Easy Life have announced that they have cancelled their upcoming North American tour due to “some insane costs”.
The band were due to kick off the run in April, beginning in Mexico City, and running through to May, when it would wrap up in New York.
Today (February 8), Easy Life shared a statement on Twitter about the fate of the tour. “We’re very sorry to say that we’ve had to make the tough decision to cancel our upcoming North American tour,” they wrote. “We’ve tried hard to make it work, slashing budgets and trying to justify some insane costs, but we’re just not able to get the funds to bring the Easy crew over this spring.
“Touring and seeing all of you is why we do what we do so this is hitting hard, but the world seems to cost 10x as much as it used to right now.”
— easy life (@easylife) February 8, 2023
They added a message of thanks to those that had bought tickets for the now-cancelled dates and promised they would “find a way to get back on the road again”. Ticket buyers will be contacted “shortly”, and refunds will be available from their point of purchase.
Easy Life are not the first act recently to pull live dates due to rising costs. Last year, Little Simz announced she would not be going out on a 10-date run across the continent as it would leave her in a “huge deficit” financially.
“Being an independent artist, I pay for everything encompassing my live performances out of my own pocket and touring the US for a month would leave me in a huge deficit,” she said. “As much as this pains me to not see you at this time, I’m just not able to put myself through that mental stress. It’s important for me to speak my truth about this and be honest. I appreciate the love and excitement you guys have for seeing me live. Rest assured I will be there soon, back bigger and better.”
In October, Animal Collective cancelled their UK and European tour, which was scheduled to take place in November, citing economic difficulties. “From inflation, to currency devaluation, to bloated shipping and transportation costs, and much much more, we simply could not make a budget for this tour that did not lose money even if everything went as well as it could,” they explained.
“We have always been the kind of people to persevere through the difficult times and get on stage unless our health prevented it. We are choosing not to take the risk to our mental and physical health with the economic reality of what that tour would have been. We hope you understand and that you know we would not make a choice like this lightly.”
Things could get even harder for international artists to tour America in the future following reports the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) plans to raise touring visa fees for foreign acts by more than 250 per cent.
Applications for a P visa – which is used for acts arriving in the US to perform temporarily – would increase from $460 (£375.23) to $1,615 (£1,317). The O visa, which is a longer-term work visa – would rise from $460 to $1,655 (£1,349).
“For context, we already spend thousands of dollars just on visas to enter the US; it’s the only country we tour to with these prohibitive visa costs,” The Weather Station’s Tamara Lindeman wrote on Twitter. “It’s a huge hardship to pay such high visa fees, in addition to a 30% withholding tax when we play in the US. It is hard enough to make money on tour as it is.”