“You certainly started to get a few phone calls from man-
agers and different people asking what the worst-case sce-
nario could be and, I’ll be straight, at the time, I felt that it was
probably going to be fairly close to business as usual. Maybe
there would be pockets or places that were no-fly zones and
we wouldn’t be permitted to go to,” recalls one of Canada’s top
booking agents, Tom Kemp, who also co-owns The Feldman
Agency. Thinking back to those days in late-February, he adds,
“But nowhere in my wildest dreams could I have imagined
how quickly things would transpire.”
Helen Britton, artist man-
ager and president and CEO of
Six Shooter Inc., recalls being in
the U.K. throughout late-Feb-
ruary where one of her artists,
The Dead South, were touring.
“It really changed a lot while
we were over there,” she says.
The Dead South were due to
come home after their British
shows and then head back to
Europe, including a show in
Milan, Italy in May. Milan, of
SIX SHOOTER INC.’S
course, would become the epi-
HELEN BRITTON
centre of Europe’s first COVID-19
wave. “We were tracking it super carefully every day for The
Dead South and we felt fairly certain we’d have to cancel that
tour. But it was us, it was not necessarily the promoters and
agents thinking it at that point. We were having to push, like,
‘I don’t know, I’m not sure if we’re going to be able to come to
Europe.’ So, I think we were a little ahead of the music industry
curve on that just because we had to be.”
“Things really started to escalate once the Italian story
started to develop and the stock market started to wobble,”
recalls Chris Moncada, the senior vice president of eOne Music
and Last Gang Records. “As soon as the real dominoes started
to fall, like the travel bans and the sports league cancellations,
at that point you obviously knew it was on. It was a slow
trickle, but then once the other side of the hill came, it was
very steep.”
Documentaries will be made about the night of March
11, 2020. That evening, Tom Hanks revealed on Instagram that
he tested positive for COVID-19. Before the night was over,
the entire NBA season was on hold. Meanwhile, from the Oval
Office, Donald Trump was giving an error-filled speech on live
television that created panic at European airports and further
cratered an already-weak stock market.
The next day, Thursday, March 12 th , mega concert pro-
moters Live Nation and AEG both halted all global tours and
CARAS cancelled that weekend’s Juno Awards.
On March 13 th , Ontario’s chief medical officer called for
the suspension of all gatherings of more than 250. Within a
couple weeks, every province would shut down all non-essen-
tial businesses and ban public gatherings altogether.
“I sent a note to Allan Reid and the team at the Junos
on March 11 th saying, ‘I’m glad you guys are still going ahead.
I know it’s crazy, but you’re doing the right thing by moving
forward. Can’t wait to see you!’ recalls Erin Benjamin, the Pres-
ident & CEO of the Canadian Live Music Association. The next
morning, just before leaving to catch her flight to Saskatoon,
she got a call from a colleague telling her not to get on the
plane. “I did not go to the airport and it was at that moment
that I actually burst into tears, to be honest. I can’t really de-
scribe that feeling. I am sure we all had it, whether it was that
moment or another one where we realized, ‘Okay, this is really,
really not good.’”
“The live music industry was the
first hit, and will very likely be one
of the very last to recover.”
Few people or businesses have been spared the ramifica-
tions that come with the evaporation of live events. It’s the
backbone of the music industry. Really, it’s a weird thing to
see the government shutdown your livelihood for the greater
good – to agree that it needs to be done to save lives, while
simultaneously throwing your future into question.
Benjamin’s Canadian Live Music Association surveyed its
members twice in mid-March following the government-
ordered shutdowns. At first, 30 per cent said they doubted
they would still be in business in six months. In a second
survey done just days later, but after the WHO declared a
pandemic and all professional sports leagues were halted, that
grew to 71 per cent.
“To be honest, we haven’t asked them again because we
have so much more context and know it’s just bad for virtually
everyone,” Benjamin tells Canadian Musician in late-April. “We
know that the live music industry was the first hit and will
very likely be one of the very last to recover, especially large
gatherings.”
What aggravates the professional problems, as well as the
personal anxiety, is the open-ended nature of the timelines.
When the shutdowns began, many were thinking it would last
maybe two weeks to a month, then maybe two months. Now,
large concerts aren’t expected back for up to a year-and-a-half
or more. When medical bioethicist Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel pre-
dicted in the New York Times that large events like conferences,
concerts, and professional sports won’t return until fall 2021 at
the earliest, many couldn’t believe it — or didn’t want to.
“That was a week ago where we’re going, ‘That’s ridiculous!
The fall of 2021? Give me a break.’ And I said just this morning to
a colleague that within the last 48 hours we’ve gone from think-
ing that was a ridiculous joke to a total reality with L.A. and New
York making that very clear, and countries like Italy and more
making that decision right now,” laments Benjamin.
“Yeah, it’s frustrating. You’re doing your job with one hand
tied behind your back, at best,” says Kemp about booking
shows and planning for the future. “The only solace I can take
is that we’re all in the same situation. Every agency, every
agent, every promoter, every festival buyer — it’s a pretty lev-
eling situation. I will say that I was impressed with how quickly
people reacted to try to make good on a situation rather than
duck and run. And that is across the board.”
In the first weeks after the WHO declared the pandem-
ic, many event organizers opted for the mammoth task of
rescheduling large events instead of cancelling. Among
them, Toronto’s North by Northeast rescheduled from June to
August, and the Canadian Music Week conference and festival
CANADIAN MUSICIAN
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