Is climate change affecting your business/ seasonal schedule?

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Jack Arnott

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Jan 29, 2011
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Right up front, don't care about any politics, reasons for or against, or causes. Just business implications. And any posts to this end will be mocked and taunted.

Is your schedule changing because of temperatures?
My busiest month used to be July. I remember thinking about 20 years ago that that would have to start changing.
Some of the gigs I had had been going on for decades. And indeed, my busiest month is now August.
Some of it is personal, as I have lost some gigs along the way. And I now bid higher in July, as I know I will be more likely to need extra labor to get through some of the gigs.

And my range of outside shows has expanded, mostly because I work in more places than I used to.
So I am kind of keeping the shows that I have picked up in the fall, in more southern areas, out of my general thinking on this.

But it seems to me that there are more shows popping up in Sept, May, and late August, and less in July.
It should be noted that I do mostly outdoor Community events, and am not tied to any touring schedules.

Also, I am in the intermountain region, and I know people in say Arizona or Maine will be more likely to do outdoor gigs at different times of year than I do. And sound pups may not have enough time in, to see a change in the process. But, have your schedules changed?
 
Re: Is climate change affecting your business/ seasonal schedule?

Jack Arnott said:
Right up front, don't care about any politics, reasons for or against, or causes. Just business implications. And any posts to this end will be mocked and taunted.

Is your schedule changing because of temperatures?
My busiest month used to be July. I remember thinking about 20 years ago that that would have to start changing.
Some of the gigs I had had been going on for decades. And indeed, my busiest month is now August.
Some of it is personal, as I have lost some gigs along the way. And I now bid higher in July, as I know I will be more likely to need extra labor to get through some of the gigs.

And my range of outside shows has expanded, mostly because I work in more places than I used to.
So I am kind of keeping the shows that I have picked up in the fall, in more southern areas, out of my general thinking on this.

But it seems to me that there are more shows popping up in Sept, May, and late August, and less in July.
It should be noted that I do mostly outdoor Community events, and am not tied to any touring schedules.

Also, I am in the intermountain region, and I know people in say Arizona or Maine will be more likely to do outdoor gigs at different times of year than I do. And sound pups may not have enough time in, to see a change in the process. But, have your schedules changed?
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I don't know quite to what end this applies, but I know a few people who would much rather go to a concert right now as compared to 4 weeks ago based on weather conditions. From that little information I have, there might be a valid market there at least.
 
Re: Is climate change affecting your business/ seasonal schedule?

Evan Kirkendall said:
Only change I've had here this summer is sweating less because it's been unseasonably cool. And I'm not complaining one bit.




Evan
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While I don't do the gigs I used to-I still do a lot of work outside. It has been a really nice summer here in GA. Much cooler and less humid than in years past.
 
Re: Is climate change affecting your business/ seasonal schedule?

In our little town just outside of DC, we've always avoided July and most of August, not only because of the heat and humidity, but a lot of folks are just plain out of town. True for musicians and audience alike. So we always pack the early dates and the late dates and do what we can to stretch the season. IMO, there are more folks, more opportunities for outside music/fairs more based on a aging population of "Woodstockers" who want to have their fun and have the extra time, money, and networking to make something happen.
And of course, with the stretching of the outdoor season, we have "more weather" - rain, wind, and sometimes snow.
I think there may be a weak correlation with "Climate Change", but correlation does not always infer causation - even when the correlation is very high.

frank
 
Re: Is climate change affecting your business/ seasonal schedule?

I have not noticed climate change, while I do see weather all the time.

AFAIK neither has affected my business.

JR
 
Re: Is climate change affecting your business/ seasonal schedule?

There's definitely more concern about severe weather events during outdoor shows. Granted the scale of big productions is part of that, but it does seem like we're getting more and worse storms in the summer. And after recent tragedies such as the Indiana State Fair roof collapse there's better planning most of the time.
 
Re: Is climate change affecting your business/ seasonal schedule?

Ivan Beaver said:
While I don't do the gigs I used to-I still do a lot of work outside. It has been a really nice summer here in GA. Much cooler and less humid than in years past.
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Really.. Been more like a long spring. I can't recall a summer this cool since my childhood. And just three years removed from an absolute scorcher
 
Re: Is climate change affecting your business/ seasonal schedule?

Ask me in twenty or thirty years when I can discern climate change from weather. Has the weather been more wide-ranging in its extremes? Yes. Is this particular fluctuation in my market range ( eastern US ) a variation in the weather or a shift in weather patterns due to climate change? Refer to sentence one.
 
Re: Is climate change affecting your business/ seasonal schedule?

This has been one of the best summers in many years.Cooler temps and the number of jobs canceled this year due to rain has been slightly less than last year.
If this is climate change,it's for the better.
 
Re: Is climate change affecting your business/ seasonal schedule?

Thanks for the local weather updates. Not exactly what I was looking for. If so, I have been sweating my ass off still, the last couple of weeks.

frank kayser said:
In our little town just outside of DC, we've always avoided July and most of August, not only because of the heat and humidity, but a lot of folks are just plain out of town. True for musicians and audience alike. So we always pack the early dates and the late dates and do what we can to stretch the season. IMO, there are more folks, more opportunities for outside music/fairs more based on a aging population of "Woodstockers" who want to have their fun and have the extra time, money, and networking to make something happen.
And of course, with the stretching of the outdoor season, we have "more weather" - rain, wind, and sometimes snow.
I think there may be a weak correlation with "Climate Change", but correlation does not always infer causation - even when the correlation is very high.

frank
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Causation/correlation, exactly. I do see a change over the last 30 years, but can't decide how to quantify it. I was wondering if anyone else had the same.
I have customers who flat out say that they are changing schedules, because of climate change, but wonder if they are in reality doing this, or just posturing this, from their perception.
And was my once busiest month, July, now my slowest summer month simply because I don't want to work as much then?

This has been ratting around in my brain some for quite a while.

But one thing happened recently to make me think more about it.
An event that we have been doing for about 25 years, was downsized by budget. Used to run June, July, and August.
Then several years ago they got scaled back, and opted for August only. Now the budget has come back, and they are adding days in September.

Your Woodstockers comment is great. It is so hard to nail down one specific, when there are possibly 100's of contributing factors.
I have even got to the point in my life where some of my long time customers are dying.

And I'm sure every single person/companies experiences are different. While July/August are big dates here, yours are not.
One gig I do in November has had wonderful weather for 12 years, but the one time there was weather, it was snow.

Riley Casey said:
Ask me in twenty or thirty years when I can discern climate change from weather. Has the weather been more wide-ranging in its extremes? Yes. Is this particular fluctuation in my market range ( eastern US ) a variation in the weather or a shift in weather patterns due to climate change? Refer to sentence one.
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That's kind of what I was after. How have things changed in the last 30 or so years.
 
Re: Is climate change affecting your business/ seasonal schedule?

I'm not certain that 20 or 30 years defines the difference between local weather and climate. I can say that over the last 30 years there have been clients that have changed event dates to earlier or later in the spring/summer/fall season due to heat, rain and violent storms, but most of those changes have been in the 2 or 3 week variety, not spring to fall, etc.

One thing I'm certain of - the older I get the less personally tolerant of weather extremes I have become.
 
Re: Is climate change affecting your business/ seasonal schedule?

Tim McCulloch said:
One thing I'm certain of - the older I get the less personally tolerant of weather extremes I have become.
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Amen to that... coldest I ever was in my life, was during winter at Ft Riley, KS walking guard duty on empty army warehouses at night. :-( It was too cold to take off my gloves to drink brandy from the bottle in my pocket.

I have seen a lot of change in the last 30 years, climate seems to be pretty low on the list as the factor driving that change. While opinions vary.

JR
 
Re: Is climate change affecting your business/ seasonal schedule?

Tim McCulloch said:
I'm not certain that 20 or 30 years defines the difference between local weather and climate. I can say that over the last 30 years there have been clients that have changed event dates to earlier or later in the spring/summer/fall season due to heat, rain and violent storms, but most of those changes have been in the 2 or 3 week variety, not spring to fall, etc.
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Weather can be quite interesting too, over the long term. It's amazing how much difference a week can make in how much chance of moisture there will be.
One of my long term customers wanted to change the weekend of their event for a long time, because of weather, but were afraid of the competition on the week that they wanted.
They finally did it, about 15 years ago, and it has been wonderful for them. They get so much more local support because the weather is better, and the other event does not impact them as much as they had worried.
(Art festivals) Their move was two weeks. And the events I do in what used to be the two weeks before that rarely have rain.

And although we are on the fringes of its reach, monsoon season is interesting. One client I have seems to count on it having a slight cooling effect on the event.

One thing I'm certain of - the older I get the less personally tolerant of weather extremes I have become.
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True here. It makes it so hard for me to judge how much effect other things have, when I am losing my tolerances.
Some events I work are because I have a love of the music. And my taste there has certainly evolved over the years.
 
Re: Is climate change affecting your business/ seasonal schedule?

We had so much rain last year in July I really did not notice the temperature. Like Kemper and Ivan said, summer was really nice in Atlanta this year. We have had extreme differences in the weather each season for around a 12 year or so cycle as long as I can remember. We have some mild winters and then then a real bone chiller every decade or so. Summer is usually hot and humid but I remember some years it would be mild like this year. I also remember the summer of 1976 when it was hot and extremely dry July 4th weekend and I burned down about 30 acres of pine tree forest on my aunts farm playing with matches.

As far as climate change who really knows. I read somewhere that some scientist said "global warming" is causing it to be cooler. Really?
 
Re: Is climate change affecting your business/ seasonal schedule?

Eric Cagle said:
As far as climate change who really knows. I read somewhere that some scientist said "global warming" is causing it to be cooler. Really?
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That sounds like an unfortunate turn of phrase... Global "warming" surely wouldn't make it cooler. I find the science pretty complicated with many moving parts. While the real debate is about human caused warming. The earth's temperature is constantly changing. I find the shift to calling it climate change instead of global warming telling.

Perhaps we can have a global vote to decide what temperature the planet should be held constant at? An even scarier thought is some future where humans actively work to manage that temperature (look out for unintended consequences)

I find it remarkable that so many assembled recently in NYC to protest climate change. I'd love to see a similar level of public support for the more tangible world problems, like ebola outbreak in Africa, or Ukraine, or middle east. I guess it's hard to blame wall street and the wealthy for those.

For an on-topic answer my electricity bill has gone up this year because of cost over-runs at our still unfinished clean-coal power plant. While clean-coal sounds like an oxymoron, the technology does not seem quite ready for prime time.

JR
 
Re: Is climate change affecting your business/ seasonal schedule?

John Roberts said:
That sounds like an unfortunate turn of phrase... Global "warming" surely wouldn't make it cooler. I find the science pretty complicated with many moving parts. While the real debate is about human caused warming. The earth's temperature is constantly changing. I find the shift to calling it climate change instead of global warming telling.

Perhaps we can have a global vote to decide what temperature the planet should be held constant at? An even scarier thought is some future where humans actively work to manage that temperature (look out for unintended consequences)

I find it remarkable that so many assembled recently in NYC to protest climate change. I'd love to see a similar level of public support for the more tangible world problems, like ebola outbreak in Africa, or Ukraine, or middle east. I guess it's hard to blame wall street and the wealthy for those.

For an on-topic answer my electricity bill has gone up this year because of cost over-runs at our still unfinished clean-coal power plant. While clean-coal sounds like an oxymoron, the technology does not seem quite ready for prime time.

JR
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[sarc] And then, instead of searching for the Holy Grail (what good would that be, anyway?) we could search for the Holy Global Thermostat. Has to be one around here somewhere. After the vote, we'd know where to set it, anyway.

Unintended consequences? We're far too smart and far too advanced for anything like that to happen [/sarc]
frank
 
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