In the wake of COVID-19’s shutdown of the entertainment industry, everyone was left scrambling for an alternative. Drive in shows and bubble concerts have met mixed reviews, and while innovative advances to the virtual performance have been quite notable, nothing can ever replicate the unique exhilaration of an intimate in-person performance. Depending on who you ask, things appear to be on the rise, as more and more vaccines become available to the public. That leads us to ask: Is live music a viable possibility this year?
Each tier of the industry is going to have to operate on their own timelines in returning. It’s not hard to imagine acts leading the charge by following the NFL route, where certain stadiums are allowing ten to twenty percent capacity depending on their State mandate. In an interview with the New York Times, Dr. Anthony Fauci expressed a potential, “If everything goes right, this will occur some time in the fall of 2021...So that by the time we get to the early to mid-fall, you can have people feeling safe performing onstage as well as people in the audience”. When things return to a new normal, it’s hard not to imagine concerts and live music coming back bigger than ever.