CrowdStrike Outage Forces DJs to Cancel Gigs Across the Globe

Pauline Herr, Audiojack, and AYYBO are among the artists who had to pull out of performances due to an ill-fated CrowdStrike update.

Friday, July 19 will forever mark the blue screen of death seen across the world. Roughly 85 million Microsoft operating systems fitted with software from cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike went offline — and among the industries affected is music as artists across the globe have been unable to board flights to their gigs.

Pauline Herr, for example, was supposed to perform at Skydeck in Nashville on Friday. Early that morning, the Los Angeles DJ and producer tweeted, “of course microsoft globally goes down right as i’m boarding my flight lmao rip” and followed it up with another tweet that read “who else has been personally victimized by microsoft today.”

BLNK CNVS Presents, who organized the event, confirmed her cancellation later that evening. “We regret to inform you that Pauline Herr is unable to perform tonight at Skydeck in Nashville, TN due to flight delays and cancellation caused by the CrowdStrike outages,” the brand tweeted. “We understand this news may be disappointing, and we sincerely apologize for any inconvenience caused.”

UK duo Audiojack also had to pull out of a Friday gig at Spin Nightclub in San Diego due to the outage. “I’ve been stuck in San Francisco with no way to get to San Diego tonight, so unfortunately, I’m not going to be able to make this,” said member James Rial in a statement shared on Instagram. “Big apologies to everyone who was gonna come out, and we’ll try and reschedule.”

Ditto for SoCal artist AYYBO, who was slated to perform at The Caverns in Pelham, Tennessee. “Due to the technical meltdown happening worldwide my flight has been cancelled and there’s no way to make it to Tennessee in time,” he shared to his Instagram story.

Some artists’ travel plans were even affected into Saturday as evidenced by tweets from Desert Hearts head Mikey Lion (although it remains unclear whether he will be prevented from playing). He shared that “Delta flight attendants no where to be found on the morning I’m supposed to play Elrow Brooklyn Mirage,” and then that his trip was “4 hours delayed, flight attendants are still MIA.”

Other artists who have cancelled weekend DJ sets due to the IT issues include Moore Kismet, LP Giobbi, Regis, and Sydney Blu.

The outage was caused by an update to CrowdStrike’s Falcon software and has affected airlines, hospitals, and countless other organizations. In a statement, Microsoft shared that it was “working around the clock and providing ongoing updates and support” and that “CrowdStrike has helped us develop a scalable solution that will help Microsoft’s Azure infrastructure accelerate a fix for CrowdStrike’s faulty update.

It remains to be seen how many other artists will be unable to play gigs due to the Crowdstrike outage. This is a developing story and EDM Identity will provide updates as more information is made available.