Jennifer Hudson — as well the rest of the entertainment industry — is gearing up for a busy summer of live music, even as rising COVID - 19 infections fueled by Delta variant reverberate around the globe.
The Oscar-winning actress and Grammy award-winning singer, who recently partnered with Mastercard to increase the visibility of Black female business owners, spoke to Yahoo Finance about the Music industry coming back.
More than a year after the devastating pandemic brought the industry to a dramatic halt, we're discovering it as you go and planting our feet again, Hudson said.
Through her ongoing partnership with Mastercard, the 39 - year-old performer will perform at New York City's famed Apollo Theater on August 19 : the first live music performance in the historic venue since the onset of COVID - 19 in March 2020.
It's always a honor to sing at the Apollo and I have done it before, but it's something that you can never get used to, Hudson explained.
Even as a performer, this is one of the first times where I sing live in front of a live audience, which is exciting because I think we’ve all missed that as well, she added.
In addition to performing on the Apollo, the singer is set to perform with Paul Simon, Bruce Springsteen and others in order to celebrate New York City's grand reopening later this month.
COVID -19 slammed the live events industry, downgrading theaters and Broadway and drastically shuttering concert tours, sporting events and everything in between.
According to Comscore, movie ticket sales fell by 80% to just over $2 billion in 2020 — the lowest total for the U.S. box office in nearly 40 years and $9 billion less than 2019's total haul.
To replace the temporary closure that caused Broadway to generate approximately $300 million in ticket sales in the year before its abrupt closure on 12 March 2020. To put that number in context, Broadway's last full season — which ran May 2018 to May 2019 — brought in nearly $2 billion, the highest-grossing season ever, according to the Broadway League.
Importation cities and states dependent on the sector battled the biggest losses. With the Delta variant threatening reopening plans, light on the Great White Way are scheduled to turn back on next month.
CoVID - 19 cost an estimated 284,000 creative jobs in New York City; meanwhile, 66% of New York City's entertainment and leisure positions were vanished.
What's the best thing about pandemic is something we've all been through, Hudson tells Yahoo Finance.
It is almost like a new start, in a way, and a new discovery of what's happening in the world and how we will approach it and move forward. I still figuring it out for myself, she stated — adding that Hollywood has been extra busy playing catch-up.
We're picking up where we left off, dealing with what was already planned, and then what's going to come. we're hitting the ground running, she explained.
Aretha Franklin plays Jennifer Hudson in the upcoming biopic Respect — a role that the Queen of Soul personally asked Hudson to take on.
The film, which also stars Marlon Wayans, Audra McDonald, Mary J. Blige and Forest Whitaker, has received Oscar buzz already.
Respect is set to hit theaters August 13, 2017.