Picture it: After what seemed like an endless quarantine, you are finally in the pit with thousands of people waiting for your favorite artist to come on stage. The lights flash around you. People are screaming. The music is blaring. You’re singing as loudly as possible. Everything is finally back to normal. Sounds nice, right? Well, how likely is that to actually happen in the near future? Dr. Anthony Faucie, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease Director and chief medical advisor to President Joe Biden, says it’s possible, with a catch. 

In a virtual conference with the Association of Performing Arts Professionals (APAP), Dr. Fauci said that concerts may return by the end of the year, as long as vaccines are administered and Covid cases have decreased. “If everything goes right,” he said, “this will occur sometime in the fall of 2021, so that by the time we get to the early to mid-fall, you can have people feeling safe performing onstage as well as people in the audience.” This is great news for musicians begging to get on the road again and for eager concert-goers alike. 

Many people want concerts more than anything right now, but they want them to come back the right way. Some have said that they are excited, but are concerned. They only want concerts to return if the majority of the public has been vaccinated and if venues take the proper precautions. 

Dr. Fauci had a lot to say about this topic. “You come in, the only requirement might be to wear a mask, particularly if the indoor venue is well ventilated and maybe has some HEPA filters.” He thinks with these rules in place, venues can get to nearly full capacity. He also advises that venues strictly stay outside for the time being, as most of the superspreader events have occurred at gatherings indoors. When talking to APAP, Fauci said, “If you’re out there, with the natural breezes that blow respiratory particles away, it is so much safer.”

In the meantime, artists have found ways to survive given the strict limitations of touring. Many artists have taken this time to write music, one being Taylor Swift, who dropped two surprise albums, Folklore and Evermore, in less than six months. Musicians have also taken the virtual concert route to make money and surprise fans. 2020 started off with  a few Instagram live concerts, but quickly turned into something much bigger. Indie-pop trio AJR held an immersive livestream, titled One Spectacular Night, which involved a variety of special effects and even allowed the audience to participate with clapping, stomping, and cheering features. Where people want concerts as soon as possible, others are fine with virtual shows and drive-in concerts for the time being. Seeing how far an artists’ creativity will go is always impressive and exciting. 

Live shows coming back by the end of 2021 seems to be up in the air at this point, but not entirely impossible. With vaccines being administered daily, concerts may not be such a crazy thought. 

“We will get out of this. This will end,” Fauci said. “We will be back to normal. We will be back in the theaters, performers will be performing, audiences will be enjoying it. It will happen.”