Cheap tickets from Ticketmaster? Probably not – when concerts and festivals like Coachella return after the pandemic, everything is going to change
- Absent a Covid-19 vaccine, social distancing will cut music venues’ capacity by up to 85 per cent; performers are likely to earn less and tickets to cost more
- The new normal at live music events once they begin again could include registering for contact tracing, temperature checks, and hand-sanitising stations
When will live concerts and festivals return? No one knows for sure.
Live Nation, the world’s largest concert and live events promoter, began offering ticket refunds, exchanges and credit options in late April for more than 30,000 cancelled or postponed shows.
As of May 13, Ticketmaster – which is owned and operated by Live Nation – had processed more than US$600 million in refunds, according to Ticketmaster president Jared Smith, an amount that is growing by the day. And Billboard magazine recently reported that Live Nation had furloughed around 2,100 of its 10,500 employees, as part of a plan to reduce the publicly traded company’s costs by US$600 million.
Venues of all sizes have been shut and many people in the music industry are now unemployed, from band members, talent agents, stage crew staff and audio engineers to tour bus drivers, box office employees, security guards and backstage caterers.