On February 12 I wrote a post called Pandemic Threat Could Seriously Hurt The Music Business. Well since then Italy has shut down sport events (and schools, museums etc) and from Japan we now hear that they are closing all primary and secondary schools until April (for now). Green Day and A-Ha have cancelled trips to Asia and in South Korea a very popular K-Pop group called BTS have cancelled some large shows. In Japan, a popular J-Pop group called Perfume performed at the Tokyo Dome on February 25 but decided to cancel the show on the following evening after the governments advice on the situation. A similar group called Exile has cancelled a major show in Osaka and the general situation will hit the music industry hard in Asia now. Upcoming tours and festivals are in danger of having to cancel and then there is the Olympics that is scheduled to kick off on July 24 in Tokyo. If the Olympics is cancelled in Japan this year it may well not happen at all. There really is no indication that this will be over anytime soon. Incidentally, Whitesnake has a Japanese Tour in March. It will be interesting to see if they decide to carry on (in this case they have already postponed it once, so it would be a tough call to cancel this trip as well). This is a tricky situation now.
I fear that this will escalate wildly in March and April and that bands and artists may be forced to cancel not only a few shows here and there, but entire tours. Decisions are being made all over the place and we will hear about this on a daily basis soon enough. Personally, I will not buy tickets for shows now and I would never consider flying long distance at this point (not that I am in a habit of doing so to begin with, but I am making a point).
As for Deep Purple, this is all happening as they are about to release a brand new album (see last post), so the timing could not be worse. Never in their 52 year history have they had to face this sort of obstacle and they are a touring band that is pretty much always out there. Save for short breaks they will be on the road somewhere, that is the business model.
Will labels start to postpone album releases so that artists can promote their new releases properly down the road? We will soon know if such decisions are going to come up as well. I think new product may be postponed in many cases. 2020 may be more suitable for live DVDs, documentaries and Compilations. If I worked at a label, I would want to discuss such matters now.
Perhaps live broadcasts through Netflix and other platforms, with minimal crowd participation, will be the next big thing? It would certainly be an option. I predict that we may see many solutions as this goes down. Artists could use their YouTube platforms to promote their music more aggressively (I think Sabaton are way ahead of the pack even now), and social media will be very important.
Babymetal then. You know I follow them on this blog. The European Tour has been a success and it ends with a show in Moscow on March 3. After that they will go home to Japan for the Knotfest Festival on March 20 and this is followed by shows in Bankok (March 22), Kuala Lumpur (March 27), Jakarta (March 29), Taipei (April 3) and Manila (May 16 – the big festival with Iron Maiden). After that they are supposed to return to Europe starting in Germany on June 5. As things stand, Knotfest may well be cancelled, or postponed. The Asian dates will be happening depending on the current situation. As for Europe, nobody can really tell what is going to be going down here this summer. Looks bleak to me. At least they have the “Live At The Forum” DVD/blu-ray coming up on May 13 (and I hope this will see world wide release). That could serve them well should dates have to be cancelled or postponed. The most important thing now is safety.
I had such high hopes for 2020, but it looks like we have to buckle down and ride this out now.
(My image of Babymetal, taken in Stockholm)
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