Mix Live Blog: Pop!

Let’s rewind to Summer 2021 when Covid-19 restrictions were lifted and pretty much all hell broke loose in the entertainment industry. Armed with Covid riders, artists who had been on hiatus geared up for tours hoping to make up for lost income. Venues packed their calendars with shows that had been postponed due to the pandemic, as well as with new bookings. Production warehouses were emptied of gear, as were tour bus depots. Audiences—tired of being caged up in their homes—started binge-spending on live entertainment. Business was booming if you were even remotely connected to the concert industry. 

Well, that boom is over. 

Just a sampling of the tours that have been canceled for 2024: Neil Young and Crazy Horse, Heart, Jennifer Lopez, Lauryn Hill and The Fugees, Black Keys, Kim Petras, Widespread Panic, Queens of the Stone Age, Busta Rhymes, Pink Pantheress, Garbage and Journey. 

Festival events that have been canceled for 2024 include Music Midtown (Atlanta), Life Is Beautiful (Las Vegas), Lollapalooza Paris, Pine Fest (UK), Blue Ridge Rock Festival (Alton, Va), Sierra Nevada World Music Festival (Boonville, Calif.), Beale Street Music Festival (Memphis), El Dorado Festival (UK), Sudden Little Thrills (Pittsburgh), and Riverside Festival Glasgow. Clearly, this is not a regional problem. 

“Health issues” is the reason—or excuse, depending upon your perspective—most often cited for the cancellations. Or, in the case of festivals, legal issues. J-Lo said that she needed to spend more time with her family. I guess she didn’t realize that a tour would take her out of town. Lauryn Hill and The Fugees canceled the entire tour three days before the first show, with no reason given. Live Nation simply sent an email to people who had purchased tickets stating, “Your event has been canceled. A refund will be on its way to your account soon.” 

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The cancellation of Electric Zoo 2024 may actually have been a good thing, sparing patrons unnecessary grief given the debacle that was Electric Zoo 2023. In fact, Electric Zoo just recently started issuing refunds for 2023, so we can presumably add financial issues to legal issues as one of the reasons. Even festivals like Coachella—which typically sells very well—are now experiencing slow ticket sales. 

A few of the cancellations are legit: Ann Wilson of Heart revealed a cancer diagnosis (our prayers are with her), Taylor Swift’s show in Vienna was nixed due to concerns of a terrorist plot, and Josh Homme’s unspecified medical issues have resulted in Queens Of The Stone Age canceling more than a dozen shows. 

But excuses like “I want to spend more time with my family” really translate to, ”‘The promoter didn’t sell enough tickets and would like to avoid a financial bloodbath.” That’s the real reason a tour gets canceled, catastrophes notwithstanding. And the fact is that bills are coming due, ticket prices continue to climb, and concertgoers are pickier about where to spend their disposable income.

I recently had conversations with two venue managers, both at outdoor facilities in the Midwest. One related a story of a national artist who typically sells several thousand seats every summer. This year, ticket sales were around 500. Ouch. They wanted to move the show to a nearby indoor venue with a smaller capacity, which would lower overhead while making the show look better for the artist (fewer empty seats)—but the artist refused.

Another venue manager and promoter faced a similar situation and was able to move a show to a sister venue with a lower capacity (and lower overhead). But when faced with a similar situation on another show, the venue was reluctant to move the show for fear that rumors would circulate in the community that the venue was going out of business. It would appear that some promoters are overestimating the size of the venue that an artist can fill, but that’s a Catch-22 because a promoter needs to fill a venue that can support the artist’s fee while still turning a profit. 

The really upsetting part of the cancellations is the domino effect. When a tour is canceled, a lot of people are put out of work: musicians, tour managers, production managers, FOH and monitor engineers, stage techs, lighting designers, video engineers, truck drivers, riggers, carpenters, wardrobe and even catering people. 

When a tour is canceled three days before the first show, these folks are left hanging in the breeze, scrambling for work—some may even have rented out their living space. That’s a very uncomfortable position to find yourself in on a hot day in late summer.