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Radio City Music Hall
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2022-04-19
As Mask and Vaccine Mandates Fall, COVID Rates Soar Among Touring Musicians
This is a news story from Variety by Jem Aswad. The author here is talking about rising COVID cases among touring musicians. She says that while no official data exists, social media posts from band members and musicians postponing or canceling concerts due to someone testing positive has been the way to find this data. Some musicians are demanding their audience members wear a mask, as if one member of the group tests positive, it could mean more financial trouble in the future. “I am not a big band,” indie musician Sasami tweeted earlier this year. “If we get COVID and have to cancel shows I’m fully FUCKED. If you love me at all, please wear a mask and buy merch so we can keep touring.” The indie and mid-level touring acts are hit the hardest by COVID, as canceling a show could mean more financial hardship. Those artists will typically play smaller venues too, and for smaller audiences, meaning that every show does count when it comes to money earned. The costs associated with postponed shows are daunting. “If a person on the tour tests positive, you still have to pay for lodging and food, and for a bus or other vehicles if you’ve rented them — and there’s zero money coming in for those shows,” Long says. “And,” he adds, “if the show being canceled is a festival date” — which, like other “tentpole” dates on a tour, are often much more lucrative than club shows — “it can mean a tour that was profitable is suddenly unprofitable.” The impact that COVID has had on performers themselves sometimes goes unnoticed, especially for smaller acts. This article helps show the ways performing arts has changed due to COVID. -
2020-04-20
Streets and Avenues / New York City (VIII)
After college, and a year of vagabonding through Central and South America, I moved to the city forty-two years ago. I was drawn to New York, like many, by the energy and complexity of the city itself, and more specifically, the rich and endless theater found on its streets. While the array of cultural offerings has been a source of nourishment and pleasure, it is the streetlife that keeps me as excited as my first weeks here. What I love about New York is not what I know about the city, but how much I don't know. You cannot exhaust it as a subject, and from the start, I have made the city my primary interest and subject as a photographer. I always go out with a camera and am often mistaken as a tourist because of it. I take that as a compliment, given few can match the exalted state of excitement and awareness that a tourist experiences on a visit. When the Coronavirus hit and the staggered shutdown of the city went from a talked about possibility to a reality, I found myself inside my apartment looking out at the street below. At first, I made short trips to get necessities, then later added walks through Central Park, and now through the streets of Manhattan. If you think of a photograph as a piece of theater, with a stage set, lighting, cast, and choreography, the new version of the streetlife of New York is an eerie and fascinating show. The set and lighting is much the same, but the cast and choreography have wildly changed. Wandering through Midtown is like walking through an amusement park in the off-season. You experience the present colored by what you know it to be in season.