When will concerts return? A legendary N.J. promoter unpacks an industry in crisis

When The Grateful Dead visited in 1977, it was the most massive concert New Jersey had ever seen.

An estimated 125,000 fans descended on Raceway Park in Englishtown over Labor Day weekend for a celebration of peace, love and music, not so unlike its rock forefather Woodstock eight years earlier. Aerial shots portrayed a familiar ocean of shaggy heads and traffic was similarly snarled — many patrons abandoned their cars miles away, marching on foot toward the suburban drag strip with coolers and blankets in hand.

Town officials tried for weeks to nix the coming spectacle, but the Sept. 3 show went off without a hitch, according to Star-Ledger archives. There was no violence, no motorcycle gangs (as feared by local police).

The gargantuan gig remains an iconic performance in Deadhead lore and a crowning achievement for John Scher, the legendary New Jersey concert promoter who for nearly 50 years has worked to fortify New Jersey as a viable market for live music — not just a thoroughfare between New York and Philadelphia.

Scher owned and operated the venerable Capitol Theatre in Passaic through the ‘70s and ‘80s, bringing The Rolling Stones, The Who and dozens more A-list acts to the Garden State. And when the Brendan Byrne Arena opened in the Meadowlands in 1981, guess who produced the first six kickoff performances, all put on by longtime collaborator Bruce Springsteen?

Scher, a West Orange native, now runs New York-based Metropolitan Entertainment Consulting and still brings big names to the New Jersey Performing Arts Center and Prudential Center in Newark and State Theatre in New Brunswick, among other regional venues.

Or that’s what he used to do, anyway.

Like the rest of the music industry, Scher is currently sidelined by the coronavirus pandemic, which has forced all U.S. venues to close and has left thousands of artists, agents, promoters and record label workers in limbo, wondering how music will find its way out of this unprecedented disaster.

We caught up with Scher, an expert in all things live music, to discuss when he thinks concerts will come back, what they’ll look like and if we’ll ever return to a world where 125,000 music lovers can again gather and sing.

By the way, that Grateful Dead show is still the largest single New Jersey concert in state history, almost 43 years later.

First, the burning question: When do you think concerts will return? Is the industry still holding out hope for the fall or is everyone already looking to 2021?

“It's a moving target almost every day. A few months ago, the industry sort of unanimously thought ‘OK, this will all be over by the summer and we'll have a normal summer.’ But it got worse, not better. A few weeks ago, most agents, managers and bands had pretty much given up on most of the summer, started saying ‘maybe we can get some outdoor shows in August, September.’ Now in the last couple of days, some people still hold out hope for late fall, for November and December. But most people have thrown in the towel, meaning they don't really think shows will be back until 2021. I don't think there's any real reason to believe that there can be national tours until 2021 or until a vaccine is there.

Everything in the live music and record business is just falling apart. Thousands and thousands of people have been furloughed or or let go completely. It's going to have ramifications for years at the [talent] agency level, on the promoter level, and obviously the acts themselves.”

The biggest New Jersey music festival still on the books for 2020 is Asbury Park’s Sea Hear Now festival in September, with Pearl Jam headlining and tens of thousands of people expected. That seems unlikely now, yes?

“Yeah, pretty unlikely.”

Some industry folks have suggested smaller venues could reopen sooner with social distancing measures put in place. Possible or pipe dream?

“Maybe not forever, but for a long time, there's not going to be GA (standing room) shows. I don't know if we'll ever see them again. Shows will belong in theaters big and small. That could really help NJPAC, the State Theatre, Bergen PAC. With reserved seats, you can lay it out so that there is social distancing. But I think that will work better with the older demos. The whole industry is being forced to reevaluate itself. People are not going to forget about this tomorrow; it’s going to be in people's psyche for a very, very long time, probably for a generation. I'm afraid that a significant number of potential audience — audience for all kinds of music, entertainment and sports — might not go back, for at least for a year.They may just say, ‘I don't want to take the chance.’”

What does the average music fan misunderstand about how COVID-19 has affected the music industry?

“I don't think the average fan realizes that the vast majority of bands are working stiffs just like you and me. Even if they've had moderate success, they probably don't have the kind of savings that keep you in your lifestyle for more than a year or so. … They're working bands because they need to make money.

Also, this will likely wipe out 80 percent of independent promoters and small clubs that are left, especially in this Live Nation world. They can't get enough big shows in good times — even if there was no pandemic — to really maintain the kind of businesses that they had, say, 10 years ago. If we'd had this conversation six months ago, I would have told you that generally, in most major metropolitan areas, there's too many venues, too many clubs. This will, unfortunately, weed those out.”

You’ve worked with ticketing companies for nearly 50 years. What’s your view on Ticketmaster not offering immediate refunds for the thousands of concerts that have been postponed?

“It's shameful. I think it’s hurt Ticketmaster’s brand. Honestly, maybe this is sour grapes but I think it goes back to letting that merger with Live Nation go though [in 2010]. They merged the largest ticketing service in the world and the largest concert promoter in the world. The fact that politicians let that go through without understanding the consequences is shameful. They're now so big and so efficient. As a promoter, you have very little choice but to use them. And they make deals directly with the venues, so when you bring a show to that venue, you have no control over ticketing whatsoever. So there's no real competition.”

Do you think the U.S. will follow in Denmark’s footsteps and try out drive-in concerts as an alternative?

“On a certain level, I think it’s a brilliant idea. People will not have the same experience you’d have at a regular show with the comradeship you have with an audience, when you’re standing or sitting next to each other. But I think it’s a better experience than streaming concerts online. It gives you some sense of an audience, the band would actually be live. I think it’s worth an experiment.”

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Bobby Olivier may be reached at bolivier@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @BobbyOlivier and Facebook. Find NJ.com on Facebook.