Back in March, veteran country concert promoter Louis Messina was thrilled when George Strait sold out his Aug. 13 and 14 comeback shows at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. On the nights of the concerts, however, Messina noticed that the no-show rate was a staggering 20%, far higher than the 1% to 2% he says is typical for the venue. And no-shows don’t only mean less revenue from food and merchandise -- they make promoters nervous about future ticket sales.
For over a year, Messina, who partners with AEG, had kept tours off the road, paying his staff $9 million in salary without any revenue coming in (money he later recouped from the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant program). Now the concert business is back to work, but a significant number of fans aren’t ready to show up.
“People’s fears haven’t subsided as much as we had hoped,” says Messina, “and they’re walking away from events.” Breakthrough cases are driving concern about contracting COVID-19, even among the vaccinated, and concerts where attendees aren’t required to wear masks or prove they’ve been vaccinated pose even greater risks. (T-Mobile Arena doesn’t currently require either.)
Since April, when Bad Bunny sold out an arena tour in record time, promoters, artists and fans alike were expecting the concert business to return this summer, get back to normal by 2022 and thrive on pent-up demand. Instead, uncertainty is back: COVID-19 cases are rising, vaccines don’t provide perfect protection, and parents of children under 12 may be worried about catching the virus at a show and spreading the delta variant at home. That uncertainty seems to be affecting demand: There’s growing evidence that ticket sales are slowing for indoor arena concerts.
Messina’s suggested solution: Require fans, artists and crew members who enter concert venues to show they’ve been vaccinated. “If we don’t do something about this slowdown in the business,” he says, “we’re no longer going to have a business.” But that’s easier said than done, since there’s still plenty of pushback against vaccine and mask mandates, which have been highly politicized. Requiring vaccines is now banned by executive order or legislation in 20 states.
Still, hundreds of U.S. venues have already enacted such mandates and thousands more are on the way. In August, promotion giants Live Nation and AEG Presents said they would require fans to show proof of vaccination to attend shows at venues they own, as well as at concerts and festivals they produce. And most of the more than 7,000 independent venues that received government assistance under the Shuttered Venue Operator Grants program have joined regional groups that mandate vaccine requirements for concerts.
That still leaves most arenas and stadiums, though. In the United States, about 100 to 200 arenas and 30 to 50 stadiums host the vast majority of the tours that play venues of that size, and without a national mandate, promoters that want to book them face an array of state and regional regulations. New York and California currently require events of 5,000 or more to check the vaccine status of attendees, for example, while the governors of Texas and Florida have issued executive orders that ban such mandates. The touring industry can’t resume at full scale without these venues, which account for up to $10 billion in ticket sales each year, Billboard estimates.
“I can skip Texas and Florida if they don’t change their laws, but I cannot skip much more than that,” says Messina. “This issue has been so politicized that it’s impossible for some artists to take a side.” That’s especially true in genres like country, where some artists have significant conservative fan bases.
Part of the problem is that no one wants to play the heavy -- especially to fans who have already purchased tickets. “It’s even more difficult when the concert was announced without a vaccine requirement and we’re trying to implement them after the fact,” says Red Light Management founder Coran Capshaw. “There has to be a cultural moment when most people in the business overwhelmingly support this idea.”
Since most arenas and stadiums are owned and operated by sports teams or city governments, they can only move so fast. “The arenas are all getting their heads around our suggestions,” says Jay Marciano, chief executive at AEG, which manages over 300 venues worldwide. “They aren’t as able to move on the dime as our concert venues.”
A concert-business vaccine mandate would significantly decrease the chances of fans contracting COVID-19 at shows, and potentially make ticket buyers more confident. But even that wouldn’t provide the kind of 100% protection that some promoters were hoping would bring the pandemic to a definitive end. While vaccines provide significant protection against the kinds of serious COVID-19 cases that can lead to hospitalization or death, they don’t offer complete immunity from contracting or spreading the virus. That means going to a concert still comes with some risk, which is affecting consumer confidence. Demand on the secondary market for Dead & Company’s highly anticipated 29-date amphitheater/stadium tour that started Aug. 23 has plummeted as cases of the delta variant spike, according to concert data site TicketIQ, with prices for many shows dropping by 40%. The Eagles, who can typically sell out a tour in days, took much longer than usual to fully sell their 21-date Hotel California tour.
A vaccine mandate is still a worthy goal -- it could have significant public health benefits and reassure fans that promoters are doing everything they can to keep events safe. But there’s an increasing acknowledgement that the idea the pandemic would end swiftly and definitively may have been wishful thinking.
“We’re going to get to a point where we learn to live with the virus,” says Capshaw, who thinks promoters will be able to incentivize fans to get vaccinated and use data to minimize viral spread. “We’re having really good business out there.” Capshaw believes that some of the tour cancellations attributed to COVID-19 may have less to do with caution than with soft sales in a crowded market. In some cases, when too many shows went on sale at once or there wasn’t enough time to sell enough tickets to make the tour profitable, “tying it to COVID isn’t appropriate. It’s bullshit. We have enough challenges in this business; we don’t need to do that.”
The roaring comeback that some industry executives envisioned may not come to pass, but Capshaw says that “early, well-attended shows” give him hope that a recovery is beginning. “I’m optimistic that the full picture will show we’re making progress.”
NEWS
Massive Attack have been using their latest live show to challenge American data analytics and software company Palantir, with the band describing the firm's ambitions as "terrifying".
The pioneering trip hop group have woven criticism of the controversial surveillance technology company into their new stage production. During their upcoming performance at Primavera Sound, they plan to deploy "custom-made facial recognition software" capable of "scanning a 75,000-person crowd" and projecting audience members onto giant screens with tongue in cheek labels such as "11 weeks no time off, burnout" and "unfinished books", according to Novara Media.
Speaking with the publication, the visual concept takes direct aim at Palantir, the company established two decades ago by billionaire Peter Thiel. Backed financially by the CIA, the firm counts the US and Israeli militaries, ICE, the FBI and the NHS among its clients.
After unveiling the production in Helsinki, Robert Del Naja told Novara Media that he wanted audiences to better understand how Palantir's reach has expanded from supplying "kill chain tech" reportedly used in Gaza to now having access to the medical records of people across Britain.
"We really need a much wider debate on the suitability of a company like this having such capture of our societal infrastructure," he said. He explained that the criticism is embedded throughout Massive Attack's two hour performance and was developed alongside long time collaborator Adam Curtis and London art collective United Visual Artists.
"One visual element represents how a Palantir Gotham monitoring and ‘decision chain’ interface might look," Del Naja explained. "Using facial recognition technology, it lands on groups and individuals – implying a consequential outcome for a given target."
Novara Media also detailed how Palantir's software can connect information from multiple databases. The outlet reported that ICE allegedly combines the platform with body camera footage, social media data and information gathered through Israeli developed hacking software Paragon to identify protesters involved in resistance to immigration raids.
The publication further claimed that Palantir contributes to Maven, a software platform used by the US military, which has recently faced criticism after being linked to the bombing of a girls' school in Iran.
"I find their declarations, objectives and moral framing pretty terrifying," Del Naja said. "To enable AI systems to map police records, satellite tracked locations, health records and personal financial transactions and place all of that information – for the first time – into the hands of a company with an overt political agenda and social objectives of its own is a huge, potentially irreversible and dangerous overreach."
Another moment in Massive Attack's current live production appears during the closing section of "Girl I Love You", when a quote from Peter Thiel is projected on screen reading: "I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible".
Last year, Massive Attack introduced the satirical "facial recognition" sequence during their concerts and quickly rejected suggestions that genuine data recognition systems were being used on audiences.
"No Massive Attack live show has ever recorded or stored personal data," the group stated. "Only government departments, relevant authorities & approved contractors can access public databases in the UK, & doing so in multiple cities/countries would be impossible."
The band also pointed to the growing use of facial recognition technology across Britain, arguing that authorities are "overreaching almost all other western democracies with their use of public facial recognition … while there is no specific legislation regulating police use of these systems."
The statement arrived shortly after Massive Attack welcomed Kneecap onto the stage during their major show at the OVO Wembley Arena, introducing them as a group "who refused to be silenced for their solidarity with the Palestinian people."
Massive Attack have consistently spoken out in support of Palestine and a range of other progressive causes. More recently, they pledged to boycott Spotify following reports that CEO Daniel Ek had invested heavily "in a company producing military munition drones and AI technology integrated into fighter aircraft."
During their headline appearance at London's LIDO Festival last summer, the band were joined by actor and activist Khalid Abdalla along with Yasiin Bey, formerly known as Mos Def. Earlier this year, Del Naja also criticised what he described as a "draconian government" after being arrested while protesting the ban on Palestine Action.
The musician was one of hundreds of demonstrators who gathered in Trafalgar Square on April 11 to oppose the Palestine Action ban. He carried a placard stating "I Oppose Genocide, I Support Palestine Action".
Police removed him from the protest and arrested him on suspicion of expressing support for a proscribed organisation. He later responded with an extensive statement posted to Instagram.
Back in February, the band revealed a small run of European dates for the summer. The tour began on May 27 at Veikkaus Arena in Helsinki before continuing to Dalhalla in Rättvik on May 30.
The Bristol trip hop pioneers have not released new material since the 2020 EP "Eutopia". Their most recent studio album remains 2010's "Heligoland".
Speaking with NME in 2024, Robert Del Naja revealed that the band had "some new music which we've been sitting on for four years". He later shared in November that he hoped to finally release some of that material in 2026.
