As we near the one year mark of quarantine we are finally starting to see a light at the end of this dark tunnel. On Monday, the British government set a timeline for large events to return at full capacity beginning June 21st. Live Nation wasted no time with this announcement and tickets to three of U.K’s biggest festivals began selling right away. Creamfields, the biggest of all UK festivals, has been sold out in record time in less than 48 hours. Totalling 170,000 tickets sold this week for Summer and early Fall festivals.
What does this mean for US festivals? Live Nation CEO Michael Rapin has this to say.
“Every day we seem to have a new state or country talking about when they’ll open up, so we’re feeling more optimistic than we were a month ago,” he said. “Lots of artists are calling, looking at how we start up in July, August, September. So for right now, we still believe we’ll have enough open in the U.K., Australia, Canada, and the U.S. to keep what we have on the books in amphitheaters booked for now. We might have certain states that might not be ready, but we have enough states and enough artists willing to play the open slots if we get to that level in the right markets.”
Michael Rapin believes that Southern US states will begin to see events starting midsummer and other states will follow until November. The US government has not provided any plans for reopening which makes it harder to predict a set timeline as in the UK. Although Live Nation has made its stance strong by announcing the rescheduled The Weeknd tour and selling nearly one million tickets.
A reopening will not mean things will go back to normal. Click here to learn more about Ticketmasters plan for when events reopen.