The Flaming Lips have postponed their upcoming space bubble shows due to the current increase in COVID-19 cases. The first two shows were set to take place on December 10 and 11 at The Criterion in Oklahoma City. Since COVID cases are climbing, the band felt it was a safer choice to push the shows back to January 22 and 23. According to The New York Times database, Oklahoma currently has had 202,341 cases and 1,812 deaths as of Dec 2.
“Although the Flaming Lips have every confidence in the multitude of measures we are taking to keep you safe at our upcoming Space Bubble Concerts we have decided to postpone the December shows. The rising numbers of coronavirus cases in the Oklahoma metro area are alarming and we want to keep everyone safe,” said Wayne Coyne, frontman of The Flaming Lips, on Instagram.
When The Flaming Lips initially announced their first scheduled bubble show, tickets had sold out in minutes, prompting the band to add a second date. Once the first show sold out, Coyne took to social media to plead to fans to not buy tickets from any scalpers for the band planned to announced a second show.
Coyne recently talked with mxdwn to discuss further touring plans for the band. When asked if The Flaming Lips had any intentions on going on a space bubble tour sometime in the future, Coyne replied, “Yeah I think that this venue we’re using in Oklahoma City— that’s where you’re speaking with me from. Oklahoma City where I live—we know the people. We’ve actually played shows there and it’s like a lot of venues around America, sitting there virtually empty. And so they’ve allowed us to go in there and start to use it and play around and see how it’ll all work, and there’s a lot of areas where you can do staging and you can have a big distance between people in lines and they have big bathrooms and all these things make it a really great spot to try this out…”
Once the band announced they would be doing these space bubble shows, a lot of people found themselves asking a lot of questions on how that could work. People began to ask how long someone could be in the space bubble before running out of oxygen, what to do if someone needs to use the restroom, how will the space bubbles be cleaned and more. Coyne created video to answer these questions for the fans. The Flaming Lips have also tested out the space bubble concerts few times prior to announcing their tour. They even did a trial run of the idea on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.
Wayne also made it clear that if any fans do not feel comfortable attending the postponed dates, The Flaming Lips will gladly issue a refund for their ticket purchases.
Photo Credit: Stephen Hoffmeister
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