Artists Postponing/Cancelling Concerts

I had the same thought, Dreamer. What do you do if you're 2 weeks into a 4-week Australian tour? Fortunately, the Eagles did not have to deal with those logistics during the sad times of losing Mrs. Frey and Mrs. Schmit this year.

The Rolling Stones are in litigation with their insurance company re: postponing their Australian tour when Mick Jagger's girlfriend died. The result being that the list of covered "family" members covered under Mick's policy became public during the case, and it is fascinating to see. Perhaps we can start a thread to discuss postponing/canceling shows (or do we have one?), I'm sorry to clutter this one.

Thanks for suggesting this thread, MC. This topic of postponing or cancelling concerts originally came up in another thread as a result of the death of Timothy mother. Fortunately, the Eagles weren't in the middle of touring so they didn't have to make the difficult decision about whether or not the show must go on.

Actually, that was not the case when Glenn's mom passed on September 9, 2013. The band was in the midst of touring and had a show the night she passed. There were additional shows scheduled at the time for the evenings of 9/11 and 9/14, and they went on as scheduled.

So that does bring up the question when is it appropriate for artists to cancel scheduled shows?

To me, in the case of the death of a loved one, I think it is a very personal decision and I don't feel we should judge them no matter what they decide. But, I also appreciate that it is and should be an extremely difficult decision to cancel shows that artists should not take lightly. There is so much is at stake and some fans travel many miles to see the show. Fortunately, artists today seem to be much more responsible about this than they were in the 70's when shows were cancelled simply because the artist either just didn't want to perform or was too trashed to perform.

I've only had this happen to me twice; when the Eagles postponed from 1994 to 1995 when Glenn had diverticulitis, and as has been mentioned, the Rolling Stones when L'Wren Scott died.

Recently a Fleetwood Mac tour here was cancelled when one of them (McVie, I think) had cancer surgery. It wasn't rescheduled or at least I don't remember that it was. I had seen them several years earlier so it didn't affect me.

It has to be said that I have an After Hours US tour T shirt that includes a couple of dates in California that didn't actually take place.

A lot of tours are cancelled down here, and the reason is often 'personal reasons' or 'scheduling conflict'. The cynic in me thinks that what is really meant is 'poor ticket sales'. We don't have the huge market here that exists in the US & Europe & if an artist isn't all that well known here it's a huge risk to tour. Most of the cancelled tours seem to involve rap artists or female singers. I cast no aspersions but am sinply stating what I've observed.

I think for a death in the family, as has been said, it's a very individual thing. Usually the first thing is honoring what the person who died would want. If whoever it is would want the show to go on, then it's only right to make an effort to do so. Second would be how the person in question best handles grief. I've worked with people who need to stay busy and prefer to work. To handle their grief in small amounts of time instead of letting it consume them totally. The flip side of that is that if you do decide to go on with the show, you need to make sure it's a good show. For me personally, I think there'd also be a difference between a sudden, tragic and unexpected death in the family as opposed to one that's expected.

One thing I've learned in life is that everyone deals with grief differently.

With Mick the death was unexpected.

However when they did get here they cancelled the show at Hanging Rock in rural Victoria because Mick had a sore throat. He issued a heartfelt apology on Facebook which didn't satisfy a lot of people who missed out twice. I could understand it to an extent because its harder for people in country areas to get to shows like this.

So here is the Rolling Stones document I referred to. It was published in the Salt Lake Tribune and other big newspaper websites when it became public as part of the litigation, so I guess I'm OK with putting it here, if anyone thinks we shouldn't put something this personal up, I'm happy to remove it. It provides an inside look at insurance for a big tour. The main thing I got from it was, I think it's so cute that Charlie Watts has four (4) people listed on his, and Mick has, like, 18!

http://www.scribd.com/doc/245774429/...surance-Policy

It looks like it includes parents (including step-parents), siblings, ex-wives (as long as they share a child with the guy), children, children's significant others, including exes who share a child with the child, and grandchildren.

The Eagles postponed/canceled shows when Timothy had some tummy trouble - need to go find the dates.