When Will Live Music Return To Arizona?
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It’s been a tough year for music fans as COVID-19 has made live performances a distant memory. As vaccines arrive, longtime Arizona concert promoter Danny Zelisko is predicting we may not see live music return until Memorial Day, at best.
Zelisko had a year of shows booked out that he's had to delay over and over since the pandemic began.
“All we’ve been doing ever since March is we’re playing calendar hopscotch, where every show, as it comes up where it’s apparent that show isn’t going to get a chance to play, we move it to another spot," Zelisko said. "But we wait, you know, as long as we can, holding out hope.”
Part of the reason is the time it takes to plan schedules for the many employees who support touring musicians.
"There’s specific talented individuals that do things behind the scenes, on the road, for the artists, and you have to arrange all these people’s lives,” Zelisko said.
But a larger reason depends on public health and mass vaccination against the coronavirus. State and county health officials have estimated the COVID-19 vaccines should be available to the general public by late spring or early summer.
