Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame's 2020 induction has no performers—here's why
Things haven’t exactly gone according to plan for the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame this year. After pushing their induction ceremony in March, they have now permanently moved its prestigious ceremonies to the fall.
As well, the Rock Hall is skipping performances for this year’s induction ceremony for a good reason.
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Back in March, the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame was forced to postpone its prestigious induction ceremony to Nov. 7 amid the coronavirus pandemic. Now, the Rock Hall has confirmed that all of its future induction ceremonies will happen in the fall.
Joel Peresman, the president and CEO of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Foundation, announced the new changes during a recent interview with Vulture.
“We moved the timing of the ceremony. We’re going to move the ceremony permanently so it’s in the fall of each year because of COVID,” Peresman says. “We’re also moving the nomination process. Normally, the nomination process starts in September, we announce the nominees in October, and then we announce the inductees in January. This time the nomination meetings will happen in January, so we’ll announce the nominees in February and start that voting process then.”
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However, it looks like this isn’t the only change being made this year. Peresman further tells Vulture that the 2020 induction ceremony won’t include musical performances. Despite the MTV VMAs and the BET Awards‘ success with 2020 performances, the Rock Hall decided to eliminate them this year.
“We looked at different ways to have live performances by the inductees or artists performing for the artists who are deceased,” Peresman says. “In the spring and summer, it really just became overwhelming to try to pull that off. There were so many events that were starting to happen with people doing performances on their iPhones and then they got a little bit more sophisticated. We thought that was kind of boring to try to go through the hoops of having artists performing with no audience, or doing it with just family or friends. It didn’t make any creative sense.”
Peresman also tells Vulture that he sent out “some” feelers to the 2020 inductees about performing this year. However, he didn’t disclose the responses he received. He also considered the health and safety of the ceremony’s crew when making this decision.
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“Then you get into the aspect of their crews,” Peresman says. “Nobody was working, and everybody was off the road and at home hunkered down. It wasn’t as easy [as it would have been if] they were already in tour mode. Everybody was quarantined. There were too many lockdown factors. We realized it wasn’t going to be manageable.”
This year’s inductees include Depeche Mode, the Doobie Brothers, Whitney Houston, Nine Inch Nails, the Notorious B.I.G. and T. Rex. The Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame’s 2020 induction ceremony is airing exclusively on HBO and HBO Max on Nov. 7 at 8 P.M. ET.
Less than a week before we celebrate rock’s greatest and welcome the #RockHall2020 Inductees into the Hall of Fame. Celebrate all week with our virtual programs and the red carpet before tuning in on November 7 on HBO & HBO Max at 8pm ET. Details: https://t.co/GDE9h8lyt9 pic.twitter.com/d793oygzzK
— Rock Hall (@rockhall) November 3, 2020
What are your thoughts on the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame eliminating musical performances this year? Let us know in the comments below.
