The Cost of Canceling a Huge Concert: Up to $1 Million a Night
Madonna, Bruce Springsteen, Aerosmith, Lil Baby: High-profile music stars seem to be canceling concerts left and right. The string of cancellations and reschedulings comes at a busy time for the live-music industry, with tons of concerts and major artists jockeying for slots at arenas and stadiums.
Venues, meanwhile, are trying to make up for lost time during the pandemic by selling food, drinks and other concessions. When a huge star cancels a show—or an entire tour—it’s costly for everybody, from the artists who are paying for crews, to the venues who might have a night with empty seats to the nearby bars, restaurants and hotels that serve concertgoers.
But how much does it cost them exactly? Live-music executives say it’s difficult to generalize about the financial fallout from cancellations because artists, concert promoters and venues vary considerably both in the details of their deals and whether they have insurance or not. Here’s what happens when artists cancel: Most canceled shows get rescheduled—but finding new dates to stage a big concert can be hard and expensive.
Large venues like arenas and stadiums book shows many months or longer in advance and have to juggle music concerts with sports games. While rescheduling a show for a future date mitigates the financial impact, it doesn’t make up for the fact that a bustling venue packed most of the week had a night when nothing happened.
Perhaps the single most important factor is timing—is the artist canceling a day, a week or six months in advance? If the show is scrapped in the immediate run-up to show time, when production setup has commenced—or even worse, when roadies are literally setting up the stage—the consequences can be painful. Generally speaking, a
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