Taylor Odell got the bad news late Thursday afternoon: Miley Cyrus had canceled her Saturday night show at the Sprint Center.
“My friend called me freaking out!” said 16-year-old Odell. The Prairie Village girl blasts Cyrus’ new hit, “Party in the U.S.A.” on her cell phone for people waiting on hold.
Saturday’s show has been rescheduled to Oct. 17. All refunds must be processed by 5 p.m. Oct. 9, Sprint officials said. Refunds are available from wherever you bought the ticket.
“It kind of sucks because Saturday is our homecoming and it was kind of an excuse not to go to homecoming,” said Odell, a junior at Shawnee Mission East. “So now our excuse is gone. I couldn’t believe it.”
It took seemingly nanoseconds for the word to spread that Cyrus, recovering from strep throat, rescheduled her Kansas City stop for two weeks later. The Disney teen queen fell ill earlier in the week, and MTV and entertainment Web sites were among those reporting it. Cyrus apparently had never missed a show before. The Salt Lake Tribune reported that Cyrus left the stage with flu-like symptoms during her concert Tuesday night in Salt Lake City, but she came back to the stage and finished the show.
She caught a break with no shows scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday. But then she canceled tonight’s show at Qwest Center Omaha, which has been rescheduled for Oct. 13.
Cyrus has been keeping her fans updated on her health on her Twitter page, which is at twitter.com/ mileycyrus. “Dear Omaha, I am so sorry I can’t perform for you tomorrow. This is the first show I have ever missed,” she tweeted.
Fans called the Sprint Center all day Thursday after word got out about the Omaha show, Sprint Center spokeswoman Shani Tate Ross said.
Early Thursday evening, just minutes after the news broke that Cyrus was rescheduling Kansas City too, Tate Ross reported that “we have seen minimal returns at this point. What we found is that people are anxious for the show.”
She said Sprint Center officials will have a better sense today of how many people will be asking for refunds, once people check their calendars.
Odell said she and her friend, who bought the tickets, can attend on the new date.
All paperless tickets purchased for the Oct. 3 show will be honored at the Oct. 17 concert, Tate Ross said, and all other show information remains the same.
The ticketless process requires the ticket purchaser to show identification the night of the event, as well as the credit card that was used to buy the tickets.
The credit card gets scanned at the Sprint Center, and a piece of paper with seat locations is printed out at the gate.
However, what will happen if now, because of the new concert date, the person who bought the tickets is unable to go? Will someone else be able to use the tickets? How will the transfer work?
“We’re still waiting for that information,” Tate Ross said. “The artist and promoter dictate policy.”
She added, though, that the Sprint Center “is prepared to help as many people as we can so Miley fans can see the show. We’ll have to deal with each individual situation.”
Miley Cyrus fans weren’t the only ones watching the breaking concert news.
Michael Cappel, director of sales and marketing for the Hyatt Regency Crown Center hotel, said he didn’t think his hotel would be sorely affected if Cyrus fans didn’t show up this weekend.
“This weekend is the Super Bowl weekend for Kansas City,” Cappel said. “It’s race weekend, the Chiefs game. So with that there’s a lot of activity, including the Miley Cyrus concert.”
Even without Cyrus, “we’re expected to have a pretty busy house this weekend,” he said.
But what about Odell and her now-empty Saturday night? She said she’ll probably go to a classmate’s big party instead.
Still, it’s no party in the U.S.A.