{"id":805175,"date":"2020-03-12T13:34:40","date_gmt":"2020-03-12T19:34:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=966385"},"modified":"2020-03-12T13:34:40","modified_gmt":"2020-03-12T19:34:40","slug":"live-nation-aeg-suspend-all-artist-touring-until-april-as-coronavirus-spreads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/music-news\/live-nation-aeg-suspend-all-artist-touring-until-april-as-coronavirus-spreads\/","title":{"rendered":"Live Nation, AEG Suspend All Artist Touring Until April as Coronavirus Spreads"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Live Nation<\/a> and AEG, North America\u2019s largest concert promoters, are halting all tours in the U.S. and abroad until April and asking artists to come home amid coronavirus<\/a> fears.<\/p>\n

The competitors aligned with the biggest booking agencies in the country to mount a unified effort to address the situation. In a joint statement, executives from Live Nation, AEG, Creative Artists Agency (CAA), William Morris Endeavor (WME), Paradigm, and United Talent Agency (UTA) said they are working together to develop best practices to safeguard artists, fans, and staff in the concert industry.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe world\u2019s leading forces in live entertainment have come together to form a global task force to drive strategic support and unified direction ensuring precautionary efforts and ongoing protocol are in the best interest of artists, fans, staff, and the global community,\u201d the coalition said in a joint statement. \u201cAt this time, we collectively recommend large scale events through the end of March be postponed. \u201cWe continue to support that small-scale events follow guidance set by their local government officials. We feel fortunate to have the flexibility to reschedule concerts, festivals, and live events as needed, and look forward to connecting fans with all their favorite artists and live entertainment soon.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Live Nation informed its employees that the suspension of touring activities would last through the end of the month and, other than a few shows Thursday and Friday, will be effective immediately while the organization figures out its next move in April. The company\u2019s goal is for touring to resume in May or June.<\/p>\n

The announcement comes at a time when the live music industry is bracing for impact. The spread of COVID-19<\/a>, the coronavirus that the World Health Organization recently declared a pandemic, has prompted government officials to limit large public gatherings. The South by Southwest festival was canceled<\/a> last week over worries about large crowds, Coachella was postponed<\/a>, and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced Thursday that gatherings of more than 500 people would be restricted in the state, just ahead of Billie Eilish\u2019s concert at Madison Square Garden. (Rolling Stone <\/em>is keeping a running list of COVID-19-related event cancellations<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

In a recent earnings call with investors, Live Nation\u2019s president, Joe Berchtold, expressed confidence that COVID-19 would not disrupt the company\u2019s business. \u201cWhile we expect breakouts over next few months, one of our strengths is we are highly diversified geographically,\u201d he said. \u201cThus far we have seen no pullback and fan demand outside of specifically affected areas and overall attendance is weighted over latter half of this year, with 70 percent of attendance expected latter half of this year.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said the most flexible thing to do from a company perspective would be to reroute tours. \u201cMore challenging is when the festival gets cancelled on a Saturday afternoon, he said. \u201cEasiest economic challenge is to reroute and reschedule a show, no cost to us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some of Live Nation\u2019s biggest events in March include concerts by Billie Eilish, Third Eye Blind, Against Me! and Nick Cannon.<\/p>\n

Additional reporting by Ethan Millman<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

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Popular on Rolling Stone <\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

via:: Rolling Stone<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Live Nation and AEG, North America\u2019s largest concert promoters, are halting all tours in the U.S. and abroad until April and asking artists to come home amid coronavirus fears. The competitors aligned with the biggest booking agencies in the country to mount a unified effort to address the situation. In a joint statement, executives from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[98],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-805175","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-music-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-19 09:25:00","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSMT The Mountain","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=805175"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805175\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=805175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=805175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=805175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}