Events across the USA in 2021: Leading Demand Indicators Report for April 19, 2021
Event scheduling has increased 77% in the last week as vaccination uptake continues to surge across the USA, states lift restrictions and consumer confidence grows.
The return of events is good news for businesses that benefit from the demand driven by sports, concerts, expos and more, but it also adds another element of volatility to demand planning. This year presents an unprecedented challenge to demand forecasting, so tracking events and understanding the impact they have provide some much-needed certainty in a chaotic year.
Hence why PredictHQ is publishing this weekly Leading Demand Indicators Report (sign up to receive it in your inbox), to provide a lay-of-the-land overview for the businesses and governments as well as reporters and economists seeking to focus on recovery signals, rather than noise.
So let’s get into the new events that were scheduled this week – because there were a lot.
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Running and dancing into the post-pandemic future: Sports and concerts surging across the USA
The event categories that saw the most newly scheduled events this week were concerts and sports games. This correlates with some research PredictHQ conducted about what Americans were looking forward to and planning once vaccinated, which found returning to concerts and sports to be some of the most longed-for events.
The research found 78% of US consumers say their lifestyle would change once they receive the COVID-19 vaccine, with 75% planning a trip or attending major events within the next six months. With all this pent-up demand being released, let’s take a closer look at how sports and concerts are returning.
As of Sunday 18 April, there are 34,575 concerts scheduled across the USA for the rest of 2021. This is only a fraction of the concerts that took place in 2019 and pre-pandemic years, so 2021’s concert scheduling will continue and increase. (Please note this does not include music festivals, which we track in our festivals category.)
Some of the more notable concerts scheduled recently include:
H-Town Memorial Day Mayhem in Houston on May 29 with 11,000 people expected.
MiamiBash in Miami on May 8 with 9,800 people expected.
Aaron Lewis in Camdenton on May 22 with 7,000 people expected.
Def Leppard, Mötley Crüe, Poison and Joan Jett & the Blackhearts Stadium Tour in North Carolina on June 24 with 45,000 people expected.
Justin Bieber in Tacoma on June 11 with 13,800 people expected.
Sports games of all types and sizes are also returning swiftly, with some such as Major League Baseball so proactive to allow fans back into stadiums they drew commentary from President Biden. But as vaccinations continue to increase, the aggressive return of sports of all kinds is set to continue.
New sports games across the USA scheduled or confirmed this week:
Notable sports games coming up in May:
New York Knicks vs Houston Rockets in Houston on May 2 with 4,500 people expected
NBA - Miami Heat vs Dallas Mavericks in Dallas on May 4 with 4,100 people expected
Canelo Alvarez vs Billy Joe Saunders in Arlington on May 8 with 80,000 people expected
PGA Championship in Kiawah Island on May 17 - 23 with 70,000 people expected
105th Running of The Indianapolis 500 on May 30 in Indianapolis with 170,000 people expected. Please note: This may increase to 250,000 based on restrictions lifting to allow full capacity, and will be updated in the PredictHQ API as soon as this is announced.
Las Vegas is still America’s busiest city for new events with an ongoing performing arts events boom
Las Vegas continues to see a surge in performing arts events as more of its venue re-open (see the previous week’s report for more details), but this week's boom in sports events propelled Columbus, Rome, Buffalo and Jacksonville into the top ten. This is mostly due to the return of Minor League Baseball, as details of the May games confirmed.
One of the key, trackable demand drivers during the pandemic was televised sports games, and this will continue. Restaurant chains that pivoted their staff and inventory towards online, take-away and delivery will need to keep track of the impact from both sports games returning in stadiums with thousands of fans nearby their stores as well as televised games to ensure they aren’t left without enough staff and stock to meet demand.
USA-wide: Events are being scheduled across the entire country now
Unlike three months ago, when attended events were mostly being scheduled in the states with more lenient restrictions such as Texas and Florida, we are now seeing events being scheduled across all states of the USA. It’s also worth noting that while events were a highly dynamic data set pre-pandemic (hence why we re-verify and update the API constantly to ensure accuracy), we are seeing increased volatility. More events are being substantially updated than in 2019. We are paying particular attention to predicted attendance (which our models predict and verify for every attended event) as this is especially dynamic for events set several months out, and we are seeing restrictions continue to ease and event organizers increase available tickets.
For example, this week New York began to see an increase in events being scheduled this week. This coincides with announcements around lifting of restrictions such as the return of in-person college graduation ceremonies, (which are huge drivers of demand for travel and accommodation providers), larger sports and community events, as well as fewer restrictions for restaurants.
This report seeks to outline the general trajectory and trends of event recovery across the United States. To make the most of events in your forecasting, you will need to use programmatic solutions given how dynamic and large a dataset events are. PredictHQ is supplying our customers with impactful events across the world, both verified and standardized, from our 19 categories via our restful API.
To find out how leading companies such as Uber, Domino’s and major hotel chains are using this data, explore our use cases.
We will be releasing weekly editions of this Leading Demand Indicators report. Sign up to receive it in your inbox early each week.