The Year In Cancellations: Weather & Low Ticket Sales & Onstage Altercations, Oh My! 

Cancelled. It’s arguably the saddest word in the concert business.

Some cancellations in 2024 were unavoidable, such as tour dates called off because of ailments. Of note, Childish Gambino’s first headline tour in five years was cancelled in early October in the middle of the trek with the rapper/actor/comedian announcing he had to undergo surgery.

Cancellations due to weather included a severe rainstorm leading Miami’s Ultra Music Festival to cancel day one of the March event mid-show.

In early September, as many regions of California endured a persistent heat wave, the Hollywood Bowl was among thousands of customers who lost power in Los Angeles – forcing KCRW Festival to cancel less than an hour before showtime.

Later that month, Hurricane Helene brought about concert cancellations and wrecked venues across the Southeast including destroying Salvage Station, an indoor-outdoor concert complex in Asheville, North Carolina, that focused on the jam band scene.
With severe weather, being intensified by climate change, continuing to affect our daily lives at an increasing rate, those in the music business would be wise to expect the unexpected and be sure they have good insurance policies in place.

“Weather has always been a consideration for outdoor events and has always been part of the cancellation insurance product; perhaps more focus has been put on it in recent times due to the unpredictability of the weather, and loss of events due to weather. Losses have resulted in a change in the terms offered within the insurance product and, of course, the pricing, putting more focus on this element of the cover,” Charlie Connell, head of entertainment at Howden Group, told Pollstar earlier this year.

Along with the weather, sometimes ticket sales can be hard to predict. Four months before The Black Keys’ “International Players Tour” was set to start, the band announced it was canceling the arena trek with the promise of a more “intimate” routing.

On the flip side, the North American leg of Shakira’s “Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran World Tour,” which was supposed to visit arenas in fall 2024, was called off just a few weeks ahead of the scheduled launch because she upgraded the venues to stadiums in 2025.

And then there were the oddball cancellations, from Tenacious D canceling the rest of its tour after guitarist Kyle Gass made a joke about the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump to Jane’s Addiction halting its tour after singer Perry Farrell and his bandmates got in a physical altercation on stage at Boston’s Leader Bank Pavilion.

The live biz also endured a ton of festival cancellations across the globe including Desert Daze, scheduled for Oct. 10-13 in Lake Perris, California, with organizers blaming “rising production costs and the current volatile festival market.” In the last few weeks Bésame Mucho, set for Dec. 21 in Los Angeles, and Sick New World, scheduled for April 2025 in Las Vegas, were also called off. Some fans pointed fingers at the single-day events’ high ticket costs.

In August, the UK’s Association of Independent Festivals (AIF) announced that 60 of the country’s festivals have now announced a postponement, cancellation or complete closure in 2024.

Secret Garden Party in Cambridgeshire, England, announced that this year will be its last, burning its main stage at the end of its July weekend as a symbol of the challenges facing independent festivals.

Over in Australia, Splendour In The Grass made a shocking announcement in March that its July event, with exclusive performances from Kylie Minogue and Future, would not be happening.

Australian Festival Association managing director Mitch Wilson called the news “devastating” and commented, “In the 18-25-year demographic demand for tickets in this key age group has decreased when compared to the same age group prior to the pandemic.”

With Warped Tour’s return set for 2025, founder Kevin Lyman told Pollstar it was important to keep ticket prices low and to encourage young people to go to festivals: “I talk to students and they’re all really, really leery of where the ticket prices have gone. They’re going to less shows. It’s becoming not such a necessity to go to live music for them.”

He added, “I just really think that we need to pay attention to a segment of the population that just can’t take any more credit card debt. We have to come up with ways to get them hooked on music or it’s not going to be in their long-term DNA to go to concerts.”