Summer concert season ended before it 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 concerts won’t be coming back anytime soon. In the past couple of weeks, festivals 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 organizers. “The odds of it happening in August go down with each passing day,” Perloff said from his home in Lafayette, Calif. “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. Justin Bieber also has scrapped his current tour, postponing dozens of dates.
Summer is the most lucrative time of year for the concert business, as promoters stage festivals all across the nation and host large outdoor shows at stadiums and amphitheaters. The industry stands to miss out on more than $5 billion in ticket sales if there are no shows all summer, according to Pollstar, an industry trade publication. That doesn’t include the lost revenue from advertising, merchandise, and food and beverages.