“This is a big disappointment for us”, The Monument overcoming recent concert cancellations

RAPID CITY, S.D. — The stage was set for The Monument’s first concert featuring Pitbull, slated for Saturday, October 16.

But as many things with the COVID-19 pandemic, it changed.

On Tuesday, Pitbull announced that it was rescheduling its performance to December 2 due to “Unforeseen Circumstances”.

“This is big disappointment for us,” said Craig Baltzer, the Executive Director of the Monument.

It follows two other cancellations this year, the Black Hills Powwow called off in September and Chris Young’s Famous Friends Tour, which was cancelled in Rapid City and other locations across the U.S.

Explanations for the pulled shows range from pandemic related to being vague, but based on the cancelled events nationwide, one concert elimination can have a ripple effect on others around the country.

“You’ve got a tour lined up and you had to postpone a date to another date that changes the tour,” Baltzer said. “That might affect another city that might affect another city or a state has a rule that you can’t put more than 100 people in a room together and so that changes their plans there and that affects other cities down the road.”

That ripple Baltzer says is part of a new challenge facing venue planners and the performers during the pandemic. He says ticket buyers are waiting closer to shows to purchase their seats and that the latest examples of it were events like the Louis C.K. Tour and other shows.

“Sometimes it’s logistics, sometimes it’s late sales,” Baltzer said. “Sometimes it’s you know, who knows what it is. That is causing these changes, but there’s obviously more changes than there used to be, and that’s something that we’re having to work through right now.”

The Monument is set to have its Ribbon Cutting Ceremony on Wednesday and the new first concert, King and Country, on November 11 followed by the Zach Brown Band on Sunday, November 21.