Primavera Sound 2021

[xxialac]

It's still very much up in air but I'd say most likely scenario is a) festivals delayed to end of next Summer, next likely is b) spring/early summer festivals happen on time thanks to excellent on-demand testing regimes and some level of vaccination but with much changed lineups (no North American acts or acts that lose their nerve and pull their tour), followed by c) doomsday scenario of no festivals in 2021 and most festivals going into administration. Still very optimistic for first or second of these.

 

 

Edited October 21, 2020 by xxialac

[jannybruck]

I think we all need to remember that local governments will absolutely want these to happen too. Particularly for European cities that rely heavily on tourism like Barcelona, it's completely disastrous to have two consecutive summers without big ticket tourist events like Primavera. There's huge knock-on effects on hospitality, hotels, the local economy etc etc even from a weekend's worth of festivalgoers.

I think by spring, once the vaccine's started making its way around and things are going a bit more 'outdoors' again, we'll be seeing a big push to try and get these sorts of events going again using whatever tools available.

[Quadrophobia]

On 10/20/2020 at 7:59 PM, Andrej said:

If there is no summer 2021 festival season, I really doubt most of the festivals can survive. Have in mind that in that scenario, most of them made income summer 2019, and will be without income until summer 2022 !? Thats really really hard. The ones that do survive, I also dont think they will repeat line ups from 2020. That would be absurd, time hasnt stopped, new music gets released, so its OK to postpone from one year, 2020 to 2021, but then again to postpone everything identical to 2022 - dont think so. Most of them will want to start fresh, with new line ups. But this is all just pure speculating. 

 

Strongly disagree on the repetition part. The bands originally billed for 2020 and 2021 need to go through with their tours, because there is huge sums attached. That forces other acts (especially bigger ones) to postpone their yet unannounced tours, because too many touring bands mean too much competition for scarce resources and tours will not make profit. Music released during this time might cough up some new acts, but touring is the actual enginge of the music machine.

[Ohjesus]

means absolutely nothing in the context of PS I guess, but a tour by Aussies the chats I was going to this year has been postponed - to 2022!

[whos3000]

News from another timeline, since nobody asked: the new gorillaz is actually good and I am hoping for a last minute Phoebe Bridgers addition to the day the National are playing. ok, not happening but how could PS miss such a big indie breakthrough with her?

[Quadrophobia]

2 minutes ago, whos3000 said:

News from another timeline, since nobody asked: the new gorillaz is actually good and I am hoping for a last minute Phoebe Bridgers addition to the day the National are playing. ok, not happening but how could PS miss such a big indie breakthrough with her?

Shes simply not touring that time.
 

Also it is useless to speculate about additions for 2021. Right now, noone is making any new plans for tours. I can only stress this once more - all the insiders i have talked to see it as extremely unlikely 2021 festivals will go ahead. We will have to get accustomed to the thought that we'll have to wait til 2022 for PS

Edited October 23, 2020 by Quadrophobia

[dentalplan]

1 hour ago, Quadrophobia said:

Also it is useless to speculate about additions for 2021. Right now, noone is making any new plans for tours. I can only stress this once more - all the insiders i have talked to see it as extremely unlikely 2021 festivals will go ahead. We will have to get accustomed to the thought that we'll have to wait til 2022 for PS

Eh? Let people speculate if they want. It's not cancelled yet, and anyone sure that it isn't happening surely wouldn't waste their time in here.

[lighthouse]

New Gorillaz is excellent. I reckon they’ll bring out a ton of guests, given the amount of collaborators that are also playing PS.

[xxialac]

3 hours ago, Quadrophobia said:

Shes simply not touring that time.
 

Also it is useless to speculate about additions for 2021. Right now, noone is making any new plans for tours. I can only stress this once more - all the insiders i have talked to see it as extremely unlikely 2021 festivals will go ahead. We will have to get accustomed to the thought that we'll have to wait til 2022 for PS

What's the latest notice a mini European tour could be arranged for a Europe act, given the unusual set of circumstances? They want to eat, right? This is surely equally devastating for the acts too...

[Nesser]

Government just passed a curfew from 11pm to 6am until April

Edited October 25, 2020 by Nesser

[Nesser]

The President just said in a press conference the idea is to lift the state of alarm -and the curfew- on May 10th.

[xxialac]

1 hour ago, Nesser said:

Government just passed a curfew from 11pm to 6am until April

That's not right. It's a state of emergency until May but the curfew can be lifted beforehand. Or things made more severe e.g. confinements.

 

Edited October 25, 2020 by xxialac

[Nesser]

Curfew is mandatory since today until further notice. Of course can be lifted before, but given that is being introduced through the state of alarm and they want to extend it until May 9th the curfew can still apply until then.

[xxialac]

10 minutes ago, Nesser said:

Curfew is mandatory since today until further notice. Of course can be lifted before, but given that is being introduced through the state of alarm and they want to extend it until May 9th the curfew can still apply until then.

My point was it wasn't the curfew that was linked to May but the state of emergency.

The reason for long period is they don't want to have to renew the state of emergency all through winter.

The curfew almost certainly won't last for 6 months - as we know the virus is up and down.

[Andrej]

Around 2% chance for Prima in early June. Its either late August / early Sept, or 2022.

 

[JedTheHumanoid]

2 hours ago, xxialac said:

My point was it wasn't the curfew that was linked to May but the state of emergency.

The reason for long period is they don't want to have to renew the state of emergency all through winter.

The curfew almost certainly won't last for 6 months - as we know the virus is up and down.

exactly. Basically what he said is 'lockdown until we say otherwise'. if things will go better before that, it will be removed.

 

Having said that, sadly it looks more and more like this is also correct:

1 hour ago, Andrej said:

Around 2% chance for Prima in early June. Its either late August / early Sept, or 2022.

 

 

 

[burnleynotbarcelona]

2 hours ago, Andrej said:

Around 2% chance for Prima in early June. Its either late August / early Sept, or 2022.

 

Can only agree, sadly. Of course the curfew can be lifted but it might be considered entirely indicative of the view of European authorities in terms of timescale of a winter / early spring second wave that the SOE has been extended to May 2021. There’s literally no chance Primavera is happening immediately on the back of that. I’d hope there’s an announcement not too long into the new year.

[kingcrawler]

For a break from the COVID chat, Arcade Fire have been posting videos from their 2017 set on YouTube recently. Probably my favourite act that year

 

[xxialac]

On 10/25/2020 at 4:31 PM, burnleynotbarcelona said:

Can only agree, sadly. Of course the curfew can be lifted but it might be considered entirely indicative of the view of European authorities in terms of timescale of a winter / early spring second wave that the SOE has been extended to May 2021. There’s literally no chance Primavera is happening immediately on the back of that. I’d hope there’s an announcement not too long into the new year.

I don't think you can read so much into this.

If there's one thing the crisis has taught us, it's that the 'authorities' are terrible at predicting how it will pan out. They underestimated it before (previously they had to extend the SOE FOUR times and then they got complacent about the second wave) and they can overestimate it too.

Announcing May, for all we know could be a way of psychologically preparing citizens for the long haul. It doesn't mean the second wave is going to end in May.

If you looked at the last wave, that took about a month to dramatically recede. Just a month! Of course there may be a third wave but we don't know...

So I do still agree low chance of festivals in June but a change in weather, vaccines and above all improved testing means you cannot say 'literally no chance'.

 

Edited October 26, 2020 by xxialac

[Fabrizzo]

https://www.nme.com/news/music/glastonbury-lawyer-says-2021-festival-is-going-ahead-as-planned-2799543

[gigi21]

I don't want to give you any false expectation but yesterday the President of the laboratory in Rome who's working at the vaccine trial together with Oxford University and Astra Zeneca said that, if anything unexpected will happen, the trial will be ended before the end of November and the vaccine authorized during December.

Then he added he's expecting everyone to be vaccinated in June 2021.

Finally some hope words.

Edited October 27, 2020 by gigi21

[Gilgamesh69]

1 hour ago, gigi21 said:

I don't want to give you any false expectation but yesterday the President of the laboratory in Rome who's working at the vaccine trial together with Oxford University and Astra Zeneca said that, if anything unexpected will happen, the trial will be ended before the end of November and the vaccine authorized during December.

Then he added he's expecting everyone to be vaccinated in June 2021.

Finally some hope words.

Very nice, got an article for it?

[Nesser]

11 hours ago, xxialac said:

If you looked at the last wave, that took about a month to dramatically recede. Just a month! Of course there may be a third wave but we don't know...

 

"Just a month" with an absolute closure of every non-essential business and an mandatory lockdown on everybody, mind essential workers. But yes, just a month.

Re:Glastonbury - it's happening in June until they say it's not. And I'm not talking about Glasto especifically, but we've seen how this works during the whole year. Every promoter will pull the plug when they have to, even if they agree on that a few days before.

And regarding the vaccine, the Ministry of Health announced a few weeks ago 30 million doses will arrive to Spain in the first bach, meaning 15 million people will get the vaccine. According to 2018 statistics, there are about 13.6 million Spaniards above 55 years old, so that first batch will go almost entirely to them + health workers, as it should be. Therefore, I feel confident they will be vaccinated before June 2021 (let's pray way before that), but I highly doubt most of the festival attendees will.

Edited October 27, 2020 by Nesser

[xxialac]

Festival attendees don't need to be vaccinated I'd suggest, they need to be tested effectively, alongside some other protections (e.g. vaccination of the vulnerable) happening in the background.

I'd guess more likely to get to this point by August than June but wouldn't rule it out...

[Quadrophobia]

1 hour ago, xxialac said:

Festival attendees don't need to be vaccinated I'd suggest, they need to be tested effectively, alongside some other protections (e.g. vaccination of the vulnerable) happening in the background.

I'd guess more likely to get to this point by August than June but wouldn't rule it out...

An outbreak at a festival would be devastating, even if no risk groups were affected. With everything we are currently learning about long term conequences it is absolutely reckless to go forward with a festival where less than 2/3 of attendees have immunity.  
Even if the first vaccines will be available by January it will take all year to get sufficient vaccination out. There is unanimous agreement amongst all the poeple I have spoking to in booking and touring agencies that there will be no large Festivals in Europe in 2021. It is simply not possible to plan them under the current conditions. Many acts are already rescheduling their dates for the first half of 2021. The sector has seen tremendous losses and testing is not even an option because there is no money to pay for it. Vaccines will be covered by health insurance, but getting tested for a festival will neither be paid by insurances nor by muncipalities or governments. Naturally no festival will admit it will not happen at this time, and indeed many are working on solutions (because what else can they do?), but none seem plausible at this time.

The only thing that can work is that the numbers will be lowered by keeping up rigid measures all through Winter, so the vaccines can be rolled out when there are only very few cases. This would require rather harsh measures for approximately six months at least though so the spread (like we see one right now) is delayed til after summer, when we approach relevant vaccination quotas. I don't see compliance with such harsh measures anywhere in Europe though and even if the numbers were lowered significantly, a local outbreak in Barcelona in Spring could kill all plans.

Bottom line: the music industry cannot risk an all-in scenario and will not go through with the 2021 season.