Mission concert team making urgent calls to find new big act after Diamond cancels

Mission Concert organisers are toiling to quickly find atop act to ensure this scene emerges in March. Photo / Paul Taylor

For Mission concertgoers hoping another big act can be found to replace Neil Diamond on March 17 the advice from SEL events manager Garry Craft was simple and to the point.

"I just need a few days to investigate — to hopefully find someone — give me a couple of days," he said as he prepared to go through potential responses to "a lot" of calls and emails he sent out to management teams across the entertainment landscape in the wake of the news that Diamond had cancelled his planned tour Downunder due to medical issues.

"This has been really tough," Mr Craft said.

"But not just on us — it is everyone — the fans, the airlines who have bookings, the motels, the private homestays — so that gives us a big incentive to do what we can to find something."

On the tough question of "will there or won't there be" a Mission Concert on the scheduled day Mr Craft could only reply "it is too early to say".

He said though it would be a massive shame if it were not to go ahead, but at the end of the day the event had to be commercially viable.

"I do have a couple of plans where I can potentially deliver something," he said, reiterating that what he needed now was a couple more days to hopefully sort things.

It is not the first time the organisers have been faced with this situation — there have been two other last-minute main act changes in the Mission Concert history book.

John Denver had been booked to take the stage in 1998 but was tragically killed in a light aircraft crash at Monterey Bay in California in October 1997.

Spanish crooner Julio Iglesias, who had concerts lined up in New Zealand, was brought in.

And Tom Jones stepped up as a highly successful replacement back in 2008 after the artist the organisers had lined up, John Mellencamp, pulled out due to other commitments, but the concert planners had more time up their sleeves on those two occasions.

The loss of Neil Diamond has come just seven weeks out from the scheduled concert.

As Tuesday's shock announcement of the cancellation began to subside the speculation as to who could be available as a late replacement began to emerge.

In terms of who may be in this part of the world around the March time-frame there were two options.

Robbie Williams is staging his Heavy Entertainment Tour and is playing in Auckland on February 14 before embarking for the Australian leg which wraps up on March 4.

And James Blunt has a concert in Canterbury on March 8 — nine days before the scheduled March 17 Mission date.

The following month the touring duo of Melissa Etheridge and Sheryl Crow are playing concerts in Auckland on April 9 and Hamilton the following day.

Those timing options were always looked at but Mr Craft said at the end of the day the bottom line was the artist had to be capable of drawing and satisfying a big crowd.

"We are looking."

When the news emerged the Mission Facebook site quickly posted — "we need 48 hours to see what we can do about the 2018 event on 17 March".

"Please be patient, we will be back to you ASAP with the news on how we are to proceed.

"A full refund will be issued if our 17 March concert is cancelled or if a replacement artist is secured and the patron does not wish to attend".