Is Phoenix now too hot for outdoor concerts in the summer?

On July 18, 1991, Phoenix, Arizona hosted the first Lollapalooza. By the time the gates opened, those who were there estimate it was 110 degrees.

Many artists on the bill – Butthole Surfers, Rollins Band, Ice T – felt heatstroke, but only Nine Inch Nails, whose sequencer malfunctioned after sitting in the sun, ended the show after two songs because of it. Frontman Trent Reznor made his feelings about the situation known as he knocked over amps and mic stands on his way off stage.

“I would advise teams like this not to play outside in this kind of heat,” he says Danny Zeliscowho collaborated with Perry Farrell to promote the festival that year. “Luckily, there was a whole host of teams behind them that didn't have to rely on electronics.”

Thirty-three years later, Phoenix has grown into the nation's fifth largest city, with 1.6 million residents. It's also the nation's hottest major metropolitan area, with scientists attributing the city's rising average temperature to both carbon emissions and heat trapped by man-made structures as development spreads further into the Sonoran Desert. Last year was the hottest on record globally, according to the National Weather Service, and the fourth hottest on record in Phoenix.

Amid a heatwave last July, the city saw 19 days of record temperatures, including two that reached 119. Last July 22, a show by rock act Disturbed at the city's Talking Stick Resort Amphitheater was postponed when the band's equipment malfunctioned in 118 degree heat. A month later, 50 Cent postponed a show at the same venue due to an extreme heat warning.

A major tour stop for acts moving through the Southwest, Phoenix is ​​home to many small, medium, and large-scale venues. Outdoor venues include the 20,000-capacity Talking Stick, operated by Live Nation, and the 5,000-capacity Mesa Amphitheater in nearby Mesa, Ariz., which host shows in the summer. (This summer, Mesa's schedule has been reduced to one summer show in August, down from several last year. May and August 2023 sets by Interpol and My Morning Jacket have been moved to nearby indoor venues. An Amphitheater representative did not respond to a request for comment. immediately Advertising signhis request for comment on whether these movements are heat-related.)

But amid extreme heat — again currently gripping the city, many other parts of the U.S. and the world beyond — is Phoenix just getting too hot to play in the summer, or is it business as usual?

Zelisko, who has been performing in town for the past 50 years and has worked on nearly all of its interiors and exteriors with his company Danny Zelisko Presents, says agents often ask about the reality of playing there in the summer. However, despite the concerns, “The fact is that finances are involved as well, and in many cases they can get more money out, so sometimes acts just grin and bear it.”

Since many summer tours take place through auditoriums and are thus designed specifically for these types of venues, it can also be difficult to move to a different type of venue for a single show.

But some artists “just won't play outside when it's this hot,” Zelisko adds. “It's a wise move, because you're really shedding your crew. These people will finish a show in Albuquerque, drive all night, show up here at 7am to load up, then do it again. It's hard for some people to throw a super hot day.”

Stephen Chiltonwho mainly promotes closed club shows in Phoenix under the name Psyko Steve, agrees that the city is “a little slower” in the summer, with some artists heading further north.

But the head of the Talking Stick Resort Amphitheater venue Carl Adams says he hasn't seen “any significant change” in the way shows have been staged at the venue in recent years. This summer, Talking Stick has hosted shows by artists such as Kenny Chesney, Paula Abdul and Cage the Elephant, with Sammy Hagar, Megadeth and more on the calendar until the end of August.

With some artists and fans willing to brave the Phoenix heat for a show, safety protocols both outdoors and indoors are vital. Over the past 30 to 40 years, Zelisko says more responsibility has fallen on organizers to watch out for crowds in the heat. “As it's turned into a business where you put on an act any time of the year you can get them, the organizers really plan what's going to happen on race day,” he says. “You have to look after people, because you want them to come back as customers.” This is especially true for areas that have large areas of concrete or asphalt, which can reach 130 degrees or more on a hot day.

At Talking Stick, protocols include encouraging fans to bring their own water bottles and fill them at free water stations. The venue is equipped with misting fans and cooling stations, provides free sunscreen and even has on-stage air conditioning for artists. Zelisko remembers handing out cooling ice pack necklaces at particularly hot shows, creating shaded rest areas and setting up pools backstage for bands to jump into after a set.

“When you're a fan in line and someone hands out water, it's a simple gesture, but it's very much appreciated,” says Zelisko. “You have to think about these things, because you don't want people falling the moment they walk in.”

That was the worst-case scenario outcome last December in Rio de Janeiro, when a 23-year-old fan died of heat exhaustion in a hospital after fainting during the second song of a Taylor Swift concert. Fans lined up for hours before the show in temperatures that reached 105, and many accused organizers of not providing enough water for the 60,000-strong crowd. Fans also reported that they were not allowed to take their own water into the stadium.

Last summer, heat exhaustion was widespread at shows across the US, with Jason Aldean suffering heat stroke while on stage in Hartford, Conn. last July. Zelisko predicts that all organizers will eventually have to deal with some kind of weather issue, and that the heat in humid places is more difficult than the dry heat of the desert.

Still, “most of our 911 calls are heat-related,” Chilton says of the Rebel Lounge, the 300-person space he manages. “It's a big deal every summer, and it's always the shows [that skew younger] where kids arrive early and want to sit outside in the sun for 10 hours in 110 degree heat because they want to be first in line. Then they enter the venue exhausted and dehydrated and pass out. This is a constant struggle for us.”

Therefore, at the Rebel Lounge, fans are only allowed to wait outside one hour before each show. Once inside, Chilton says the space has a competitive advantage in that it has stronger air conditioning than many other local indoor venues, with those places missing out on summer bookings because it's not as cool inside.

While he says the cost of running multiple air conditioners is “very significant,” it's worth it for the comfort of fans and artists. He remembers seeing a show in a nearby venue with weaker AC, “and the band was raging at the end of the night.” Chilton says no one in the crowd complained, as locals know the realities of summer in Phoenix.

The general vibe among respondents for this story is that the effects of climate change aren't yet very significant “because it's always hot in the summer,” says Zelisko, who once successfully fried an egg on a sidewalk during a 120- grade day. “I'm not saying it's not getting warmer, because there's a lot of evidence that says it is, but what are you going to do about it? We still have to live.”

For Chilton, the difference so far is “it's not necessarily more miserable, it's more miserable”, with heatwaves lasting longer than they used to. However, the biggest weather problem he faced wasn't heat-related, but a random thunderstorm during the two-day Zona Music festival he produced in December 2022.

“I did the research and since 1900 in Phoenix it has only rained three times that day,” he says. “It was the most rainfall Phoenix had seen in one day in a decade.”

Proponents also point out that Phoenix's desert climate offers its own advantages. Adams of Talking Stick says the venue has “a longer season than some outdoor venues,” as it can start hosting shows in April and continue through the fall.

Zelisko wishes more groups would come to town in January, February and March — when outdoor shows are impossible in much of the country because of the cold — “because that's the best time of year here.”

But as things stand, it's unlikely that the summer shows will stop anytime soon in America's hottest metropolis. “Playing outside in Phoenix in July is crazy,” says Zelisko. “But money makes people do crazy things.”