What can we expect in 2022?

We started the year 2020 with the rumor of a virus that was collapsing China. Yet despite living in a globalized world, it seemed too far geographically for the rest of the world to be affected. A year after that, I wrote in this blog that we could be about to see the light at the end of the tunnel, probably trying to be optimistic for the summer of 2021. And here we are, in January 2022 and still mired in a chaos of information, restrictions and especially uncertainty and concern about what may happen in the coming months just because it looks too much to a story we have lived before.

Last fall when the venues reopened and we were able to enjoy live music again, I thought that we were finally leaving behind the restrictions. Logically, national tours were scheduled first and the months of February and March 2022 were gonna mark the real return to cultural normality with the return of the international gigs. But all our illusions have now vanished after the irruption of a new variant of covid that has produced a hemorrhage of cancellations that go as far as the months of April and May causing international gigs to be rescheduled for next Autumn 2021 and Winter 2023 (at best). This is the third time this has happened.

So what can we expect in 2022? Well, at this point I doubt anyone knows. For this reason, I am beginning to think that we must assume that we are not going to return to normality until there is an official announcement about the end of the pandemic, thus returning normality to global border traffic and eliminating restrictions on capacity in all venues, regardless of the country. I simply don't see how anyone is going to schedule an international gig again without the certainty that the entire crew of an artist will be able to travel freely between countries, especially when it comes to artists who travel together with a big team.

Regarding this, and because I refuse not to be optimistic, let’s find some hope in last Sunday’s words by Hans Kluge (WHO regional director for Europe), who assured that "it's plausible that the region is moving towards a kind of pandemic endgame." In summary, the World Health Organization (WHO) considers that the omicron variant of the coronavirus, from which it estimates that 60% of Europeans can be infected before next March, has given way to a new phase of the pandemic in Europe and could hasten its end. “Once the omicron wave subsides, there will be a general immunity for a few weeks and a few months, either because of the vaccine or because people will be immune due to the infection, and also a decrease due to seasonality” (...) "a period of calm before perhaps the return of covid-19 towards the end of the year -with the return of cold and winter-, but not necessarily the return of the pandemic."

I just hope not to be writing a similar article in January 2023.

Cover photograph by Stephan Flad for Lollapalooza Berlin