New Kids On The Block announced Wednesday afternoon that their July 20th concert in Toronto has been scrapped “due to circumstances out of our control.”
In a message to fans on Instagram, the group said “it is unfortunately impossible to present our show in the way it is intended."
The “circumstances” are believed by many fans to be Canada's regulations for visitors who are not vaccinated against COVID-19. Those who are eligible to enter the country are required to self-quarantine for 14 days. (NKOTB’s Donnie Wahlberg is married to Jenny McCarthy, who has expressed strong views about vaccines for many years.)
Concert promoter Live Nation no longer requires proof of vaccination.
The Toronto concert – the group's only tour stop in Canada – was originally scheduled to take place on June 22 but was pushed forward in hopes Canada would drop its entry requirements for unvaccinated travellers.
NKOTB is part of the Mixtape Tour featuring Salt N Pepa, En Vogue and Rick Astley.
It's been a rough summer for Toronto concert-goers. The Weeknd was forced to postpone his Rogers Centre show on July 8 due to the Rogers outage and Justin Bieber cancelled his June 7 and 8 concerts at Scotiabank Arena due to a health issue. On Tuesday, Yungblud announced he was cancelling his Sept. 15th show at RBC Echo Beach.
This article has been updated since it was first published.