Vax out to rock out! NYC to require vaccines for Central Park COVID-19 concert
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NEW YORK — Music lovers planning to attend New York City’s star-studded concert in Central Park this August better come equipped with a COVID-19 vaccination if they want to be admitted, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Tuesday.
He rolled out the mandate at his morning press briefing Tuesday after talking up the We Love NYC Homecoming Concert last week when he left the question of vaccine requirements unanswered. On Tuesday, the mayor made the matter crystal clear.
“We want this to be a concert for the people, but I also want to be clear — it has to be a safe concert. It has to be a concert that helps us keep moving forward with our recovery,” he said. “If you want to go to this concert, you need to show proof of vaccination. Simple as that.”
The concert — intended as a celebration of the city’s reopening after a year and a half of COVID-19 hardships — will kick off at 5 p.m. on Aug. 21 and will be broadcast live by CNN. Eighty percent of tickets will be free of charge.
Concert-goers will be required to have only one dose of a COVID vaccine to be admitted.
De Blasio and renowned music producer Clive Davis also revealed on Tuesday more names of performers who’ll be taking the stage on Central Park’s Great Lawn.
They include Wyclef Jean, LL Cool J, Carlos Santana, Patti Smith and Earth, Wind and Fire, as well as Journey, Barry Manilow, the Killers and the New York Philharmonic. De Blasio announced earlier this month that Bruce Springsteen, Paul Simon and Jennifer Hudson would also perform.
Springsteen and Smith are expected to perform a duet, according to Davis.
“I’ve lived almost my entire life in New York, and never — never — have I witnessed anything like what our city has gone through over the last year and a half,” said Davis, a Brooklyn native. “As a born, bred and true New Yorker, I well know how resilient we are and how New York always comes back — and yes, ladies and gentlemen, we are coming back.”
The concert is one in a series of five shows the city plans to put on this summer in each of the five boroughs and comes as the city is experiencing an alarming uptick in coronavirus cases brought on by the delta variant of the disease.
The weeklong concert series will kick off on Aug. 16 in Orchard Beach and will continue Aug. 17 in Richmond County Bank Park on Staten Island, Aug. 19 at the Brooklyn Army Terminal and Aug. 20 at Forest Hills Stadium in Queens.
The Central Park show will serve as the crowning event, though.
While most of the tickets will be free, 20% will go on sale at 10 a.m. on July 29 with first dibs going to holders of Citi cards, according to Geoff Gordon, a regional president with concert promoter Live Nation. Free tickets and additional for-sale tickets will be made available on the city’s website, starting Aug. 2. The price for on-sale tickets has yet to be announced.
The new details about the concert — and the vaccination requirement — come just a day after de Blasio announced that 300,000 municipal employees will be required to get vaccinated or tested weekly for the virus in order to be permitted to work. As part of that mandate, unvaccinated workers must wear masks indoors at all times when on the job and could be docked pay if they don’t comply.
De Blasio fielded a question Friday about how that jibes with the concert’s vaccination requirement — given that the concert is outdoors and a relatively lower risk situation.
“It’s not the same as a workplace,” de Blasio said. “We want to be really clear that folks who want this extraordinary experience need to do something to make sure they’re keeping everyone else safe, and that’s get vaccinated.”
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