After The Weeknd’s Canceled Los Angeles Show, Will A Rescheduled Performance Be Enough To Fix Fans’ Disappointment?

When hip-hop artist The Weeknd put a pause on a sold out September 4 Los Angeles show four songs into his set, fans were faced with mixed feelings of disappointment, surprise, and even hope for a future full length performance. Coming off two years of pandemic isolation, music fans around the world have been eager to get back into stadiums and arenas and attend—or in some cases catch up on—tour dates for their favorite artists, and it hasn’t occurred without some sizable bumps in the road.

From Adele to The Grammys, performing artists, acts, events and line-ups of all kinds have fallen prey to postponements and cancellations. The coronavirus, set building struggles, financial setbacks, laryngitis and general fatigue have all come up against artists’ effort to make up for lost musical time. But in the case of The Weeknd’s SoFi Stadium performance, concert goers were faced with a rarity—the show was put on pause just four songs into the set list. Usually, artists may pull out of a gig months, weeks, days, or even hours in advance, giving ticket buyers the opportunity to have their tickets honored at a later date, refunded, or rescheduled. Companies like Ticketmaster, which provide options for fans to add ticket insurance to their purchase order to avoid losing out on their seats, may and can honor or refund purchases. But when the show is already in progress, what’s the protocol?

Xavier Reyes had traveled from New Jersey to Los Angeles(LA) in order to attend the Sept. 4 show with his younger sister, who currently attends university in the state of California. Initially, he had considered traveling to LA simply to see his sister, Raquel. However, when he realized that the last leg of The Weeknd’s U.S. tour was culminating during the long holiday weekend, he made arrangements to see one of their favorite artists together. “The Labor Day weekend seemed like it was going to fit,” he told CCW Digital. “I saw that The Weeknd was going to be out there. We had already seen The Weeknd’s show twice—I saw it at MetLife and then I saw it in Boston at Gillette. Why not?” Reyes is no stranger to The Weeknd or to the difficulty many concert goers have found in navigating show cancellations. “I had some credit for a concert,” he explained. “Justin Bieber–it got postponed but then TicketMaster eventually started offering credits.” 

In the past two years the entertainment industry has seen more customers rely on refund and rescheduling protocols to see them through their concert or festival going experience than ever before. According to NBC, 30,000 shows were canceled, postponed or rescheduled in 2020 alone. Eighty percent of them were deemed refundable via TicketMaster and 90% of fans who were offered the option of a refund opted to hold onto their tickets for a rescheduled date. In some cases, Some TicketMaster users had reported losing as much as $3,000 on concert tickets that had yet to be refunded or rescheduled due to COVID cancellations and concerns. And it hasn’t been just money fans are losing out on–similarly to Reyes’ experience, they’re losing out on things like trips, travel, and other events that traveling for shows might also entail. 

These days, a show isn’t just a one-and-done event–it comes with a certain pomp and circumstance. Whether it’s an impromptu road trip, booking a hotel room nearby the venue, a pre-show dinner reservation, themed outfits, DIY photoshoots, meet and greets, or afterparties, the music celebration comes with bells and whistles that extend well past the 2-3 hour on stage performance. Some fans opt to gift their loved ones concert tickets for a once in a lifetime special occasion, and others might even coordinate international travel surrounding performances. And when it comes to Labor Day Weekend, there is a very specific pressure and expectation that everyone with three days off will be doing what they can to hold onto the last nights of summer. With rescheduling opportunities uncertain, Reyes is one fan who opted to utilize his ticket credits during the long weekend, as a new Justin Bieber tour date had yet to be announced. As a result he and his sister were able to secure floor seats to the last leg of The Weeknd’s After Hours Til Dawn Tour. 

While their tickets were comped, there were still many other expenses to consider: Reyes estimates he spent close to $2,000 in total for the three day weekend, including a rental car, hotel stay, food, and other activities with his sibling. Although his mother works for a major airline and he was able to get a portion of his accommodations paid for via frequent flier points, Reyes notes that it was still an expensive experience overall. “We saw the first show at MetLife and we were blown away by the performance and the visuals,” he told CCW Digital. “He sounds almost just like his recordings.” A hefty price for a few days, it appeared to be a worthy long weekend investment for the performance value Reyes had grown accustomed to seeing. Money aside, music itself is an experience. It has the ability to move, unite and elicit emotions in ways no other artform or form of entertainment can master. For a few brief hours concert attendees experience union with thousands of other strangers; it’s an opportunity to bond through a singular commonality they all have. Music is an act of memory making, of community building, of friendship building, and sometimes of even finding love. At times, the songs we’ve listened to via recording take on a new life or meaning With the right performance, fans are offered all this, and more. But in terms of the Los Angeles show, it was a stark difference in experience and quality that immediately alerted Reyes to the fact that something was off onstage. 

“The first song started playing, and me and Raquel are rather familiar with the show because we’d seen it twice already,” he explained. “He did his opening piece of ‘Alone Again.’ And then after he did the opening part where he says the location that he’s at and ‘I feel so at home,’ we heard his voice kind of crack. And then from there he wasn’t singing. It was his autotune playing, but the rest of the crowd didn’t really notice.” Promptly following the first song, The Weeknd walked offstage, another sign that things weren’t right. As per previous tour dates, he was expected to next appear on a platform onstage and continue singing. “And then he eventually showed up again during the third song with autotune,” Reyes noted. By the time the fourth song in his setlist, ‘I Can’t Feel My Face,’ came around, “nothing was playing because that was supposed to be just his vocals.” At that point, the singer let the crowd know that he had just lost his voice during the first song.

“I don’t know what just happened but I think I just lost my voice,” he told fans. “This is killing me, I don’t want to stop the show but I can’t give you the concert I want to give you right now… I’m gonna make sure everybody’s good. You’ll get your money back.” He was saying that he lost his voice and he couldn’t give us the show that he wanted to give us, and that he loves us and that he was heartbroken about the show, and then he left,” added Reyes. The announcement left everyone in his section of the arena stunned. “He had taken a long time to come out, and we thought that he was just trying to build up anticipation for this last show,” Reyes explained. “We thought he was just joking.” 

But when the venue lights came back on, queuing fans to exit, concertgoers were distraught. Some even chose to remain seated in an act of denial and defiance. After two years of confusion surrounding canceled shows and refunds, they asked each other if they’d ever get to see a full show–or their money back like The Weeknd had promised them. In a statement on social media, the artist reaffirmed his promise, stating, “My voice went out during the first song and I’m devastated. Felt it go and my heart dropped. My deepest apologies to my fans here. I promise I’ll make it up to you with a new date.” But in this case The Weeknd only wraps up the U.S. leg of a tour once, and even a re-do of sorts won’t be able to duplicate the end of summer excitement and anticipation that Reyes believed was part of the musician’s delayed response onstage. 

While The Weeknd and subsequently the team at TicketMaster may be working in tandem to make amends when it comes to ticket sales and refunds, both parties have little to no control over all the other things fans might have done in order to be present at SoFi Arena that night. This week, the singer announced he will be playing a make-good show on Saturday, November 26, with an additional show added to the schedule on Sunday, November 27. Although the Sept. 4 show marks the second time that Reyes personally was faced with the choice of waiting for a rescheduled date or booking new tickets, he says this experience won’t  deter him from paying–and traveling for–The Weeknd tickets in the future. “I think that's super admirable considering that he wanted to give them the best show possible,” he told CCW Digital. He will be there this November, but the same can’t be said for other concertgoers. Even if they did opt to get their money back, or even a rescheduled tour date, little can be done to replicate the feeling of excitement that comes with the proper end of a sold out U.S. tour. The next time The Weeknd arrives in Los Angeles will be during what will be for many a long Thanksgiving weekend–a notoriously busy, expensive and difficult time for travel. And while another holiday with a day off might be right around the corner come November, that time spent will never truly fit into the After Hours Til Dawn Tour. There may be a return to the stage, but there won’t ever be a return to that end-of-summer moment.

Photo by 3TAN on Unsplash.