Dust off the seat cushion and grab your picnic basket. The Hollywood Bowl is coming back – and sooner than you’d expect.
After COVID-19 forced the floor room to scrap the 2020 season – the first full cancellation in 98 years – the Los Angeles Philharmonic will expect the Bowl to reopen on May 15 with a free concert for health workers, first responders and other essential workers, including grocery store staff, guardians, and delivery managers.
“This is the moment we have been waiting for,” said LA Phil President Chad Smith. “The bowl is back.”
The 2021 season, which officially begins in July, consists of 14 weeks of concerts, possibly attended by full-capacity crowds, given the government’s plan to reopen businesses and venues by June 15.
“If we meet the state’s criteria for a full reopening, we’ll be able to hold concerts at 100% of our hearing, and that’s a game changer for us and other performing arts organizations,” Smith said.
Before the Bowl opens to the public, it is hosting four free concerts for essential workers in thanks for their service during the pandemic. Since the concerts will take place before June 15, it will likely be subject to the differentiated, color-coded capacity rules that California has been using since last summer. Attendance at the 17,500-seat will be limited to 4,000 to ensure the six-foot distance between guests’ pods.
The LA Phil said he is working with partners like Kaiser Permanente to identify frontline workers across the country who will receive an invitation to one of the first four shows.
The Bowl said it would release detailed programming and ticket information on May 11th. The organization is still working on the complicated reopening, but Smith said the LA Phil is planning 45 to 60 concerts. Talks are underway with Live Nation, which will plan its own concerts by local, national and international tour orchestras. On Thursday, Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli announced his appearance at the Bowl on October 24th.
Fans of fans, including fireworks from the Fourth of July, the Tchaikovsky Spectacular and the “Sing-A-Long Sound of Music” will definitely be in the series, the Bowl said.
“We’ve been through so much, and we’re going through so much,” Smith said, noting how the pandemic staged quiet in unprecedented ways. “We recognize the role we have played – and what we should play – in the healing process, art as balm.”
Like most art institutions in LA, Smith and his team were caught off guard this week by Governor Gavin Newsom’s unexpected reopening goal on June 15. The LA Phil was planning to announce a reopening of July this week, but revised its plans when the potential for full-capacity audiences broke open a world of options.
The Bowl hosted its last live show to the public in November 2019, and the iconic hatchback will have been largely dark for a staggering 18 months when the lights went up on a May 15 performance by LA artistic and music director Phil, Gustavo Dudamel and his orchestra. plays Beethoven and Marquez. The program will repeat May 22nd. LA producer and DJ Flying Lotus will team up with jazz fusion bassist and singer Thundercat for a free concert on June 12; the local cumbia orchestra La Santa Cecilia will be on stage for the last free concert to take place on 26 June.
With the arrival of full-capacity audiences comes the need for full-capacity staff, which is good news for the 226 seasonal employees fired in May last year. Smith said the organization would do its best to hire the same workers – parking attendants, guards, food service workers and more – many of whom have been with the Bowl for years.
LA Phil doesn’t just run the Bowl. but also the nearby Ford theaters, which will reopen in late July. Details of Ford’s 15-week season will be announced on May 25.
Gustavo Dudamel and a distant LA Phil recorded a performance in an empty Hollywood Bowl in August for his pandemic “Sound / Stage” series. The venue has been largely dark since November 2019.
(Natalie Suarez / LA Phil)
The historic closure of the Bowl, the Ford and Walt Disney Concert Hall led to a $ 105 million shortfall for the LA Phil, Smith said. He cites a number that is significantly higher than the $ 80 million loss the organization predicted a year ago. The LA Phil had to comprise 25% of its non-union and the entire Hollywood Bowl Orchestra. Full-time members of the LA Phil Orchestra’s salaries have been reduced to 70% of their regular weekly minimum scale.
Smith said he still has no idea how much the LA Phil will earn in ticket sales during a full summer at the Bowl and Ford. The summer season will begin a catch-up game, he said.
“No matter how wonderful this moment is – that we will come out of this and go back to what we are doing – we know as an institution it will take a while to recover,” Smith said, adding to the question of audiences eager to to see live performances again will be balanced by those who have an understandable hesitation.
“We need to set up a season that inspires people and gives them a reason to return to the venue,” Smith said. “And we must all keep it safe.”
The Department of Public Health of the LA Province has yet to sign the state reopening plan on June 15, which calls on the premises to follow the protocols set out by the State Department of Occupational Safety and Health, or Cal / OSHA. is. If a history is an indication, the security measures will develop regularly. For now, the rules for the four free shows are familiar to anyone watching live performances in the region.
Tickets are available to California residents only and are limited to two, four or six people per order, all from the same household. Paperless tickets will be encouraged, but for those who do not have access to digital devices, printed tickets can be obtained at the box office on the day of the performance.
Food and drink (alcohol included) must be ordered in advance and delivered in boxes, or, for audience members on bench seats, made available for delivery at designated places. Orders must be consumed on seats. Markets will be closed.
Guests can only bring their own snacks and drinks for consumption on the seat. The traditional picnic areas will be closed.
Access lines will be distanced, and guards will work to ensure social distance at the exit.
The four free shows have free parking. Shuttle schedules and additional safety protocols will be announced as soon as the province provides guidance.
If all goes well by June 15, the scene could look completely different – with the first full house in a very, very long time.