The Life is Beautiful (LiB) music festival in Las Vegas will be the first music festival held since the beginning of COVID-19, and tickets for it sold out in record time.
The festival, taking place Sept. 17-19 in downtown Las Vegas, features Billie Eilish, Green Day and Tame Impala as the headliners. Other performers include A$AP Rocky, Modest Mouse, Glass Animals, Noah Cyrus, Haim, LANY, Young Thug and Ludacris.
Tickets went on sale at 10 a.m. last Friday and everything, including general and VIP tickets, sold out in about an hour. Tickets for the three-day passes cost $330, VIP passes cost $685, VIP + passes cost $1,495 and an “All-In” package cost $2,995.
Officials said information on purchasing single-day tickets will be announced soon.
“After a year away, we’re not only excited to welcome our fans back to Downtown Las Vegas, but also our partner artists, chefs, speakers and creators of all forms,” David Oehm, the Life is Beautiful CEO, said. “We believe in the power and connection that comes with live experiences and we’re thrilled to reunite and celebrate a collective return to discovery, serendipity and [togetherness]!”
Many concerts and music festivals, including big names like CMA Fest, Coachella, Voodoo Fest and Glastonbury, decided to cancel events in 2021 due to the uncertainties about the pandemic. Some musicians and festival coordinators hope the vaccine will make it easier to meet in public, but most decided to cancel events to be on the safe side.
“We have always put the health, safety and security of our community first,” Lauren DelFrago, the festival director of Life is Beautiful, said in an official statement. “As we prepare to produce the 2021 festival, we feel a heightened sense of responsibility to our staff, partners, performers and attendees, and continue to work closely with local and state officials to ensure a safe return to live music.”
Musicians and performers scheduled for the festival lineup are both nervous and excited to get back on stage. A$AP Rocky, in an interview with Forbes, said he was excited to perform on stage again.
“That’s what helps towards the whole process of bringing music and releasing music, it’s all about the connection you get with the listeners. That’s what’s missing, that empty void of seeing them at a live show and them reciting back everything that they memorized. And for them to be there with you[,] it means a lot,” A$AP Rocky said. “It’s art formation that gets both parties through certain situations and times. I think that’s the connection. We’re having that digitally, virtually and over streams, but I can’t wait to do that physically [again] and see people in the flesh.”
Forbes’s Steve Baltin interviewed LiB officials Justin Weniger and Craig Asher Nyman to better understand why the team decided to promote live performances in the midst of a pandemic. When asked about the festival’s safety and social distancing protocols, Weniger admitted he was unsure of things to come.
“I don’t think anybody has a crystal ball to know exactly what the world will look like in September or what the conditions and protocols will be. But we’re just listening, everyday we’re working with local authorities, we’re working with everyone that has information to make sure we’re providing the best and safest festival experience possible,” Weniger said. “If there’s a world where we’ll need to do that [track vaccines] in September, if there’s a world where the world is completely back to normal in September, we’re gonna meet [in] the moment and provide the best [and] safest experience as we can at that time.”
Fans and performers alike are excited to gather for the first time in over a year to celebrate live music, but only time will tell if COVID will allow it to happen.
