemic that began early 2020. Concert tours and festivals were cancelled, and many sporting events were postponed. Slowly, the US has begun to reintroduce fans into stadiums in limited capacity, incorporating new safety and sanitizing measures. This past fall, the NFL successfully hosted a limited amount of live fans in some states. NASCAR is another organization that is currently hosting fans at a reduced capacity at their open-air tracks . But where does that leave the concerts and shows that were originally postponed in 2020? Some tours are finding creative ways to still hold their concerts, some are still waiting to be rescheduled, but many have been forced to cancel all together, sometimes after several rescheduled dates were announced.
Creative Measures
Some entertainers have decided that the show must go on. Some bands that are switching to a virtual tour format. Swedish rock band, The Hives, planned a virtual world tour where the band played several online performances at different times across several dates this past January. It was penned as ‘The World’s First World Wide Web World Tour’. Livestream concerts were a hit for artists such as Niall Horan and Dua Lipa in 2020. Due to these successful efforts, Ticketmaster is launching a livestream ticketing service so artists can sell tickets or accept donations for their virtual events directly on their websites. A few other creative measures that continue to be implemented are drive–in concerts and even bubble concerts, where everyone – including the performer – is inside their own bubble. However, there is nothing like a traditional concert, so many popular tours are still waiting to be rescheduled or pushed to 2022.
Social and Political Implications
According to TicketNews, Live Nation President, Joe Berchtold, believes that concerts will be back by mid-2021 in an interview on CNBC in December. The company has maintained that timeline for several months, assuming that vaccine distribution will be at a level allowing for large scale events without social distancing– at least outdoors – by summer. New York was one of the states hit hardest by the coronavirus, but has recently announced that a reopening plan for 10,000 person capacity venues is in effect. The public will need to feel comfortable and safe to attend shows – especially indoors. Even with an available vaccine, it is hard to say if 2021 will be the year that “normalcy returns”. A vaccine must be widely accepted socially for concerts and shows to be successful. There is a huge group of people that berate live events, and another large group that berates not having live events. Getting all these groups to a new comfort level continues to be a gradual process.
Will large concerts happen in 2021? After 2020, many would rather project further into the future rather than risk another rescheduling. For the shows that have not been cancelled and are instead waiting to be rescheduled, look for this to happen towards the later part of the year at the earliest, and on into 2022. For live, in-person concerts and shows to happen again, sanitation measures will need to increase and remain elevated for some time, even with widespread vaccination.