{"id":124630,"date":"2025-09-06T16:30:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-06T16:30:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/124630\/"},"modified":"2025-09-06T16:30:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-06T16:30:08","slug":"how-climate-change-is-threatening-summer-tours-and-festivals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/124630\/","title":{"rendered":"How Climate Change Is Threatening Summer Tours and Festivals"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tIn late July, Willie Nelson<\/a> was onstage during his set on the Outlaw Music Festival tour in Raleigh, North Carolina, when tour manager John Selman noticed an abrupt shift in the weather<\/a>. During his 20-plus years working with Nelson, Selman has dealt with the elements, but nothing like what he was seeing suddenly descend upon them. \u201cThis one was too big and too strong and there was heavy lightning,\u201d Selman says. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t good.\u201d Waiting until Nelson had finished a song, Selman whisked him and his band offstage and into a bus \u2014 just as intense rain and lightning erupted all around them. \u201cAfterwards, Willie thanked me,\u201d Selman says. \u201cHe said, \u2018Good call.’\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAs Rolling Stone has reported<\/a>, the impact of climate change<\/a> on festivals and outdoor live music has been building over time. In the last few years, Beyonc\u00e9, Pink, and Noah Kahan, among others, have had concerts canceled or delayed by extreme lightning, rain, or wildfire smoke. The summer 2025 concert season wasn\u2019t necessarily worse than other recent years, but more ferocious and erratic weather patterns continued to wreak havoc on the live music world.<\/p>\n

\n\tDuring their summer tour, folk-rock band the Head and the Heart<\/a> had to endure two extreme-weather situations. A show in Nashville was shut down due to approaching lightning, and another, an outdoor gig in Asbury Park, New Jersey, was canceled when the state issued a state of emergency over extreme storms. \u201cIt\u2019s definitely been an anomaly for us,\u201d says drummer Tyler Williams. \u201cI don\u2019t think we\u2019ve ever canceled a show due to weather, and we\u2019ve been touring heavily for 15 years. We\u2019ve experienced a few humid, extreme summers, but this felt different.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tNot surprisingly given the season, festivals were especially slammed on weather-related fronts. Most conspicuously, this year\u2019s Bonnaroo<\/a> Music & Arts Festival was canceled<\/a> after its first day due to what organizers called \u201csignificant and steady precipitation.\u201d Bonnaroo organizers declined comment to Rolling Stone for this story, but Tim \u201cTuba\u201d Smith of C3 Presents, which produces the festival, told The<\/a> Tennessean<\/a> this week, \u201cThe weather has been consistently worse than what the forecasts were. Safety is always the first concern here. It takes a lot to get 30,000 cars out of the property, and so we made that difficult decision \u2026 we did the best that we could.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\tBonnaroo 2025 was canceled after just one day due to extreme weather.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tDouglas Mason\/WireImage<\/p>\n

\n\tBeyond the Raleigh show in July, this year\u2019s Outlaw Music Festival faced other challenges<\/a>. Co-headliner Bob Dylan\u2019s set at the Gorge in Washington state had to end prematurely due to inordinately heavy winds. A show in Ridgedale, Missouri, was canceled roughly halfway through, thanks to another weather-pattern change. \u201cIt got extremely hot, the humidity was thick, and all of a sudden it got really cold and windy,\u201d says Selman. \u201cWhen that all collided, it caused chaos. We had a tent onstage to cover the gear, and it flew off like a parachute. We had to make that decision [to cancel] in 10 minutes.\u201d Nelson\u2019s famed guitar, Trigger, was on his bus and unharmed, but other gear and equipment were so soaked or damaged that the next stop on the tour, in Oklahoma, had to be nixed as well.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn Los Angeles, the annual Outloud festival<\/a>, held in tandem with Pride Month in early June, was faced with inordinately high temperatures for that time of year. \u201cIn the two weeks leading up to the show, it looked like it was going to be hotter than usual,\u201d Outloud founder Jeff Consoletti says. \u201cWe were seeing temperatures we hadn\u2019t seen in L.A., in the high 80s.\u201d After meeting with city officials, the festival added more water stations and shaded areas. Even then, adds Consoletti, \u201cWe didn\u2019t see any life-threatening situations, but we saw an increase in the number of attendees who were dehydrated and had mild heat stroke.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tInclement weather has long been the bane of festivals and outdoor tours, and differentiating between climate change and a stretch of bad storms can be tricky. But those in the live music world still feel the change is noticeable. \u201cExtreme heat is the problem now,\u201d says Stephen Parker of the National Independent Venue Association (NIVA<\/a>). \u201cWe need to make sure venues have more cooling stations and in-and-out privileges for festivalgoers who can escape the heat in their car or in neighboring businesses. It\u2019s a constant consideration now.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n\tAn increase in lightning is also in the air. In July, a severe lightning storm headed toward the Great South Bay Music Festival on Long Island kept at least 1,500 customers away during its reggae night, featuring Stephen and Damian Marley. The storm wound up changing course, but according to founder Jim Faith, who has faced flooding at his festival in the past, \u201cAnyone thinking of coming or on their way was changing their mind and not coming. The rain is bad enough. That\u2019s what we used to worry about. But more lightning is the new thing. That\u2019s a different animal.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOther artists have cited similar factors in their decision-making this year. Steve Miller canceled <\/a>his band\u2019s summer shows <\/a>thanks to what he called \u201cthe combination of extreme heat, unpredictable flooding, tornadoes, hurricanes and massive forest fires\u201d that \u201cmakes these risks for you our audience, the band and the crew unacceptable.\u201d \u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tSpeculation was rampant that supposedly low ticket sales were another reason for the nixed tour. Miller declined to comment, but in a social media post, Miller\u2019s bassist, Kenny Lee Lewis, rebutted those rumors, doubling down on the weather explanation: \u201cYou didn\u2019t see Steve Miller hanging over a railing after our first outdoor stadium show opening in the sun for Journey and Def Leopard in Atlanta trying to fend off heat exhaustion. \u2026 Next couple outdoor shows the crew had to arrange the stage air coolers with flexible ducts on him as he also wore frozen gel packs on his neck and shoulders. He looked like the Michelin Man! And he still almost passed out.\u201d (A source in the concert business supports Miller\u2019s claim about climate change.)<\/p>\n

\n\tEchoing Miller\u2019s methods of lowering onstage temperatures, Nelson, since 2021, has been carting around a portable air-conditioning unit (dubbed \u201cChilly Nelson\u201d by his crew) to blow cool air onto the stage. The Head and the Heart<\/a>\u2019s touring gear includes a cold-plunge tub for the band to cool off backstage. \u201cWe use it just to feel better after shows,\u201d Williams says. \u201cBut it\u2019s become more of a necessity.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\tWeather concerns have been building in the live music business for years. These concertgoers tried to stay dry at a 2024 Black Eyed Peas show in Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tLisa Lake\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

\n\tAs Guster has learned, the newly unpredictable climate can also impact musicians\u2019 wallets. According to singer-guitarist Adam Gardner, insurance for events has gone up so much, thanks to the new risk factor of climate change, that bands like his are literally paying the price. \u201cHouse expenses have gone up because the insurance went up, and they\u2019re passing some of that along to the artists,\u201d says Gardner, who also runs Reverb, a nonprofit aiming to create a \u201csustainable music industry.\u201d \u201cAll of a sudden, our potential net income is thousands of dollars less, because of the risk of putting on a show outside.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n\tHow climate change will impact festivals and outdoor tours remains as unpredictable as some of the storms that suddenly descend upon them. Some foresee indie festivals not surviving at all or, in the future, moving from summer to fall, or switching to inside venues. \u201cMoving indoors into pre-existing infrastructures is probably the biggest change we\u2019re seeing in festivals,\u201d says NIVA\u2019s Parker. \u201cIt not only cuts down on the risk of extreme weather, but you don\u2019t have to set up a stage. That\u2019s a more realistic logistical future for festivals, and it also minimizes the impact of climate change.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tConsoletti feels it would be \u201ca bummer\u201d to move his Outloud gathering into an indoor structure: \u201cThere\u2019s something really special about people gathering and enjoying an artistic moment outdoors.\u201d But as the live music business is learning, nothing is off the table anymore. \u201cI think of us as an outdoor band,\u201d says the Head and the Heart\u2019s Williams. \u201cOur music goes well with nature. Playing those sheds and storied amphitheaters is really fun. A lot of our fans don\u2019t like to go to arenas, so we may have to train our fans to go there. People like to be outside.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In late July, Willie Nelson was onstage during his set on the Outlaw Music Festival tour in Raleigh,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":124631,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[68825,49,48,6093,295,68826,66,68827,68828,1133,62748],"class_list":{"0":"post-124630","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-bonnaroo","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-climate-change","12":"tag-environment","13":"tag-niva","14":"tag-science","15":"tag-steve-miller-band","16":"tag-the-head-and-the-heart","17":"tag-weather","18":"tag-willie-nelson"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124630","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124630"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124630\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/124631"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}