Pendragon have announced the have cancelled all touring plans for 2022, faced with continued uncertainty due o the Covid pandemic. The move highlights the problems man y b ands face when trying to organise touring schedules that rely on everything fitting together, and where one or two cancellations can cause serious issues for bands.
In a statement, Nick Barrett told fans: "We are aware that many of you lovely folk are in a situation where the possibility of the virus is a serious life threat and we don’t want to play in a position where you either have to decide to not come or put yourselves at risk.
"Ticket sales for most shows are a fraction of what we would normally sell, we understand that for many reasons you are delaying the purchase of tickets and we completely understand that – we unfortunately do not have the luxury of the 'it’s too early to say' argument, our costs and planning need to start NOW.
"Some of you are probably thinking 'but everything is or will be fine in six months time' but no-one has a crystal ball so no-one can guarantee that. Our first show is in 10 weeks time and we’re supposed to start rehearsing next week. Your show might be in 6 months but our ‘work process’ for this starts next week.
"A tour is like a bridge, if part of it is missing the whole thing will fail. We cannot afford to undertake a tour which is full of holes, sitting in a service station for days due to potential cancelled shows where the tour bus is costing £1,500 per day and we’re not earning a single penny to pay for it. Doing a tour of this scale is basically financial Russian roulette.
"Having not being able to work for the best part of two years now, we find ourselves at a make or break crossroads, we didn’t get sufficient cover from the government. [our pre-covid accounts were so bad that any grants and furlough were extremely minimal – this is the way it’s been for many musicians and crews].
"So rather than go headlong into a horrendous financial abyss I feel it’s better for us to cancel/postpone all our shows until we are 100% sure we can do this in a better environment. I hope you understand our situation – it’s a nightmare."
