Outside Lands may be the latest music festival to fall victim to the coronavirus. The San Francisco event is currently scheduled for August 7-9 though organizers are fearful that those dates will not be able to safely accommodate crowds amid a global pandemic. Organizers are now considering moving the festival to October or postponing it to 2021 as COVID-19 continues to threaten majority of live events in the coming months.
“The odds of it happening in August go down with each passing day,” Outside Lands organizer Greg Perloff revealed to Bloomberg News. “We have to have a situation where the public feels safe, we feel safe and the bands feel safe.”
An October postponement would line up with other California events moved to the fall, including Coachella, Stagecoach, and BottleRock Festival, among others. However, those festivals may end up being pushed further as California Governor Gavin Newsom ruled out mass gatherings occurring in the state through August. One health expert revealed that the ideal timeline for live events to return was fall 2021.
“The live concert industry might be in the most difficult position of any industry in America,” Perloff said of the industry’s unprecedented status. “You never hear people talk about it. They talk about airlines. They talk about the auto industry. But the reality is they’ll be back in business way before the concert industry is back.”
Organizers recently shared a statement saying that Outside Lands is committed to the health and safety of fans and the festival was working with local officials to ensure the event can run as safely as possible.
The 2020 lineup is yet to be formally announced, though fans caught a possible error on the festival’s website thought to be a leaked lineup featuring Lizzo, The Strokes, Tyler the Creator and Tame Impala.