Live Nation CEO Believes U.S. Festivals Will Proceed By Mid Summer

Live Nation is confident that U.S. festivals will proceed by mid-summer after the U.K. says concerts can operate at 100% capacity by June.

Live Nation has already begun selling tickets to three U.K. outdoor events this week ahead of the summer festival season. The company’s CEO Michael Rapino believes U.S. festivals will soon follow suit and “can start in midsummer and in the southern U.S. we can go all the way into November.”

According to Variety, Rapino made predictions about the U.S festivals during a Thursday earnings call. The comments come amid the British government stating that large music events can reopen at 100 percent capacity beginning June 21st. This announcement by the government is what led to Live Nation reconvening its ticket sales. The entertainment company released around 170,000 tickets. One hundred thousand were for the Reading & Leeds festival, which takes place from August 27th to 29th, and 70,000 tickets were designated for the Creamfields festival, from August 26th to 29th. Once tickets began available, the Creamfields festival sold out in 48 hours.

When Rapino was asked when festivals and large events would reconvene in the U.S., he replied, “Every day we seem to have a new state or country talking about when they’ll open up, so we’re feeling more optimistic than we were a month ago.”

Though optimistic, Rapino mentioned that the U.S. had not outlined a clear timeline for concerts to occur as the U.K. has. He feels that the decisions to proceed with large events will fall on states and counties’ comfortability levels.

“[We] think we’re better off waiting for a high bar capacity moment in most of the states to ramp up and talk to the artists about getting paid properly,” he explained.