When concerts and sporting events return, venues are planning for intensive safety protocols, increased costs and crowded calendars.

By Kristen Chuba

” While sports have been able to carry on in an altered capacity, live music has been almost entirely sidelined. Aside from the emotional disconnect of virtual performances, Zeidman says concerts — and, by extension, their venues — are at a disadvantage because of the way they are financed.

“Sports can survive, to a certain extent, in a ‘bubble environment’; because of all the broadcast money, they keep themselves afloat,” he says. “Concerts don’t have that luxury of having broadcast money or as big of sponsorship money as sports does,” which means the financial hurdles are greater. On top of that are the sheer logistics of scheduling a tour at a time when most artists have pushed their 2020 shows to summer 2021 and are competing for dates not only with one another but also against altered (and, in some cases, still unknown) playing schedules for the NBA, WNBA and NHL.”

Source: Billboard