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“THE TRAGEDY IS THE TOURING PERSONNEL AND MUSICIANS WHO CAN’T EXIST LOSING
A YEAR’S PAY. IF WE ARE LUCKY TO BE
ABLE TO RESTART, THERE WILL BE A MAD
SCRAMBLE FOR DATES AND LIMITED
DOLLARS. —IRVINGAZOFF
”
“What does the all-clear look
like? Is there a siren that goes
off? Federal government says, OK, everybody go back to work. But
because our geography is so large, you could have clusters get cleared—it’s OK
to play Denver and Chicago but San Diego and L.A. are on lockdown.”
“Another issue is tours and festivals that had not yet
gone on sale,” adds a top player in the space. “With no late- night TV, awards shows or the like, how would you announce a tour or festival? And in this moment of no one working, could you even sell tickets? So any move of a tour (even ones on sale already) has to account for a window to go on sale or relaunch. For the last few years, long-lead on-sales have been the norm; can we go back to a time when eight-to-10-week on-sales were the norm? And will the public be listening and reacting, with all the other noise?”
Sports, on more than one level, will play a significant role in the return of live entertainment, numerous execs agree.
For starters, NBA and NHL teams get first dibs on dates in arenas. Major League Baseball is a big question mark in terms of when their season will start, and it may be adjusted in a way that makes shows at Fenway Park, Wrigley Field
and other ballparks unten- able. The NFL, with stadi-
ums that are much easier to schedule in the summer, may
have question marks regarding its season as well. Will they really
start their pre-season in August? “Nobody can confirm a new routing yet for tours in arenas and artists like The Stones in
stadiums,” one promoter said. “In a perfect world, we’d do a carbon copy of what we’ve done. What was months in the plan- ning becomes a scramble in more challenging circumstances.”
On the flipside, the return of baseball could be a healing balm for the country the way it was after 9/11. Games would be televised nightly; viewers would see crowds enjoying them- selves and how players interact.
Plus, it would mean the all-clear is nationwide: They can’t play the season and avoid coronavirus hotbeds such as Seattle, the Bay Area and New York.
“At the end of the day, the instinct and desire of young people to be in a dark room with hundreds or thousands of their peers listening to amazing artists and sharing a communal emotional experience is not going away,” says attorney Jeffrey Light. “That, and it’s all about the bass.” n
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PHOTO: TOMMY LOPEZ/PEXELS