Animal Collective cancel UK and European tour: "We simply could not make a budget for this tour that did not lose money even if everything went as well as it could"

This afternoon (10 October) Animal Collective announced that their UK and European shows in November will no longer be going ahead due to financial reasons. It comes after the group had to cancel shows in May and June after Avey Tare and Deakin tested positive for COVID.

Animal Collective wrote, "Friends, we are absolutely gutted to announce today that we are making the decision to cancel our UK/EU dates for this November. We love playing music for you and truly wish we could be there. It has been a wild year for us trying to push through a mountain of touring obstacles related to COVID and the economy. Three of us got bad cases of Covid. We were forced to cancel shows and lost large amounts of the income that sustains us and our families. The one constant has been that we have had an incredible time playing music in front of our fans at every show. You are all amazing. We chose to push through because we love to do it."

"But preparing for this tour we were looking at an economic reality that simply does not work and is not sustainable," Animal Collective continued. "From inflation, to currency devaluation, to bloated shipping and transportation costs, and much much more, we simply could not make a budget for this tour that did not lose money even if everything went as well as it could. We have always been the kind of people to persevere through the difficult times and get on stage unless our health prevented it. We are choosing not to take the risk to our mental and physical health with the economic reality of what that tour would have been. We hope you understand and that you know we would not make a choice like this lightly. We truly want nothing more than to make it out there again."

They added, "Thank you so much to our team, the promoters and venues who worked so hard on this tour for us. We look forward to getting back out to play for all of you and hope you will be there with us when we do."

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The cancelled tour dates include Le Guess Who? 2022. The festival has announced that although Animal Collective were guest curators for the 2022 edition, the festival intends to keep "their full curated program intact".