With the coronavirus pandemic wreaking havoc across the world, music festivals are announcing cancellations or postponing dates on a daily basis.
This puts economic strain on not only the performing artists, event organisers, and the teams involved, but also on anyone with flights, hotels, and festival tickets already booked and paid for months in advance, now struggling to get information in time to get their bookings refunded.
To help keep everyone informed, Slovenia-based music data company Viberate has put together a comprehensive list of cancellations and postponements at www.sickfestivals.com, updated daily.
The service monitors around 5,000 festivals worldwide and shows which ones are cancelled or postponed. The data is sourced from Viberate’s global database of artists, venues, events, and festivals. Currently, they have identified 236 cancelled and 250 postponed festivals.
‘It feels eerily dystopian’
The idea for Sick Festivals came when one of the startup’s founders, renowned techno DJ Umek, started getting an avalanche of show cancellations.
Umek said:
‘Just two weeks ago, I played on the Resistance stage at Ultra in Melbourne and Sydney, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. When I landed back home and turned my phone back on, most of my upcoming gigs had already disappeared from my calendar.
‘That was when I realised how serious this outbreak had become in a matter of days. It feels eerily dystopian. Now it’s up to us to do whatever we can to manage the damage.
‘At Viberate, we quickly put together a service that we hope will help people see what’s going on with the festival they had been planning to visit, and shed a light onto the industry professionals’ income loss, which is no laughing matter.’
Check the status of festivals at www.sickfestivals.com.
