Don’t Plan On Attending Concerts, Festivals Or Sports Events Just Yet
When the Comic-Con officials announced that its 2021 event would again be virtual, it sent a sure signal that organizers of events are still unsure about COVID-19 and crowds.
Even with the vaccine going into thousands of arms daily across the country. In fact, as of this writing San Diego has had twice as many people vaccinated as contracted the disease since its outbreak last March.
Even with the fact that Comic-Con doesn’t traditionally take place until the end of July. That is after President Biden announced that every American should have had a vaccine shot by the end of June.
Looking around at other events, promoters are taking the same cautious approach. Officials at Live Nation, the huge live entertainment prompting company, went on record the first of March stating that it hoped it would be able to put on concerts this summer. But with no guarantee that it would happen.
Coachella officials canceled their event (it usually takes place for two weeks in mid-April) and did not even postpone it until the fall.
Forget about any big events before the fall. Such as St. Patrick’s Day parades, wild infield scenes traditionally found at the Kentucky Derby and the Indy 500.
Heck, only one state – Texas – has announced it is opening bars and restaurants to full capacity. We’ll see how long that lasts, too; it will be done if there’s another outbreak.
Sports leagues are only cracking opening the gates; MLB will allow only around 5,000 fans into ballparks on Opening Day.
SEC college football teams, on the other hand, are ready to fill stadiums. Alabama, the defending National Champions, has stated it fully expects to fill Bryant-Denny Stadium with more than 100,000 fans this fall. It is important to note the word “expects” rather than “will,” so the school did not exactly make a full commitment to its statement.
So despite positive trends in the battle to beat back the coronavirus and the rapid application of vaccines in arms, event organizers and promoters are being cautious and it’s going to stay that way until they know COVID-19 is in the rear-view mirror.
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