(Photo: John Lamparski/WireImage)

The 2020 Christmas Spectacular Starring the Radio City Rockettes is cancelled

Radio City Music Hall announced they will officially be cancelling all the 2020 Christmas Spectacular shows for the first time in 87 years. The show was set to run from November 6 to January 3 but Radio City is cancelling the Christmas Spectacular for the first time due to concerns surrounding the coronavirus (COVID-19).

Since the debut of the Christmas Spectacular Starring the Radio City Rockettes in 1933, this will officially be the first time it’s been cancelled. Radio City has announced they are sad to make this decision but they want to keep all participants safe and will be issuing full refunds for any pre-sale tickets.

Though the show won’t go on this year, Radio City will be preparing for next year’s performance in the meantime. This announcement was made after Radio City’s sister company, MSG Sports, revealed their plan to lay off 350 people as more live performances are being cancelled and are generating nearly no business.

MSG Sports also owns the New York Ranger and New York Knicks with the plans of cutting 15 percent of its corporate staff. Both companies agree this is a difficult decision but they want to ensure the success rate of the remaining staff.

More businesses and events are being cancelled with a majority of people questioning how COVID-19 will affect the holiday season. Over the past weeks, more stores announced that they will not be open on Thanksgiving and forgoing Black Friday.

Though stores won’t be open on Thanksgiving, some have opted to offer an earlier date for Black Friday that is planned to start in October while enforcing health recommendations for COVID-19. A shortlist of stores closed on Thanksgiving Day including Target, Best Buy, Kohl’s, and Dick’s Sporting Goods.

Target announced they’ll be moving holiday sales up starting in October and continue through the rest of the seasons. Amazon is also moving the highly-anticipated Prime Day to the first week of October.