Despite many Covid restrictions having been removed over the past few months, disruption is still happening in many areas of life. And few are being affected more by this than the live events business. Of those events which are still going ahead, they risk turnout being up to 40% down on normal levels.

So it was no surprise to read yesterday, courtesy of Music Week, that some 25% of gigs in the UK have already been cancelled this year – and it’s only January 25th. One of those who’s decided to pull the plug is Mike Skinner from The Streets. He’s decided to do some DJing instead – a decision which has incurred the wrath of the permanently outraged.

Now, most musicians respond to such criticism by either ignoring it entirely, or retweeting a comment by another person on Twitter – thus ensuring the poor sap who got retweeted gets it in the neck from the baying mob. Skinner? Well, see for yourself and do read the whole thing…

seeing lots of angry comments asking why i’m djing after cancelling my tour. saying that i’m only about the money. that i wanted to cancel the tour so i could dj…

promoters have to get insurance for tours. part of that insurance involves 20 people testing negative twice a day

— Mike Skinner (@mikeskinnerltd) January 24, 2022

Let’s do the maths here. 20 people, 2 tests per day, 8 weeks. That’s 40 tests per day or 2,240 over 56 days. Now, this tour would mean travelling around large swathes of Britain at a time when Covid transmission rates remain high – the current 7-day average is about 92,000 new cases daily.

Which ultimately means the chance of one of those tests eventually coming back positive is quite high. It would have been nothing short of miraculous if the tour hadn’t been cancelled anyway…