CMU School of Drama


Monday, April 13, 2020

Health Expert Warns Concerts Won't Return Until “Fall 2021 at the Earliest”

metalinjection.net: One topic of discussion regarding "return to normalcy" is when can we expect live concerts to start happening again. Last week, a renowned metal booking agent predicted that tours won't really get back to normal until early 2021. Today, a health expert offered a much less optimistic prediction. Shows wouldn't be back until fall 2021 the earliest.

3 comments:

Natsumi Furo said...

I also read an article about Harvard researchers saying social-distancing may need to remain until 2022. While I think that concerts, shows, and performances are not included in the absolute minimum things we need to live, I also believe that those are essentials for mental health. The German’s Culture Minister said the government “recognize[s] that culture is not only a luxury one indulges in during good times” and I totally agree. Although next few months would still be the time when we all have to get together and stop the spread, once the spread gets settled, we need to think of ways to live with the maintaining virus and to start rebuilding the economy and culture. I understand that keeping the social-distance for years is the shortest way to win against the virus, but I am concerned that there will be another leading cause of deaths: suicidal depression. Not to mention dismissals as a cause of depression, the loss of cultural life will be serious.

Elinore Tolman said...

I have a bit of a bias with this opinion because I am someone who adores live music and it breaks my heart to be apart from it this summer. But I do feel that saying concerts won't be back to normal by fall 2021 might be a bit of a long stretch. In the sense that people won’t feel fully comfortable until then I do agree with, but based on the poll in the survey, people would still attend live shows even with quarantine just being lifted. Personally, I feel safety precautions must be taken first, but with the proper coverage I would feel ok going to a live show still. Live shows bring in a lot of revenue so completely stopping them until fall next year seems a bit excessive. I think right now, plenty of precautions need to be taken. However, this will calm down and I don’t think we should completely cease any kind of concert just for the sake of people’s jobs.

Owen Sahnow said...

This is going to be a really big problem for the entertainment industry, it already is. I think the moral of this pandemic for us young artists is to make sure we have other skills in case something like this happens again. Being able to make money during a future pandemic by being an essential worker or someone who can work from home is going to be very important. I’m curious if less people will be going to school for art in the near future because of this. It will be interesting to see how the industry recovers, because the live event personnel probably aren’t going to be able to survive a year and a half without work on savings alone. This means that many people are going to have to find other types of jobs in the meantime. This might make salaries go up when we can finally return to normal life. I also have a feeling that every band ever is going to want to start performing as soon as possible and every concert goer will want to go to every concert possible, meaning prices for these events will skyrocket.