Kiss Cancel Las Vegas Residency
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Kiss have canceled their upcoming Las Vegas residency at Planet Hollywood's Zappos Theater.
Reps for the venue confirmed the cancellation to the Las Vegas Review-Journaland said ticket providers will contact customers with refund information. Tickets were also taken down from the Caesars Entertainment/Ticketmaster link. The cancellation is reportedly due to "soft ticket sales."
First announced in August, Kiss' 12-show residency was slated to begin on Dec. 29, 2021 and stretch until Feb. 5, 2022. The engagement would have been the band's second Las Vegas residency, following a string of performances at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in 2014.
On Aug. 18 of this year, Kiss resumed their postponed End of the Road farewell tour, which marked their first time performing a full concert live since March 10, 2020. After four shows, the tour came to a halt when singer Paul Stanleytested positive for COVID-19.
At the time, Stanley assured fans that the Kiss team was taking safety precautions seriously, saying that "the band and their crew have operated in a bubble independently to safeguard everyone as much as possible at each show and in between shows. The tour also has a COVID protocol safety officer on staff full-time that is ensuring everyone is closely following all CDC guidelines."
Less than a week later, Stanley's bandmate Gene Simmons also tested positive for COVID-19, forcing the postponement of another four concerts.
Last night, the band embarked on the Kiss Kruise, an all-inclusive excursion that set sail from Miami and will head to Harvest Caye, Belize and Roatan, Honduras before docking on Nov. 3.
Members of Kiss' road crew recently accused the band and their team of "unsafe" COVID-19 protocol on tour. Longtime guitar tech Francis Stueber, who had tested positive for COVID and was quarantining in a Detroit hotel room, died of the virus on Oct. 17 at the age of 52.
"I couldn’t believe how unsafe it was, and that we were still going," one crew member told Rolling Stone under the condition of anonymity. "We'd been frustrated for weeks, and by the time Fran died, I just thought, 'You have to be fucking kidding me.'"
Kiss production manager Robert Long stated that while daily testing was not implemented on the tour, tests could be ordered and administered to any crew member who requested one. "We had thermometers on every bus, sheets to write down temperatures every morning, mask boxes, and sanitizers everywhere," Long said. "People were getting tested every other day, we ordered tests regularly. I’m not going to not test people; I take this shit seriously.”
