Taylor Swift, Justin Bieber cancel, Coachella postpones, concert promoters slash salaries: music festival industry’s summer of suffering

The US concert industry alone stands to miss out on more than US$5 billion in ticket sales if there are no shows all summer

The damage from the pandemic is likely to be much worse and longer-lasting than industries like restaurants, cinemas or sports leagues

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Taylor Swift performs at Amazon Music’s Prime Day concert at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York last year. She will not be touring in 2020 because of the coronavirus outbreak. Photo: AP

Published: 10:00pm, 21 Apr 2020Updated: 4:40am, 22 Apr 2020

The summer music festival season has ended before it even began.

While sports leagues and restaurants try to figure out when they can reopen to the public, there’s growing recognition among music industry executives that live concerts will not be coming back any time soon. In the past couple of weeks, festivals such as Coachella in California have cleared out of May and June, while those in July and August are just waiting to reschedule.

Outside Lands, a music festival held in San Francisco every August, is exploring a move to October or next year, according to Gregg Perloff, one of the festival’s organisers. “The odds of it happening in August go down with each passing day,” Perloff says. “We have to have a situation where the public feels safe, we feel safe and the bands feel safe.”

Taylor Swift went further on Friday, telling fans she wouldn’t be playing at all in 2020. And Justin Bieber also has scrapped his current tour, postponing dozens of dates.

Justin Bieber performs during the Grammy Awards in Los Angeles. Bieber has scrapped his latest tour, postponing dozens of dates. Photo: AFP

Summer is the most lucrative time of year for the concert business, as promoters stage festivals all over the world and host large outdoor shows at stadiums and amphitheatres.