As the pandemic continues despite the vaccine rollout, one announcement that came out was that of this year’s festival lineups.
The Life is Beautiful festival in Las Vegas has recently announced its lineup including Billie Eilish, Green Day, Tame Impala, and ASAP Rocky as some of their headliners. The festival goes from Sept. 17 to 19 with tickets already sold out and single day tickets to be released soon.
In a statement, under the Life is Beautiful Health and Safety page they state that there’s an inherent risk for COVID-19 and that in order to get a ticket, attendees should be aware that they need to follow federal, state and local guidelines. They’re also working with state and local officials for the festival to happen safely and would update their page on how they’ll create a safe environment for concert goers.
Local festival with dates lined up but no announced lineup is Napa’s BottleRock scheduled for Sept. third to fifth. The only suggestion of this is the early registration for tickets once they’re available and having announced that the festival would be returning for 2021 last December.
San Francisco’s Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival is also making a comeback this year and like other Health and Safety pages, they’re coordinating with officials to take place. Outside Lands will take place this year from Aug. 6 to 8.
Abe Lopez Ibarra, a junior said, “As much as we would love for these events to happen and for normal life to go back to normal, it is still way too soon for events with such high amounts of people to happen,” and, “I have a gut feeling that it’s not actually going to happen and like it’s going to be cancelled when the events are around the corner.”
Other large festivals that are making a return this year are EDC in Las Vegas however, there is no word on what safety precautions they will take to make this event happen. There’s even a waitlist despite it being a sold-out event.
Despite announcing a lineup in January, Miami’s Ultra Festival which attracts thousands of people from across the globe has been rescheduled for 2022. In a twitter statement in February, Ultra tweeted, “Given the status of the COVID-19 pandemic, in relation to mass gatherings and public health considerations we are deeply saddened to reschedule Ultra Music Festival…” Coachella, another popular music and arts festival in Indio was also rescheduled for 2022. However, they have not released a statement.
Junior Kiera Moran also says that “they’ll be pushed to next year” because “COVID is still a thing” and that “We should wait 6 more months before festivals like this, come to life.”
However, in an article for the New York Times Dr. Fauci said that if things are done right then concerts could be returning for fall 2021. CDC guidelines suggest to avoid poorly ventilated venues and opt for open air venues, getting the flu and coronavirus shots if possible, wear a mask and keep 6 ft apart.
