Santa Clara Mayor Lisa Gillmor and the City Council firmly decided on a 10 p.m. curfew for Levi’s Stadium, and now the ripple effects are being revealed.
Singer Ed Sheeran has decided to pass on holding his concert at Levi’s Stadium and, according to his tour list, not stop by the Bay Area at all.
“The community is paying a severe price for Mayor Gillmor’s music ban,” said 49ers President Al Guido. “We had reached an agreement to host international star and Grammy-award winning artist Ed Sheeran. His show will no longer come to Levi’s Stadium because the Mayor played politics and refused to correct, or even address, the music ban. Four-thousand hard-working individuals have lost their right to work, residents have lost out on millions of dollars in revenue, and music lovers have been denied an opportunity to view a world-class concert.”
Past weekday concerts have brought around $600,000 for each event to the City. The loss is almost equivalent to Santa Clara’s new City Manager’s annual salary and benefits package. Additionally, any hotel or retail revenue corresponding to the concert is also lost.
Ed Sheeran’s concert promoter, AEG, represents many other artists. If the promoter was not willing to compromise Ed Sheeran’s concert quality, it is foreseeable that they will not compromise for their other artists either.
The weekday curfew was put in place so Santa Clara Northside residents could sleep soundly with work and school the next day. They have not budged on the curfew when asked for an extension for May’s U2 concert and October’s Coldplay concert.
U2 blew the curfew—angering residents and Council. They were slapped on the wrist with a minimal fine. Santa Clarans only need to wait less than a month to see if Coldplay will honor or ignore the curfew.
The curfew is still a hotly debated topic. The City Council intended to hold a community outreach meeting to get community thoughts on the curfew from Northside residents, but it was cancelled. As of press time, a new date has not been set.
During Tuesday’s Stadium Authority meeting, Jim Mercurio, Vice President of Stadium Operations at Levi’s Stadium, warned that being inflexible on the weekday curfew meant the stadium could lose out on hosting many weekday events.
