KISS Sparks Outrage With Planned New Year's Eve Concert Livestream From Dubai

Michael Hein

11/22/2020 02:50 pm EST

Legendary rock band KISS announced its "biggest concert ever" on New Year's Eve next month, but many fans were not pleased by the news. KISS' event is expected to have a live audience and a massive pyrotechnics crew, creating serious risk of the coronavirus spreading in the crowded arena. After KISS announced the event on Friday, fans flooded the comments with complaints.

The concert event, "KISS 2020 Goodbye," will be set in Dubai at the Atlantis the Palm resort. A representative for the event told Variety that they anticipate between 2,000 and 3,000 live attendees — the maximum number allowed by the hotel's COVID-19 protocol. There will also be at least 400 people working behind the scenes, hoping to set a world record for the pyrotechnic display. For many people on social media, this is not with the inherent risk it carries with it.

Atlantis the Palm is trying to minimize the risk for this concert by requiring that attendees book a room at the hotel and stay there, so they can ensure that those people have not traveled too recently. Of course, this also means that attending the event is even more costly, forcing guests to shell out for lengthy stays at this resort.

Many social media users wondered why a live audience was really necessary at all. The event will reportedly have at least 50 cameras for an ambitious live stream production, and commenters noted that the massive crew would be risky enough. Reps for the event defended the decision to give the stage crew an opportunity to work for the first time in months.

"Putting nearly 400 crew members back to work for the first time in eight months, the production will take extraordinary on-site COVID protocols including daily testing and biometric crew wristbands to ensure highest safety standards for the entire event. Performed in front of a live COVID-screened and safe audience in Dubai, this will be a first of its kind hybrid live-ticketed and live streamed event," they said.

None of this appeased commenters online, who thought that the risk of spreading the coronavirus at this event was too great. Here is a look at the conversation on social media.

Live Stream Cost

As if the trip to Dubai were not expensive enough, many fans gawked at the $50 ticket price just to watch the livestream. They thought that the band must be out of touch to believe fans could afford that during a pandemic.

USA

Some fans questioned why the event could not be held in the U.S., sparking conversations about the state of COVID-19 restrictions in different countries around the world. Many believed that KISS should have tried to hold the event at home to boost the economy.

Time Zone

The KISS concert is scheduled to coincide with the passage of the New Year's Eve in the U.S., though Dubai is hours ahead, meaning that Kiss will technically be playing in 2021 already. Fans on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean mocked this choice.

Attendee

For all the fans that complained about the price and the plans for this event, there were others who were simply excited to attend. Many commenters announced that they had bought tickets and were eagerly waiting to "KISS 2020 Goodbye."

Not KISS

Some commenters said that they would not shell out for the New Year's Eve event because they were not seeing the original KISS line-up. For this ticket price, they would have wanted the original members on stage.

Defenders

Naturally, some fans defended Kiss amid the backlash to this announcement, arguing that the rock legends deserved to get paid for their performance.

Videos

Some fans argued that they did not see much difference between paying for a live stream and paying for a Kiss concert movie, such as Kissology or Kiss Symphony Alive IV. Some said that they would rather watch the recordings they already have on hand, while others argued that the value was the same.

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