The coronavirus pandemic has completely changed our lives through lockdowns and social distancing measures, and is set to continue to do so for the foreseeable future as countries await the effective rollout of vaccines. As a result many of the highlights of the world's sporting, religious and cultural calendars have been cancelled or postponed, at huge cost to organisers and local economies. Click or scroll through to see the colossal price of cancelling some of 2020 mega-events across the globe. All dollar values in US dollars.
Each year the Isle of Man, between England and Ireland, hosts the Tourist Trophy motorcycle road races, known simply as TT, and while it is one of the biggest events of its kind in the world, it has also been dubbed “the world’s deadliest race” thanks to the high number of fatalities in its 112-year history – 270 to be exact, and not just riders, but also officials, spectators and bystanders. The spectacle typically draws 44,000 fans to this small island in the Irish Sea, and they provide an astronomical boost to its economy...
In 2018, the TT festival bolstered the island's economy by an impressive £26.8 million ($36m), according to a government survey, with visitors having spent a grand total of £37.1 million ($49.6m) over the course of the event. But this summer the races were called off, affecting more than 100,000 people, including fans, riders and local businesses. The last time the event was cancelled was also due to public health concerns following a severe outbreak of foot and mouth disease in the UK in 2001. The pandemic continues to cause turmoil for this self-governing British dependency, as the races planned for 2021 have also been cancelled, dealing yet another blow to the island's economy.
This year the world’s biggest live music event was due to host 41 countries for a night of flamboyant pop frivolity. The live contest set to take place in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, was cancelled, but it played host to a subdued, audience-free virtual event instead, and the Dutch plan to re-host the event in full swing next year. Holding the Eurovision Song Contest two years on the trot may sound exciting, but it's set to pack quite the financial punch...
Being crowned the winner of Eurovision isn’t a cheap honour as it means your country hosts the next year's event and shoulders a hefty chunk of the running costs. Tourism and ticket sales normally fill the hole burned into the host's pocket, but this year didn't run like most. Rotterdam 2020 was already set to cost a total of €26.5 million ($29.4m/£23.8m) pre-coronavirus. New figures suggest the municipality will have to fork out an additional €6.7 million ($7.4m/£6m) to host the postponed event again next year, because the insurance did not cover losses in the case of a pandemic. In hosting the Eurovision Song Contest, cities always see at least a short-term boost in tourism, but whether Rotterdam will see enough of a spike in 2021 to offset two years’ worth of costs remains to be seen.
St Patrick’s Day is celebrated all over the world, but those wanting to experience true Irish merrymaking often flock to Ireland. Green revellers sprawl out of pubs across the country and Guinness flows by the gallon – 13 million pints of the stuff were downed across the world on St Patrick’s Day alone in 2017, according to Fortune. Celebrating the patron saint of Ireland brings €73 million ($81.2m/£65.5m) into the country through tourist spending, with over €50 million ($55.6m/£45m) of that being spent in Dublin alone. However, this year's events were a more sober affair (in every sense of the word) as COVID-19 fears called for most parties to be cancelled.
And it's not only in Ireland that St Patrick’s Day plans were left in tatters. There are few cities in the world that don't have an Irish pub, and for barkeepers the holiday is very lucrative, typically bringing in a couple of weeks' or even months' worth of takings in a single day. With all festivities and parades having been called off this year, all of that money will have stayed in would-be visitors’ pockets, resulting in a sizeable income gap for those reliant on the patron saint-based spending.
Most of us are ready to move on from 2020, but ringing in 2021 is likely to be very different this year. New Year's Eve celebrations around the world are having to be toned down to prevent the spread of coronavirus. Edinburgh's Hogmanay street parade has been cancelled, with the city's council telling people the "best place" to celebrate would be at home. The event typically has a 75,000-strong crowd, and its cancellation means that the £39.2 million ($44m) boost to the local economy (based on 2017/18 figures) will be greatly missed by local businesses such as hotels, shops, pubs, bars, and restaurants.
Edinburgh is not the only city set to suffer on 31 December 2020. London has cancelled its annual firework display, and even though it will save £2.3 million ($3m) that the city typically spends on hosting the extravaganza, it will lose the capital's businesses at least £10 million ($13.4m). Similarly, New York's Time Square ball drop celebration that usually draws a crowd of a million people is going virtual this year, with very few in-person attendees. Las Vegas has also cancelled its usual fireworks. However, Auckland, New Zealand is pressing ahead with its celebrations due to very low COVID-19 levels in the country, while Sydney, Australia is also holding its annual event, but the typical 12-minute firework display is set to be much shorter. It's impossible to calculate the exact economic impact of cancelled New Year's Eve celebrations but it will be into the millions.
After months of intensive training, marathon runners saw their hopes dashed as races around the world were postponed. When it came around to 4 October, the postponed date for the London Marathon, only the elite class was able to run a bio-secure, closed-loop course of 19.6 laps around St James’s Park.
In drawing crowds to England’s capital, the London Marathon generates more than £100 million ($125m) for the UK economy, which has been lost because of the pandemic. More than 36,000 people ran the race virtually, but that would have been little consolation to those who depend on the large sums of money the event pumps into the local economy, and would have served as yet another blow to billionaire Richard Branson, who has sponsored the event through Virgin Money since 2010.
Fans were heartbroken to hear they'd be missing out on the likes of Taylor Swift and Sir Paul McCartney when the UK’s largest outdoor music festival was cancelled for 2020. Glastonbury brings in £50 million ($62m) a year in ticket sales alone, but when this year’s 50th anniversary event was called off, most festival-goers rolled tickets over to next year.
But while most tickets have not had to be refunded, financial risk expert Mark Halstead totted up the sales of on-site purchases, as well as spending in the local area of Somerset, and suggested that there would be a total loss of at least £100 million ($125m), according to Metro. Glastonbury Festival also prides itself on donating around £1 million ($1.24m) of its profits to local charities and good causes, and they will now see a dent in their funds this year as a result of the cancellation.
Although tennis is considered one of the safer sports to play during the pandemic, Wimbledon was quickly cancelled by organisers when the spread of coronavirus became a global problem. The world's best-known tennis tournament faces losses of £200 million ($249.4m) through refunding tickets, broadcasters and sponsors, which is a hefty sum given its annual turnover sits at around £255 million ($315m)…
Yet, unlike many organisations, Wimbledon had insurance that covers "acts of God", including pandemics. Paying out a rumoured seven-figure sum in insurance every year certainly paid off, as the club claimed around £100 million ($125m) in compensation, bringing down its losses significantly. The British Lawn Tennis Association still received its annual £40 million ($50m) payout from Wimbledon, and would-be players also profited, as Wimbledon split the $12.5 million (£9.6m) in prize money between the 620 athletes, based on their world rankings. Each player who would have competed in the main singles event received $31,000 (£23.8k), while the 224 players who would have made it to the qualifying rounds each received $15,600 (£12k).
Rock legends the Rolling Stones were due to play the latest leg of their No Filter tour in North America from May. Up til then, each individual US show had made a whopping $11.1 million (£8.9m) on average. The Stones were set to stage a further 15 shows in 2020, and its postponement will delay a likely $166.5 million (£134.2m) payday for the tour's organisers.
Much as that came as a blow, Mick Jagger’s net worth alone is rumoured to be around the $360 million (£290m) mark. The band has treated fans to some new releases to tide them over until they are back on the road, including a re-issuing of their 1973 album Goats Head Soup and a new, aptly-named song Living in a Ghost Town.
The period between 11 November and Shrove Tuesday is known as the fifth season in the central European country of Austria – ball season. More than 450 balls take place, and there is an event for every profession and theme, ranging from the Flower Ball and the Confectioners’ Ball to the Coffee Brewers’ Ball and the Ball of the Viennese Chimney Sweeps. Throughout the season, around 520,000 people take to the country’s grandest dance floors, with the largest and most famous event, the Vienna Opera Ball, hosting around 7,000 people, which is unimaginable in the current climate...
Like most countries, Austria has social distancing measures in place, so it’s unsurprising that ball season has been called off this year, at great financial loss to the country. In 2019 the festivities provided a €151 million ($178m/£137m) boost to the economy, with a huge number of businesses benefitting, from the bakers providing the traditional Sachertorte cakes to the local dance schools employed to show young debutantes the need-to-know steps and etiquette. One dance school took on 740 new students in preparation for last year’s ball season alone, which shows the magnitude of the impact cancellations will have on businesses.
Day of the Dead is a holiday in the Mexican calendar that celebrates life while honouring those who have died. Although the holiday has a rich history spanning thousands of years, Mexico City only held the first government-sponsored parade in celebration of the day in 2016. Local authorities were inspired by the opening scenes of the James Bond film Spectre, which depicted Day of the Dead celebrations sprawling across the streets of the capital, and saw an opportunity to bring extra money into the city. Props from the film were even donated for use in the festivities, and the parade was a huge success. But 2020 saw much less of a fanfare in November...
This year two million visitors were expected to travel to Mexico City to celebrate the Day of the Dead. Instead, virtual events replaced the vibrant skeleton-packed street celebrations. It won’t just be spectators that miss out, but also local vendors who have come to rely on the booming business brought in by the event. Mexicans typically spend around 900 pesos ($43/£33) on Day of the Dead decorations, such as locally-grown cempasúchiles (Mexican marigolds), which are used to make crowns, garnish homes and as offerings on the graves of loved ones. While these activities will still go ahead privately, the pandemic has dramatically impacted what had quickly bloomed into one of Mexico’s biggest tourist attractions, having brought in some $208 million (£160m) in tourist revenue in 2017, the most recent year for which there are figures.
South by Southwest, aka SXSW, is an annual festival in Austin, Texas that has drawn people from around the world to the American city every year since it first launched in 1987. Taking place every March, the event has several divisions including SXSW Conference, SXSW Music Festival, SXSW Film, and SXSW Comedy Festival, among others, with the purpose of supporting "creative people to develop their careers by bringing together people from around the globe to meet, learn and share ideas." But the pandemic caused organisers to cancel the event for the first time in over 30 years, at great cost.
Cancelling the festival meant hundreds of millions lost from both the wasted organisation of the 2020 event, as well as the long-term economic benefits SXSW has on the local population and businesses. In 2019 the SXSW festival generated $355.9 million (£280.4m) in local economic impact, according to research by Greyhill Advisors. That includes the $157.1 million (£124m) "positive impact" generated by the festival year-round, such as the employment of staff for the event's preparation.
Every four years the UEFA European Football Championship brings together teams from across Europe and is a highlight of the footballing calendar. Euro 2020 was due to be played in June and July, with fans from 213 different countries having applied for tickets, but football association UEFA was quick to postpone the event back in March as the coronavirus pandemic spread across the world. Pandemic permitting, the 51 matches will now take place in summer 2021.
UEFA acknowledged the huge economic cost of postponing the championship, but was quick to highlight that it would do everything it could to continue to fund grassroots, women’s football and the development of the game, despite the financial setback. The revenue lost through postponing the tournament was estimated at €300 million ($356m/£271m) by market and consumer data site Statista – a colossal sum, but only 75% of the loss that would have been made had the championship been cancelled altogether.
Semana Santa ('Holy Week') celebrations in Seville, Spain occupy the week before Easter Sunday and typically consist of gigantic statues of Jesus Christ moving through the streets in processions lasting up to 12 hours. Spaniards were forced to celebrate in isolation this year and, while it’s difficult to measure the emotional impact of calling off an event that has happened annually since the 16th century, the economic damage is all too palpable for locals…
Semana Santa would normally give the local economy a welcome €400 million ($444m/£359m) cash injection each year. However, this year those celebrations were limited to digital interpretations only, and locals and sightseers alike were deprived of the extravagant events that are such a poignant staple in the Catholic calendar in Spain. As COVID-19 looks set to continue its disruptive course at least into the beginning of next year, talks are already underway as to how Seville can restore at least some of the usual celebrations in 2021...
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To see in the Buddhist New Year, Thailand's streets play host to the world’s biggest water fight during its national holiday of Songkran. The official holiday is on 13 April but the holiday period extends for five days. Thai people usually celebrate with a water festival which typically draws a crowd of around 2.3 million locals and foreigners ready to celebrate with brimming super-soakers, buckets and hoses. In attracting throngs of visitors, the biggest event in Thailand’s national calendar normally brings in some 20 billion Thai baht, the equivalent of $631.4 million (£509.8m), but this year that was not the case.
As coronavirus cases increased by the day, Thai authorities postponed Songkran – it’s unlikely that the festival will be making a splash anytime soon as international flights remain severely limited. Last year tourism made up around 12% of GDP, and so with big events like the water festival being written-off Thailand's economy is set to take a big hit due to the lack of visitors in 2020.
Coachella, officially titled The Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, started in Indio, California in 1999, and has since become one of the world’s best-attended and most star-studded music festivals. Planned to take place over two weekends in April, Coachella inevitably met the same fate as 2020’s other big events and the 200,000 ticket-holders were told that they would need to wait until October before they could see the likes of Rage Against The Machine, Lana Del Ray and Frank Ocean.
There was further bad news in store for fans when the festival was called off altogether in June, and acts were asked to perform in October 2021 instead. The cancellation of America’s biggest festival will likely have hit organisers hard, with the event typically bringing in around $100 million (£77m) in sales for promoter Goldenvoice each year. Locals will also feel the pinch of calling off the festival, as it typically generates a $704 million (£540m) boost to the economy, including $403 million (£309m)-worth of spending in the greater Coachella Valley area and $106 million (£83m) spending in Indio alone.
Revered for being the world’s biggest and best beer festival, Bavaria’s Oktoberfest didn't go ahead as planned this September due to the coronavirus outbreak. Oktoberfest was first established as a royal wedding celebration in 1810, but has since escalated to the point where five to six million visitors descend on Munich each year for two weeks of Lederhosen- and Dirndl-clad partying – an impossible feat in terms of social distancing. Over 7.3 million litres of beer are typically drunk and 430,000 chickens served up to curb the appetites of drinkers. While partygoers were disappointed by the news, the local economy was hit hardest by the lack of tipsy tourists this year…
In 2019, Oktoberfest saw an impressive €1.23 billion ($1.39bn/£1.1bn) pumped into the local economy, with taxi drivers, hoteliers and shopkeepers run off their feet for the 16- to 18-day period. Staff who had been hoping to work at the festival also missed out. Spots to be a Wiesn waitress or waiter are competitive, and staff can expect to earn around €5,000 ($5.7k/£4.5k) for a fortnight of 12- to 16-hour shifts. Saddened regulars undoubtedly raised a glass or two to the cancelled event somewhere else this October, but organisers will really have to raise the roof next year to make up for 2020’s financial losses.
Unlike most of the events in this round-up, the blossom season in Tokyo goes ahead regardless of whether there are spectators or not. Traditionally a time to be with family and appreciate the beauty of nature, cherry blossom season – known locally as Hanami – draws in millions of visitors every year and is a real asset to the Japanese tourism sector. This year, as the trees grew pinker, COVID-19 was also starting to take hold, and many wanting to take in the sights changed their plans...
Experts estimate that visitors brought 650 billion yen ($6bn/£4.9bn) to areas blooming with blossom between March and May last year, but the pandemic pushed that down to 400 billion yen ($3.7bn/£3bn) in 2020. As Hanami is now over the parks have lost their rosy hue, but the economic impact of an unprosperous blossom season is likely to continue long after the last petals have hit the ground.
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Japan has really suffered this year when it comes to mega-events losing cash during the pandemic, as the nation was set to host the Olympic Games. Only held every four years, putting together this international sporting event is a mammoth task requiring a whole lot of cash. Suitable stadiums and accommodation often need to be built from scratch, and in the past countries have spent in excess of $45 billion (£36bn) to ensure that their host city was athlete- and spectator-ready for the summer edition of the Olympics. Tokyo had already spent around $150 million (£120m) on its failed bid to host the 2016 edition, and around half that for its successful 2020 bid, but it appears that luck is not on the city’s side this year either…
The price of putting Tokyo 2020 together was reportedly already double its official cost of $12.6 billion (£10.1bn) and postponing the games will add another $2.7 billion (£2.17bn) to that already gigantic bill, as specially-designed villages need to be maintained, staff must be paid, and many venues will need to be rebooked. Organisers have found one money-saving loophole – instead of re-branding, the event will still go ahead as Tokyo 2020, despite it happening a year later. The Japanese Government and International Olympic Committee have also rejected suggestions that the games could be cancelled altogether, insisting they will go ahead in 2021 and that specific safety precautions will be released before the end of the year.
It's unsurprising that China was the first country to shut down its mega-events following the outbreak in Wuhan, and this year’s Lunar New Year celebrations were much reduced due to restrictions on travel and gatherings. Ordinarily there would be a 40-day window of hustle and bustle as workers return to their hometowns and visitors come from near and far to take part in the celebrations. But as most of the country had to lockdown at home, the Year of the Rat was chimed in with much less fanfare than its predecessors...
The number of New Year-related trips dipped by 50% this year to 1.48 billion – a 20-year low. Considering all of the cash that would normally flow during the period, thinktank director and economist Ren Zeping predicted an income loss of over one trillion yuan, or $143 billion (£115bn) across all industries, when speaking to Nikkei Asian Review, making it the mostly costly cancellation in our round-up. The Chinese economy shrunk for the first time since 1992 in the first quarter of 2020, but things are already looking up for the global manufacturing powerhouse. Analysts are predicting that, while the rest of the world suffers the financial backlash of the pandemic, China is set to grow again, both economically and politically.
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While COVID-19 has put a stop to many of 2020's mega-events, 2021’s celebrations are now also under threat. For example, New Orleans has already cancelled its world-famous Mardi Gras parades, which were due to take place in February 2021. The elaborate “Fat Tuesday” or Shrove Tuesday celebrations usually spill out across the city’s streets over a two-week period, but officials have emphasised that while the religious holiday itself is by no means cancelled, festivities will look very different next year.
Cancelling the parades also has a huge financial impact. New Orleans generates an enormous $1 billion (£749m) from the annual merrymaking, which makes up 2% of the city’s GDP, according to a report by WalletHub. Attending the parades is free, but the slump in revenue will greatly affect ball and party organisers that charge for tickets to attend post-parade celebrations, local hotels, Mardi Gras mask and souvenir sellers.