In May 2021, Wilco announced Sky Blue Sky 2022, a “destination concert experience” at the Hard Rock Hotel Riviera Maya in Mexico. It takes place next week from January 17-21. The originally announced lineup for the sold out event included three shows from Wilco, plus sets from Spoon, Kurt Vile, Thundercat, Waxahatchee, Stephen Malkmus, Nubya Garcia, Jeff Tweedy solo, and others. The starting prices for ticket packages was $1699.
In comments addressing the band and festival organizers on the event’s Facebook page, several people called for refunds and asked if the event would be rescheduled due to the widespread omicron variant of COVID-19. Today (January 11), the page shared the event’s schedule with an update: Soccer Mommy and Ohmme had joined the lineup as Waxahatchee, Mountain Man, and Julian Lage are “no longer able” to attend. Wilco and the festival’s promoter Cloud 9 Adventures have now issued statements responding to fans’ concerns.
“With respect to the Sky Blue Sky festival, Wilco has been independently contracted to perform at this event and to have their name used to promote sales of tickets, in the same manner as most other live appearances by the group,” a representative for Wilco said in a statement. “The festival promotor, Cloud 9, is solely responsible for and determines all ticketing policies, including pricing and availability of refunds or credits.”
Tweedy also addressed the issue on his family’s livestream broadcast show The Tweedy Show on Thursday, January 6:
“I 100% understand all the anxiety and anger and confusion that has been surrounding the Sky Blue Sky festival. Wilco, we’re in a similar boat to everyone, not the same boat obviously, but a similar boat in that we’re trying to figure it out. We’re a contracted entity for this event… We’re hoping there’s some situation that becomes clear and resolves itself in a way that makes everyone happy. I find that to be an unlikely outcome at this point. I don’t think there’s anybody intentionally trying to fuck anybody over. I think there are a lot of rocks and a lot of hard places to be in on this particular topic.”
When asked about fans’ concerns regarding refunds and potentially having to quarantine for a longer duration in Mexico in the event of COVID-19 exposure, a representative for Cloud 9 Adventures shared a statement with Pitchfork and linked to the CDC’s most recent return testing policy for travelers.
