My email feeds are full of shows for next year and I confess to be on the cusp of thinking about a time when gigs return to normal. So I clicked on the Damned, with the original Vanian/James/Sensible/Scabies line up reforming for shows next summer. Now I know the biz is in a right old state at the mo, as income has all but dried up, bands, venues, promoters, roadies, crew etc etc, but 75 quid to stand in the shitty O2 Academy? Think I’ll pass. Is this indicative of pricing for the future, or is it based on distancing still being a thing? Which, without fixed seating might be, um, optimistic.
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Given that COVID is going to be with us for a loooooooooooooonngggg time yet and socially distanced shows are going to be the best we can hope for, the sort of prices you quote would seem to be very much the norm.
While can’t really see me going to a socially distanced show by a raucous act like The Damned, I’ve got TX for rescheduled shows featuring Grant Lee Philips, the Fannies, Sparks and the DBTs. Since the replacement gigs are due to take place between next March and May, would guess they will have to be socially distanced, too – assuming they go ahead at all. If that’s the case, quite a lot of ticket holders are going to have to miss out – not sure how TIcketmater are going to solve that particular dillemna
I think any shows in the first half of next year have got to be very doubtful – I have tickets to the rescheduled (for the second time) Saucerful of Secrets shows in April but I’m not optimistic. Ozzy announced the other days his 2020 tour dates have been rearranged for early 2022 which might be more realistic. Agree with you on the prices these days though – before the Jeff Beck dates were called off for the time being, it was £75 to see him at my local city hall.
The way Ozzy looks in his recent pix would imagine the 2022 shows will either feature a hologram or feature someone like Doris Stokes on lead vocals
I saw that, and the reaction from friends who are bigger fans than I am. The general reaction seems to be the same as yours.
I have several tickets held over from postponed gigs this year but the only one I have booked since the unpleasantness kicked off is a at the Jazz Cafe in Camden on December 9th (possibly slightly optimistically). It’s a follow up to the Heartworn Highways shows in celebration of Townes Van Zandt last year, but this one and is for John Prine. Socially distanced table seats are £17.50 which seems a bit of a steal as the other shows were great and the line up is Beth Rowley, The Magic Numbers, Ren Harvieu, Robert Chaney, Zak Hobbs, Naomi Larsson, Felix Holt, Laura Tenschert, Josh Flowers, Joe Harvey-Whyte and Pat Ralla.
Details here (it’s one of two shows, the other is the day before on Tuesday 8th) – https://thejazzcafelondon.com/event/tribute-to-john-prine-2/
The Jazz Café are doing seated socially-distanced gigs right now.
Tonight (23/10/’20) there’s Tomorrow’s Warriors Soon Come Orchestra, with guests Cherise, Camilla George and Mark Kavuma. Ground floor drinks-only tickets were £15 but the ground floor is now sold out. Some upstairs restaurant tickets look to be still available for £20.
I imagine they’re not making any money on this. Breaking even at best.
I don’t feel ready to brave the Jazz Café yet for what promises to be a pretty lively gig.
Yes, it’s already tiny (I was surprised to look it up on Wiki just now and find the capacity is as high as 450 when standing is allowed downstairs) so they most only fit a couple of hundred at most with distancing.
Mark Kavuma is great.
I think the first gigs I will go to will be outside if they take place next year. Normally Wilco’s bi-annual Solid Sound Festival in Massachusetts would be last weekend in June. Some speculation this will be pushed to autumn (or 2022), and for me I would need the border to be open before I would buy tickets.
I also have tickets for a couple of outdoor concerts that were postponed by a year until late Aug/Sept, Wilco (again, also other side of the border) and New Order/Pet Shop Boys, these are sold out so would need to take place without social distancing. I am hopeful.
I’ve just been notified that the Dua Lipa tour has been rescheduled for the second time – June 2020 -> January 2021 -> September 2021. Nodoubt by that time, she’ll have brought another album out, so will have to rename this the Nostalgic Future Nostalgia Tour…
Yesterday I bought seated tickets for Blondie/Garbage in October (Dreaming certainly isn’t free!) and The Waterboys in York. There was no mention of social distancing arrangements for either.
I bought Blondie tickets yesterday and likely to be buying Waterboys tickets tomorrow – looking at Bournemouth which is a Saturday gig so a long weekend.
I simply cannot contemplate the same restrictions in October next year as we have now – if we do there is going to be a hell of a lot of non Covid illnesses to cope with and a World teetering on the edge.
I quite like the concept of socially distanced bars and restaurants where there can be a degree of space and privacy and also where you don’t have to queue up for drinks and catch the eye of barpersons (something I’ve never been good at). Socially distanced gigs sound nice too. Nothing worse than being jostled by sweaty bods who insist on spilling beer from plastic mugs all over you and hurling their arms into the air whilst ruining everything by singing along.
I’m not sure those last two will be solved by spacing people apart…
I had tickets for Chuck Prophet at Bury Met last May, rescheduled to end of Jan 2021. Can’t see that happening either
Jan 2021 is surely already written off for an artist from the US but I’m hoping a vaccine (even one of limited scope) will be available in the first quarter of next year. Like it or not, if you’re willing to pay, you’ll be able to buy a place near the front of the queue and the more your livelihood depends on travelling, the more likely you’ll be willing to pay.
That just leaves us punters. As soon as I can get a jab and as soon as I’ve had the jab, I assume I’ll be able to get back to closer to normal quite quickly.
All my rearranged gigs for this year seems to have been rearranged for the same week in April so if they get put back again it’ll make that week easier on the diary.
Predicted it in March … if, say, 10,000 supporters are allowed to go to an Arsenal-Manchester United game in a ground which can hold 60,000, it ain’t gonna be the rich who’ll lose out.
Boris Johnson, that renowned “sportsman,” will be there just to show how safe it is.
I was planning on putting on a pub gig with a couple of bands for my birthday next March. Not sure that’ll be possible now.
I have a couple of gigs next year which are shifted from this year – Ben Watt and Jason Isbell. I’ve sort of given up. Going out is so crap I’d rather not bother. Masks, sanitiser, sit over there, use the app, don’t walk that way to the khasi, don’t talk loud. I’m lighting the wood burner, opening the red and waiting. Just waiting.