Should crying and apologizing make up for the shoddy way Adele treated her fans this week?

Ask the scores of fans who already paid for flights, tickets, and all the other ancillary costs associated with spending a weekend in Vegas. 

In an astonishingly unprofessional and low-class move, the singer announced Thursday that she was canceling her entire residency at Caesars Palace.  The residency that was set to start Friday, 24-hours later. 

Fans were flooding into Vegas with tickets in hand from all over the world, including Mexico, the UK, Canada, Europe, and Mexico, and needless to say, they were irate. 

Tickets cost between $85 and $12,000 and went for up to $30K on the black market. 

She wept like a baby in an Instagram video apology, saying, “I’m so upset and I’m really embarrassed. We’ve been absolutely destroyed by delivery delays and Covid. Half my crew and team are [ill] with Covid and still are, and it’s been impossible to finish the show.”

Adele was set to make $685,000 per show in Vegas, and that doesn’t include her cut of the merch. 

While Adele destroyed the dreams of her fans, who held tickets, other regularly scheduled shows are going on all over Vegas. Four big NFL playoff games will pack 80,000 fans into each stadium, with full crews working on the broadcast and stadium operations.  

It’s a travesty that she handled the situation in this way, and PR experts are saying it could be disastrous for her. Mark Borkowski told the Daily Mail, “It’s not great for Adele, and I think she knows it. Her response seemed very authentic. I guess it’s down to whether the fans believe her word.”

Mick Jagger continues to perform at the age of 78.  Bruce Springsteen is still The Boss at 72. They work with the same limitations and Covid restrictions as Adele, but long-time stars like them understand it’s a mortal sin in the entertainment world to cancel shows in this manner. Which is why it’s so shocking to see a performer do something so drastic.

Adele is the queen of the cancellation. She canceled two shows in London at the last minute five years ago and didn’t reschedule them until four years later. 

In between sobs, Adele said ticket holders could get refunds, and the shows would be rescheduled.  As if that matters to fans that were already in the air, flying to Las Vegas at the time she pulled the plug.  Getting vacation time and scheduling vacations around a concert in Vegas is not easy for hard-working fans. 

Hey, with a little extra time on her hand, Adele can catch a couple of Laker games, courtside, of course, with her boyfriend Rich Paul, the agent of LeBron James. Although watching the way the Lakers are playing now might really bring her to tears. 

As for the thousands of fans, she stiffed?  There are a lot of shows that will go on in Vegas, and I hope they can find a fun alternative. 

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