Anthem Blue Cross and the University of California have reached a preliminary contract agreement that both sides say should allow patients to continue seeing their current doctors.

An estimated 600,000 patients at university health systems statewide are affected by the announcement that UC called “preliminary” and Anthem said is an agreement “in principle,” which still must be finalized.

Anthem has once again extended the current contract between the two parties, pushing its expiration date to April 1. It was set to expire on March 1. That date was itself an extension. The contract was originally set to end on Dec. 31, 2023.

Anthem began notifying its customers enrolled in HMO policies with UC doctors in January that they had 60 days to find new physicians.

Nearly 100,000 in the region were said to be on Anthem’s preferred provider organization plans and would also have lost access to UC doctors, though the health plan was not required to give them 60-day notice.

While it appeared that compensation for services rendered and other factors such as prior approval of medical procedures were main negotiating points in the stalemate, neither side said Tuesday exactly what factor resulted in the breakthrough.

“We are grateful that there should not be disruption for patients, and they will be able to continue receiving care from the physicians, hospitals and clinics of their choice,” UC San Diego said in a statement.

“This underscores our mutual commitment to providing Anthem’s consumers and employers with access to high quality, affordable care at UC Health,” Anthem’s statement said.

This story originally appeared in San Diego Union-Tribune.

Mojo Nixon, the roots-rocking wild man and former San Diegan who was an MTV mainstay in the 1980s and later became a longtime Sirius XM radio host, died Wednesday. He was 66. The cause of death was a “cardiac event,” according to a statement posted by his family on his Mojo Nixon World Empire Facebook page.

Nixon died while at sea on the week-long 2024 Outlaw Country Cruise, which set sail Sunday from Miami. He was a regular performer and host on the cruise, which debuted eight years ago and whose extensive lineup this year also includes Lucinda Williams, Steve Earle, Los Straitjackets and former San Diegan Rosie Flores.

Nixon’s final performance took place Tuesday evening on the cruise when he performed with his band, The Toadliquors. The Wednesday post on his Facebook page indicates he was in good spirits before his death.

It reads: “Passing after a blazing show, a raging night, closing the bar, taking no prisoners+ a good breakfast with bandmates and friends.A cardiac event on the Outlaw Country Cruise is about right … & that’s just how he did it.”

A larger-than-life figure, on stage and off, Nixon rose to prominence in the 1980s as one half of the San Diego duo Mojo Nixon & Skid Roper. Nixon sang and banged on an empty water jug. Roper played guitar and other stringed instruments. Together, they recorded such proudly left-of-center songs as “Burn Down the Malls,” “Jesus at McDonald’s,” “Destroy All Lawyers” and “Elvis is Everywhere,” for which Nixon and Roper made a video that became a hit of sorts on MTV.

“Mojo wanted to create something that could not be denied, and he did,” said San Diego music mainstay Joey Harris, who shared numerous bandstands with Nixon, including on last year’s Outlaw Country Cruise.

“He made a fabulous career and helped a lot of musicians along the way. And as a pal, he was wonderfully generous and loved to turn his friends on to books and records.”

In 1988, Nixon served as MTV’s “official sports reporter” when the Denver Broncos and Washington Redskins played at Super Bowl XXII in San Diego. He and Roper released six albums together between 1985 and 1990.

The duo’s 1989 song, “Debbie Gibson is Pregnant with My Two-Headed Love Child,” was made into a video that featured actress Winona Ryder in the title role. She and Nixon had become friends while filming the Jerry Lee Lewis biopic, “Great Balls of Fire.” MTV — which had featured Nixon and Roper in a series of quirky promotional clips for the video music network — refused to air it.

Nixon’s other film credits included “Super Mario Brothers,” “Car 54, Where Are You?” and the direct-to-video “Butt-Crack: The Movie.” He and Roper split up in 1989 when Nixon decided he wanted to be a solo artist leading a full band.

“Knowing Mojo, I knew he always wanted to be Bruce Springsteen and couldn’t really take a bigger step as (half of) a duo,” Roper said in a 2012 Union-Tribune interview. “I don’t have a whole lot of animosity, but I was kind of ‘Pete Best-ed’ out of the picture.”

“Skid’s correct about that,” Nixon said in the same interview. “He did know I wanted to be Bruce Springsteen. I also desperately wanted to stand up (onstage, instead of remaining seated while singing and playing guitar). And I wanted to stop being in a duo and have a drummer and bassist, and rock as much as Dwight Yoakam, the Beat Farmers, Los Lobos, all our contemporaries.

“I said to Skid: ‘Why don’t we do a trio tour, and you play bass?’ He didn’t want to do that. But, where other bands starved — because they had a tour bus and five roadies (to pay for) — we made money, because it was just Skid and me and our manager.”

Nixon and Roper reunited for a performance at the 2012 Adams Avenue Street Fair. Nixon was the subject of the film documentary “The Mojo Manifesto: The Life and Times of Mojo Nixon,” which premiered at the 2022 SXSW Film Festival in Austin. It was accompanied by a 10-CD box set of his work.

Nixon was born Neill Kirby McMillan on Aug. 2., 1957, in the North Carolina college town of Chapel Hill. He grew up in Danville, Virginia, where his love of earthy American roots music was born. His first band was called Godzilla’s Revenge.

He went on to earn degrees in political science and history at Ohio’s Miami University in 1979, then moved to San Diego in late 1980.

Nixon soon thereafter heard a performance here by The Snuggle Bunnies, the band led by Country Dick Montana, perhaps the only San Diego musician with a larger-than-life stage persona even larger than the one Nixon would develop.

“I desperately wanted to be in the Snuggle Bunnies and in Dick’s next band, the Beat Farmers,” Nixon recalled in a 2019 San Diego Union-Tribune. “Dick told me: ‘There’s only room for one monkey in this band, and I’m it’!”

Nixon’s day job, until 1986, was as a bicycle mechanic at Bicycles Unlimited in Ocean Beach. He and his wife, Adaire, married in 1989, at a go-cart track in Chula Vista, with Country Dick Montana presiding over the ceremony.

Nixon lived in Coronado until moving to Ohio less than a decade ago to focus on his work for Sirius XM. He hosted three shows for the network — “Outlaw County,” the NASCAR-celebrating “Manifold Destiny” and an outspoken political talk show called “Lying (Expletives).” His on-air handle was “the loon in the afternoon.” He also appeared as a character on Howard Stern’s Howard 100 channel.

“Mojo is much to the left of me,” Friedman said fondly in a joint 2010 Union-Tribune interview with Nixon.

A gregarious man with an uproarious laugh, Nixon once described himself to the Union-Tribune as a musical version of the cartoon character Foghorn Leghorn — albeit one far more prone to using profanity.

“I have a degree in political science, but — like many politicians — I really got a degree in B.S.” he said. “That’s where my talent lies. I’m not a great singer or songwriter, but I can entertain.”

Nixon’s survivors include his wife, Adaire and their adult sons Ruben and Rafe; a sister, Jane Holden McMillan; a brother, Arthur Reese McMillan; and a granddaughter. There is no word yet on memorial services.

This story originally appeared in San Diego Union-Tribune.

A little over a year ago, the California Public Utilities Commission overhauled the rules for rooftop solar installations across the state. In its December 2022 decision, the commission added incentives for customers to pair solar with batteries, but the new rules also dramatically reduced net energy metering, or NEM, compensation rates.

New panels can be a hefty investment, costing on average $2.8 per watt, including installation, according to the EnergySage quote comparison tool. “For a 5 (kilowatt-hour) installation, this comes out to about $14,004 before incentives, though prices range from $11,903 to $16,105. After the federal tax credit, the average price drops by 30 percent,” the site says.

NEM 2.0 was phased out in April 2023, leaving the new NEM compensation rates — what solar customers receive when their rooftop systems generate more energy than they consume — as the only option for new solar installations.

Given that today’s export rates — the compensation to solar panel owners for the excess electricity their panels export to the grid — are 75 percent lower under the new rules, the math on new installations has changed.

The payoff point is later and now it is essential to add a battery, which adds more to the upfront cost. Tax incentives take off some of the edge. But other key incentives recently ended or are expected to sunset after this year.

Given all this, does it still make sense to add solar?

Many homeowners say no. Solar installations fell dramatically in 2023.

“Utility interconnection request data shows that solar sales have fallen between 66 percent and 83 percent year-over-year following NEM 3.0,” pv magazine USA, a trade publication, reported in December. “What’s more, there have been massive layoffs industry-wide.” The California Solar & Storage Association, a clean-energy trade group, said over 17,000 solar jobs have been lost in 2023, representing 22 percent of all solar jobs in the industry.

But professionals in the solar industry say adding new panels still makes sense in some cases.

Given this drastically altered landscape, the Union-Tribune asked three experts: Is making a big investment in rooftop solar still a good idea?

The experts

• Bernadette Del Chiaro is the executive director of the Sacramento-based California Solar & Storage Association.
• Steve Hickey is the owner of The Solar Inspector, a San Diego consulting company not affiliated with any solar company.
• Mike Teresso is the president of Baker Home Energy, a San Diego County solar, roofing and HVAC company.

Their answers, lightly edited for flow and length, apply to consumer solar installations in the context of investor-owned utilities such as San Diego Gas & Electric.

The new rules

Q. Given the new rules, is installing solar today worth it for consumers? If so, why?

Teresso: Under (the current billing) rules solar alone, for the majority of homeowners, will make little sense as the return on their investment, i.e. their bill savings, will be negligible. The silver lining is energy storage battery technology. It has evolved to be a better cost-saving benefit. Energy can be stored in the battery until it’s needed — when utility rates are at their highest.

The number of variables and considerations in determining the right solar + battery system have grown exponentially. It’s no longer simply “How much electricity do I use?” but “What time of day do I use it?” also needs to be considered, as well as “What will my future electricity needs look like?” Buying an EV, upgrading to a heat pump heating and air conditioning system, for example.

Hickey: The savings depends on the return on investment analysis, length of stay in the home, total system cost, payment method and what solar incentives are claimed. Can you afford the upfront costs? Do you plan to live in the home long enough? Most homeowners move (on average) after six years. The estimated payoff point for a new solar system until now was approximately seven years. (With) the increased expense of a backup system (battery) and reduction in bill credits for energy given back to SDG&E in the new system, the average payoff point has been estimated to extend to 10 to 12 years.

Many clients do not have the cash to pay for the solar system upfront. Then they must add in the interest rates and cost of the loan for purchasing the system to the overall costs — again extending their payoff point if financing.

The percentage of electricity a home directly uses can also impact long-term savings. San Diego has low net metering rates — if you send excess solar energy to the grid, you only get a small fraction of its retail value back. But if you install a solar battery, you can lessen your grid usage at night and on cloudy days, resulting in higher power bill savings and a faster return on investment.

Del Chiaro: Yes, for most consumers, there is still value in generating your own electricity from rooftop solar. Consumers will have to be more patient in waiting to see their upfront investments pay off or be willing to sign up for a power purchase agreement from a third-party installer, but there are still savings to be had by upgrading your home with solar panels. This is simply because when you have rooftop solar, you are locking in electricity generation for the next 20 to 30 years.

If you sit down and do the math, most consumers will spend $60,000 or more on utility bills over the 20-year life of a solar system. So, when you look at it with a long view, it is still a no-brainer investment. And if you sell your house within that 20-year period, the solar system adds value to the sale.

I should note that if you go for a power purchase agreement, where a third-party company owns your solar and storage system, the upfront cost is irrelevant.

Q. Are certain types of solar installation more suitable or advantageous under the new rules?

Del Chiaro: The simple answer is there is no cookie-cutter consumer or profile for a good solar user. The key is to have a south or west facing roof free of shade, or property that can host a ground-mounted array. The more electricity you use, the higher your savings can be from going solar, but solar works for all different types of consumers. That said, the CPUC has recently made solar for multi-meter properties, like apartments, even worse than it is for single-meter properties like single-family homes. Some apartments can still go solar and benefit, but the commission just made it a lot harder, unfortunately. This goes for schools, farms, strip malls and other multi-meter consumers.

Q. Is it better to upsize from the start or add more as your needs grow?

Teresso: Our experience has been homeowners increase their electrical energy usage after going solar. Because they can now afford to run their AC in the summer, upgrade to a heat pump, or purchase an EV — because the cost to charge that vehicle at home is a small fraction of what it would cost to fuel a gas-powered vehicle.

Del Chiaro: It is best to anticipate your increased electricity usage and size the system for that future. A consumer can size a solar system up to 150 percent of their electricity usage over the previous 12 months. (The 150 percent is a regulatory rule.) While solar systems are modular, meaning you can easily add components — like a Lego set — there are inefficiencies in cost by doing so. You might not have the correctly sized inverter if you upsize, which can cost $5,000 plus installation.

You can also add a battery after the fact without any penalties, but sometimes that also requires a new battery-compatible inverter — which can add extra costs. So, the short answer is, you can always make changes and with solar, it is relatively easy to do so. But it is far more efficient, time and money-wise, to have a good sense of what you want and build your solar system accordingly from the get-go.

That said, I sometimes see consumers overthinking the decision, and that indecision leads to years of foot-dragging. Years in which they could have been saving hundreds of dollars every year.

Batteries, storage, etc.

Q. Can you get away without storage or does that negate the benefits of adding solar?

Hickey: Storing surplus solar energy in a battery, instead of selling it at low prices back to SDG&E, helps to improve the return on investment earlier for clients. If you store electricity in a battery and use it later, you save the full value of each kilowatt-hour of energy.

Without a battery, if you sell excess energy under (today’s) tariffs, you only earn a few pennies per kilowatt-hour of electricity. The current policy pays around 75 percent less for surplus solar energy than (the one before).

Teresso: Today the optimal way to go includes solar plus battery. It’s a larger initial investment and lengthens the return on investment payback period. However, it provides similar utility cost savings benefits to the homeowner as compared to a solar-only system today. The battery can perform additional functions such as backup power when the grid goes down and help create a more resilient California grid through innovative programs such as virtual power plants.

Homeowners under the old net metering compensation system are grandfathered into their agreements for 20 years from the time the system was installed. Beware, the CPUC and some members of the California Legislature have been trying to limit or change those agreements with homeowners. Under the old systems, homeowners would utilize the battery largely for backup power only when the grid goes down.

However, as virtual power plants become more common and the stored energy in the battery more valuable to the grid, customers under the earlier compensation systems will understand and recognize that adding a battery can create additional savings for them versus solar only. Additionally, as the utilities change the time of use, or TOU, rate structures within NEM 2.0, batteries will begin to make greater sense over time as they will receive greater value for offsetting consumption during peak hours over exporting to the grid for NEM credits.

Del Chiaro: If you are a consumer who’s looking at going solar today, under the (current) policy, the amount of time it takes for your solar + storage system to pay for itself is shorter than the amount of time it takes for a stand-alone solar system to pay for itself. So, it is a better deal when you add a battery. That’s all because of high evening rates that batteries help you avoid. However, the downside is that the upfront cost is higher when you add a battery.

While that higher upfront cost will pay for itself eventually, and is therefore still a valuable investment in your home, it is still something that a lot of consumers can’t quite finance or feel comfortable doing. This is why we are having such a hard time selling systems right now. The CPUC, in designing NEM 3.0, thought too simply about the consumer experience. Just because you make the combined technology (solar + battery) a better deal for the consumer doesn’t mean the consumer will be motivated to spend more money. Things that cost more money are often of higher value to a consumer but if you are middle or working class you can’t always spend more. Hence the drop-off in our market.

A battery adds roughly $15,000 to $25,000 to the cost of going solar. That’s a steep upfront cost increase, but the federal tax credit lowers that by 30 percent if you have sufficient tax liability.

Q. What’s a virtual power plant?

Teresso: Virtual power plant programs create a revenue source for the homeowner from the stored energy in their battery. Right now we have about 400 homeowners participating in the program. They’re all getting small dollars for how that battery is used, but this is going to become a bigger and bigger part of disaggregated energy generation, storage and now management.

Getting a better deal

Q. What can a consumer do to get the best deal on a solar installation? Do companies ever run promotions? Do panels go on clearance?

Teresso: All solar companies run promotions from time to time. The best time to invest in a Solar Home Energy Management System tends to be in the “off-season” — toward the end of summer and during winter — as demand tends to fall and contractors look to keep crews busy. If you wait till summer when big electricity bills hit homeowners, demand is usually naturally very high.

Hickey: Installing solar in a year where client tax liability is high is recommended. Examine current federal, state and local incentives. The Federal Tax Credit or Investment Tax Credit, or ITC, is currently 30 percent through 2034 (note: cost of new roof not included). This federal incentive includes costs of panels, wiring, inverter and storage solutions. Adding a storage solution in a later year will also be eligible for tax credit. The excess tax credit is not refunded. Also, (note) that this is not a federal rebate, but instead reduces any tax liability they have in the year that the installation is made. So, if tax liability is low, this will not provide much of an incentive.

Q. What are some metrics or diagnostic questions people can ask as they evaluate contractors and bids? 

Del Chiaro: First, check they are properly licensed and confirm there are no complaints or actions taken against the contractor at the Contractor State License Board. The next litmus test is to see if they are members of a trade association like the California Solar & Storage Association. The best companies in any business are the ones who value the information and quality control offered by trade groups. Lastly, the best decisions are informed decisions based on personalized interactions. You can find just about anything on the internet these days, so I would caution consumers from putting too much stock in the sometimes random but fever-pitch reviews online. The products themselves have extremely low failure rates, are warrantied for long periods of time, and all California contractors must warranty their installation work for 10 years.

Teresso: (A red flag) is if they’re not actually analyzing the homeowners consumption data. If they’re not doing that, then they are not proposing a system for the homeowner that’s actually going to provide value.

Q. What non-obvious mistakes do people make when buying solar?

Del Chiaro: The biggest mistake is not getting three competitive bids from properly licensed and well-informed contractors. From there, the other important thing is to check on how up-to-date your electrical service panel is. Many older homes need to upgrade their service panel before adding solar and storage.

Investing in energy efficiency measures is also important, as the electron not used is by far the cheapest electron. But the flip side of the coin is also true: have a sense of whether you are going to be adding an EV or an electric stove or heat pump in the near future. It is harder, though not impossible, to enlarge your system after it is built.

Teresso: Homeowners tend to overlook the condition of the roof where the solar is going to be installed. If the roof is already old and weathered, it will mean sometime during the 25+ year useful life of the solar system, that roof will need to be replaced. It’s best to make improvements to the roof before the panels are installed, incurring less significant costs later to pay for those panels to be temporarily removed and reinstalled to make way for a new roof in few years.

Q. Anything else consumers should consider?

Del Chiaro: In today’s uncertain public policy market, it is a good idea to consider getting solar insurance added to your purchase. This can give you the peace of mind that you’ll be taken care of even if the contractor goes out of business. Beyond that, I highly recommend all consumers to check out the Solar Rights Alliance, a nonprofit advocacy group dedicated to protecting the interests of solar consumers.

Hickey: At a state level, California offered many solar incentives in the past, but most programs have ended as of 2023. As we understand currently, the only remaining incentive at the state level is the solar property tax exclusion, which ends after 2024. After 2024 (unless the state makes changes legislatively) a solar system addition would increase the value of the home and initiate a reassessment of property tax status.

California also offers the Disadvantaged Communities — Single-family Solar Homes, or DAC-SASH, program. It is only available for specific communities. The other California incentive program is the Self-Generating Incentive Program, or SGIP, that covers energy storage but not solar panels. The SGIP has a “residential storage equity” category for low-income households, medically vulnerable users and communities at risk of fire.

Staff writer Rob Nikolewski contributed to this report.

The San Diego Union-Tribune

A Marine helicopter that went missing late Tuesday in a mountainous area of East County has been located by searchers, but Marine officials haven’t released any information about its five crew members, who they said were still missing.

A statement from the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing said the copter was located by civil authorities near Pine Valley at 9:08 a.m. Wednesday.

Search and rescue efforts were under way. No information was immediately available about the condition of the helicopter.

The military said it was managing the efforts, using assets on the ground and in the air to locate the crew. The search was being done in coordination with the Sheriff’s Department and federal, state and local agencies, according to the statement.

Earlier, a Cal Fire spokesperson said drones from the U.S. Border Patrol were going to be used to search for the CH-53E Super Stallion helicopter, along with personnel in all-terrain vehicles and utility task vehicles in snowy, rugged terrain.

The search began after Cal Fire San Diego received a report around 2:20 a.m. that the military helicopter was missing. The Marine Corps said the helicopter was on a routine training mission.

Crew on three fire engines and an ambulance launched a search based on the aircraft’s last known location, a mountainous area north of Interstate 8 and east of Kitchen Creek Road near Fred Canyon, but the chopper wasn’t found, Cal Fire spokesperson Mike Cornette said.

The National Weather Service said there was a mix of snow, rain and strong winds reported in the greater Pine Valley area around 11:30 p.m. Tuesday, which officials said was the last time the aircraft was heard from.

The helicopter was flying as a strong storm lashed San Diego County, bringing record rainfall, thunderstorms and even a tornado warning to the region earlier Tuesday.

The missing Marines are assigned to Marine Heavy Helicopter Squadron 361, Marine Aircraft Group 16, 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar. They were flying from Creech Air Force Base in Indian Springs, Nev., to Miramar when the aircraft was reported overdue, a Marine spokesperson said.

Earlier, a Cal Fire spokesperson said drones from the U.S. Border Patrol were going to be used to search for the CH-53E Super Stallion helicopter, along with personnel in all-terrain vehicles and utility task vehicles in snowy, rugged terrain.

The search began after Cal Fire San Diego received a report around 2:20 a.m. that the military helicopter was missing. The Marine Corps said the helicopter was on a routine training mission.

Crew on three fire engines and an ambulance launched a search based on the aircraft’s last known location, a mountainous area north of Interstate 8 and east of Kitchen Creek Road near Fred Canyon, but the chopper wasn’t found, Cal Fire spokesperson Mike Cornette said.

The National Weather Service said there was a mix of snow, rain and strong winds reported in the greater Pine Valley area around 11:30 p.m. Tuesday, which officials said was the last time the aircraft was heard from.

The helicopter was flying as a strong storm lashed San Diego County, bringing record rainfall, thunderstorms and even a tornado warning to the region earlier Tuesday.

The missing Marines are assigned to Marine Heavy Helicopter Squadron 361, Marine Aircraft Group 16, 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar. They were flying from Creech Air Force Base in Indian Springs, Nev., to Miramar when the aircraft was reported overdue, a Marine spokesperson said.

The CH-53E Super Stallion is a heavy-lift helicopter used to transport troops and equipment that also can fit on amphibious warfare ships.

In April 2018, four Miramar-based Marine helicopter crew members were killed when a CH-53 helicopter crashed about 15 miles west of El Centro during a training mission.

In that instance, the helicopter had flown out of the Marine base in Twentynine Palms to practice landings in unimproved zones when it crashed. In 2020, families of the Marines who were killed sued the makers and manufacturers of aircraft parts.

Staff writers Gary Robbins and Teri Figueroa contributed to this report.

The San Diego metropolitan area’s annual home price increased 8 percent in November. It was the second highest in the 20-city index for a third month, behind Detroit, which rose 8.2 percent.

Los Angeles-Orange County prices rose 7.2 percent and San Francisco was up 2 percent.

Nationwide prices increased 5.4 percent — its highest level in 2023.

“The main reason prices continue to rise is because inventory is so low,” wrote Lisa Sturtevant, chief economist for Bright MLS, “and there is little to suggest that the supply picture is going to change dramatically in 2024.”

She wrote that it’s possible some high-cost markets could soften in the new year because rising prices with higher interest rates are potentially unsustainable. But, she said buyers in higher cost markets, like San Diego, should not expect drastic price cuts.

The Case-Shiller Indices track repeat sales of identical single-family houses — and are seasonally adjusted — as they turn over through the years.

Zillow senior economist Orphe Divounguy said it’s important to remember that prices were starting to drop around this same time last year. He noted monthly data shows San Diego prices rose just 0.2 percent from October to November.

In the last week of November, the average interest rate for a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage was 7.2 percent, said Freddie Mac. It was down to an average 6.87 percent Tuesday morning, said Mortgage News Daily.

george.varga@sduniontribune.com

Will the Super Bowl, the National Football League’s biggest game of the year, be improved with a big, heavily amplified beat to make the game go boom-chicka-boom, boom-chicka-boom at regular intervals?

The answer will come Feb. 11 when DJ Tiësto, who has been hailed as “the godfather of EDM” — short for Electronic Dance Music — performs as what the NFL is billing as the Super Bowl’s first-ever in-game DJ.

The Dutch disc jockey, mixer and electronic music producer will do a DJ set as the players in the game warm up on the field. He will also spin music — or, more precisely, push knobs on his audio mixing console — during what the NFL is describing as “featured breaks” during the game. He is not the first DJ to perform during the pre-game warm-ups — other DJs have done so at the past five Super Bowls — but will be the first to perform during the game itself.

“Each year, we look to elevate the in-stadium experience for our fans, and with our first Super Bowl in Las Vegas, it seems only fitting to embrace the legacy of iconic DJs in this city by having Tiësto bring his signature style to our biggest event,” said Tim Tubito, director of event presentation and content at the NFL.

“As one of the most influential DJ/producers who helped define the culture of Las Vegas and electronic music around the world, Tiësto is the perfect artist to help us create an unforgettable gameday experience for our fans, players and viewers everywhere.”

It remains to be seen how Tiësto (real name: Tijs Michiel Verwest) fares with the Super Bowl audience at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas — and with the tens of millions of TV and online viewers tuning in for the game.

Once regarded as the king of trance music, an exceptionally unsubtle genre, he subsequently broadened his range to include electro-pop and house music. His most recent scheduled San Diego performance was in June 2023 at the Horizon Festival at downtown’s Waterfront Park.

“I’m excited to be a part of the Super Bowl LVIII!” Tiësto, 55, said in a statement. “And it’s even more incredible that it’s in my favorite place — Las Vegas. Thank you to the NFL for having me. I cannot wait to party with you all at the big game!”

Las Vegas and big sporting events are not new for Tiësto. He DJ-ed at the opening ceremonies of the 2011 Olympics in Athens and, in 2012, shared the title of “resident DJ” with Calvin Harris at the Sin City nightclub Hakkasan, which is located at the MGM Grand.

Tiësto’s estimated $38 million income in 2016 made him that year’s second-highest-earning electronic music artist, according to Forbes magazine’s annual tally. He had topped it in 2012, even though he only earned a comparatively meager $12 million that year.

Will Tiësto collaborate with Usher, this year’s Super Bowl halftime performer, or pre-game performers Reba McIntire, Andra Day and Post Malone?

Only time will tell, but our bet is he won’t.

To be held Feb. 2, this year’s MusiCares will also feature performances of Bon Jovi songs by Jason Isbell, Lainey Wilson, Brandy Clark, Jelly Roll, Goo Goo Dolls, Marcus King, The War And Treaty and Damiano David of the Italian band Måneskin. As an added enticement, the evening will feature a performance by Jon Bon Jovi and the band that bears his name.

Comedian Jim Gaffigan will be the host for the black-tie event. Gayle King and Kylie Minogue have been confirmed as presenters at the 33rd annual edition of MusiCares, whose previous honorees include Springsteen, Stevie Wonder, Joni Mitchell, Aretha Franklin, Dolly Parton and Bob Dylan. Tickets are available through the MusiCares website; see below for more details.

“I’m looking forward to seeing these talented musicians take the stage for the MusiCares gala. I’m honored they are able to be with us for such a wonderful night,” Jon Bon Jovi said in a statement released Friday morning by the Recording Academy, under whose auspices MusiCares and the Grammy Awards are held.

MusiCares was created to provide emergency financial and medical assistance to musicians in need. Its COVID-19 relief effort alone raised $37.5 million between March 2020 and July 2022 that provided assistance to 47,228 music industry professionals whose lives and careers were in peril.

The charitable wing of the nonprofit Recording Academy, MusiCares honors music legends for their work offstage to help worthy causes.

Jon Bon Jovi has quietly done such work with his four-year-old JBJ Soul Kitchen Food Bank and 18-year-old Jon Bon Jovi Soul Foundation, a nonprofit that operates community restaurants in three New Jersey cities. His foundation has also helped fund more than 700 units of affordable housing in 11 states and the District of Columbia, as he discussed in his 2020 interview with the San Diego Union-Tribune.

The Feb. 2 MusiCares concert will take place 41 years after the release of Bon Jovi’s debut album. Several media outlets have reported that former Bon Jovi guitarist Richie Sambora will attend next week’s MusiCares event. It is unclear if he will perform with the band, which he left in 2013. Sambora is part of the upcoming Hulu docuseries, “Thank You, Goodnight: The Bon Jovi Story,” which premieres on April 26.

Tickets are available for next week’s MusiCares Person of the Year gala through the event’s website at musicares.org.

Justin Timberlake is hitting the road for the first time since 2019. The North American leg of his Forget Tomorrow world tour will open April 29 in Canada at Vancouver’s Rogers Arena and conclude July 9 at in Kentucky at Lexington’s Rupp Arena.

The concert trek will follow the release of Timberlake’s new album, “Everything I Thought It Was,” which comes out March 15 on RCA Records. It is his first new album since 2018’s “Man of the Woods.”

The tour will include a May 14 show at San Diego’s Pechanga Arena, where Timberlake also performed in early 2019, and two other California dates — May 6 at San Jose’s SAP Center and May 17 at the Kia Forum in Los Angeles.

Timberlake, who turns 43 next Wednesday, announced his tour on Thursday’s telecast of “The Tonight Show, starring Jimmy Fallon.” The former member of the boy band *NSYNC will be the musical guest on tomorrow’s telecast of “Saturday Night Live.” His tour is being promoted by Live Nation, the world’s largest concert producer.

Tickets for the general public will go on sale next Friday, Feb. 2, at 10 a.m. local time at justintimberlake.com. Tickets for his San Diego concert are priced from $55 to $300 each, plus service charges.

There will be a number of pre-sales, starting with a fan club pre-sale that begins Monday. Existing fan club members will receive a unique code, via email, for access to purchase tickets.

A pre-sale for Citi members will run from 10 a.m. Tuesday until 5 p.m. Thursday at citientertainment.com.

A pre-sale for Verizon customers will run from 10 a.m. Tuesday until 5 p.m. Thursday. For more details visit Verizon Up.

There are also a variety of VIP packages “and experiences,” including tickets for “an exclusive VIP Stage Bar section with in-seat service throughout the night, a specially designed VIP gift item, early entrance into the venue and more,” through vipnation.com.

Tour dates

The Verizon Up pre-sale is not applicable for these dates marked *

Monday, April 29 – Vancouver, BC – Rogers Arena

Thursday, May 2 – Seattle, WA – Climate Pledge Arena

Monday, May 6 – San Jose, CA – SAP Center at San Jose

Friday, May 10 – Las Vegas, NV – T-Mobile Arena*

Tuesday, May 14 – San Diego, CA – Pechanga Arena San Diego*

Friday, May 17 – Inglewood, CA – Kia Forum

Tuesday, May 21 – Phoenix, AZ – Footprint Center

Wednesday, May 29 – San Antonio, TX – Frost Bank Center

Friday, May 31 – Austin, TX – Moody Center

Tuesday, June 4 – Fort Worth, TX – Dickies Arena

Thursday, June 6 – Tulsa, OK – BOK Center

Monday, June 10 – Atlanta, GA – State Farm Arena

Wednesday, June 12 – Raleigh, NC – PNC Arena

Friday, June 14 – Tampa, FL – Amalie Arena

Saturday, June 15 – Miami, FL – Kaseya Center

Friday, June 21 – Chicago, IL – United Center

Tuesday, June 25 – New York, NY – Madison Square Garden

Saturday, June 29 – Boston, MA – TD Garden

Wednesday, July 3 – Baltimore, MD – CFG Bank Arena

Thursday, July 4 – Hershey, PA – Hersheypark Stadium

Sunday, July 7 – Cleveland, OH – Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse*

Tuesday, July 9 – Lexington, KY – Rupp Arena

george.varga@sduniontribune.com

Timing is everything for the NAMM Show, the world’s largest and oldest trade event for the creators, manufacturers, retailers and distributors of music instruments, equipment, technology, sound, lighting and recording gear, and more.

This week, for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic shutdown began in March 2020, NAMM — short for the National Association of Music Merchants — will hold its annual winter summit in its traditional, four-day January time slot.

“The Federal Reserve Board recently announced it will be lowering interest rates, so it’s a perfect time for our industry to come together at the 2024 NAMM Show and make plans for the future,” said John T. Mlynczak, President and CEO of the Carlsbad-based trade organization.

This year’s edition will run Jan. 25-28 at the 1.8 million-square-foot Anaheim Convention Center, the NAMM Show’s longtime home. More than 3,000 brands will be unveiled by 1,600 major and independent companies who come from 101 countries and territories in the $19.5 billion music products industry. Long a members-only event, the NAMM Show is now open to the ticket-buying public at large, although its target audience remains music-industry professionals.

The four-day extravaganza will feature more than 200 concerts and 500 events. These include the 39th annual NAMM Tec Awards, which honor audio professionals and innovative products; the 22nd annual Parnelli Awards, which honor live-events professionals; and the She Rocks Awards, which honor female musicians and will this year be hosted by 2015 She Rock honoree Susanna Hoffs of The Bangles.

For 2023 She Rocks honoree Mary Spender, a British singer-songwriter who attended her first NAMM Show in 2015, the four-day event is a must. Ditto for her 700,000-plus YouTube followers, who avidly watch her online reports from the floor of the sprawling trade show and her year-round reviews of instruments and equipment.

“With the music community on YouTube, the NAMM Show is kind of like our Super Bowl,” Spender said. Along with Grammy-winning musician and producer Mark Ronson, she will be one of four featured guests joining NAMM honcho Mlynczak for the show’s Thursday morning kickoff.

“It’s really joyous to see people at NAMM — now more than ever since the pandemic — that you’ve only been talking to online,” Spender continued. “It’s a great networking opportunity. I get to speak to bands and artists I admire — I interviewed Carlos Santana at the 2020 NAMM Show — and to be part of events that are really meaningful to me. At last year’s NAMM Show, Martin Guitars invited me to perform to at their booth, which was a real honor. This year, I’ll perform on the Martin Stage at 2 p.m. Thursday.”

Record-setting years

The 2024 NAMM Show comes at a time when the industry it represents is eager to move forward from what The Music Trades — a leading global music products industry magazine — recently described as “a post-COVID hangover.” The reference is to last year’s roughly 3 percent dip in the industry’s annual revenues, according to the magazine’s estimate. That course correction comes after 2021 U.S. market earnings reached a record $8.8 billion — which was nearly matched by 2022’s $8.7 billion tally — as reported by the 133-year-old publication.

“Manufacturers like Mattel have seen similar sales increases and declines, so this is not unique to our industry at all. Things have normalized,” said Paul Majeski, the publisher of The Music Trades. “Today, more than half the new guitars sold are sold online, which would have been a laughable idea in the 1990s. And the retail market for used guitars and instruments has exploded.”

The record-setting profits seen in 2021 and 2022 can be largely credited to the pandemic shutdown. Live music events shuddered to a halt in 2020 and through much of 2021, while at the same time sales skyrocketed for guitars, keyboards, home recording equipment and other products consumers could play or learn to use at home. Consumer sales leveled off last year as demand dropped.

Meanwhile, the top 100 concert tours of 2023 soared to a record $9.17 billion, according to Pollstar’ magazine’s Year End Top 200 Worldwide Tours chart. That fueled a dramatic increase in the demand for the audio, lighting and other stage equipment produced by some NAMM member companies.

Also, music performance classes at K-12 schools plummeted in 2020 and 2021, then roared back over the past two years.

Of course, the music industry has always been cyclical. And the not-for-profit NAMM and its annual trade show have been impacted, both for better and worse, by the roller coaster-like surges and dips of the past four years.

NAMM’s staff, which numbered 81 a few years ago, now totals 61. The 2021 NAMM Show was canceled altogether — after California prohibited large public gatherings — and replaced by a free, completely virtual edition called “Believe in Music,” the show’s longtime tag line.

The smaller annual NAMM Summer Session, which focused on acoustic instruments, did take place in Nashville in 2021, but in truncated form. It has been dark since then, but a new annual event to replace it will be announced by Mlynczak at Thursday morning’s NAMM Show opening session.

In January 2020, the NAMM Show attracted a record 115,000-plus attendees. Attendance at the 2022 and 2023 NAMM Shows — scaled back to three days with fewer exhibitors — declined to between 47,000 and 48,000 both years. The socially distanced 2022 edition utilized only 50 percent of the Anaheim Convention Center. This year’s full, four-day edition will fill the entire center and overlap into some adjacent hotel ballrooms for the first time since 2020.

“It’s still a period of transition,” NAMM leader Mlynczak acknowledged.

“I talk to our members every week and at least one member company each day. What we realize, across the industry, is we’re all still recovering from the new pandemic. We don’t know what the new ‘normal’ is, but we do know what we’re dealing with right now.”

The NAMM Show has endured and is set to grown again, while Europe’s largest and oldest annual music trade show, Germany’s Frankfurt Musikmesse, did not make it through the pandemic. The 23-year-old Music China trade show in Shanghai, which NAMM has partnered with since 2017, focuses on domestic Chinese music instruments and the Asian market. Smaller still is an annual event billed as as the NAMM Musikmesse in Moscow, which is geared to the Eastern European market and uses the NAMM designation despite the fact that NAMM has severed ties with it.

Back to the future

That the NAMM Show in Anaheim has been able to pivot back to January is a key to boosting the event’s impact and annual attendance.

“It’s a huge factor to hold the NAMM Show in January again, after three years,” said Tom Sumner, the president of Yamaha Corp. of America, one of NAMM’s biggest exhibitors. His company will roll out 99 new products at this year’s show, 60 more than at last year’s pared-down edition.

“The concert touring world is pretty quiet right now, which helps attendance from that sector of the industry at the show,” Sumner continued. “We also get a much bigger group of music educators who can attend in January than could in April of June. So, bringing people back together in person in January at the NAMM Show — which is the only remaining annual global music industry trade show — is very important.”

That sentiment is shared by Hans Thomann, the head of Germany’s Musikhaus Thomann, one of the world’s largest online and in-person retailer of musical instruments, pro-audio and studio equipment, lighting gear and more. He has attended all but one NAMM Show since the early 1980s, when the event was still held in Chicago. Thomann will be in Anaheim this week with more than a dozen purchasing and marketing managers from his 1,700-person company.

“Coming after the peak holiday season, NAMM for us is like a reset,” he said. “It offers us the chance to get away from the office and open ourselves up to inspiration for the new year. Bonus for us: the weather in Germany in January is usually miserable, so a few balmy days in Anaheim are always welcome!

“The personal contact with suppliers, distributors, artists — everyone in the industry basically — is something that only the NAMM Show offers … We also run into a good number of German manufacturers and distributors at NAMM just because of the draw the show has — many more than in Shanghai, for example — and we appreciate this very much. I have always appreciated the fact that NAMM has always included panels, lecturers, and other learning opportunities. And less tangibly, I love the vibes at NAMM. Musikmesse in Frankfurt was serious business. NAMM is serious business, with lots fun on top.”

The NAMM Show’s return to a full, four-day January time frame isn’t the only major development.

Mlynczak last May became NAMM’s first new president/CEO in 21 years. He is the immediate past president of the Technology Institute of Music Educators and was previously Vice President of Music Education & Technology at Hal Leonard, the world’s largest sheet-music publisher.

A 40-year-old Virginia native, Mlynczak is also a seasoned classical and pop-music trumpeter who still plays professionally when his schedule allows. He has wasted no time getting into high gear in his new position at NAMM.

“John is focusing on what’s important, which is largely making things better for our members and the music market overall,” said Yamaha’s Sumner, who chairs NAMM’s executive committee and was on the search team that selected Mlynczak. “He has set forth plans for the shorter and longer term. He’s definitely a change agent.”

“I’d agree with that,” said Joe Lamond, who last year retired after 21 years as NAMM’s president and CEO. “I’ve known John and worked with him for a very long time — including lobbying together for music education in Washington, D.C. — and I think the world of him.

“Everything within the music products industry and music world is changing, and I felt it was time to really point NAMM into the future. So, I couldn’t be more excited about John’s selection. And I couldn’t be more proud of what he’s done so far and what I think he’ll do in the future.”

For Mlynczak, the future is now — and this week’s NAMM Show provides a key opportunity to help propel the event forward, including by making social influencers a part of the event, not outsiders looking in.

‘Evolutionary agent’

At the event’s Thursday opening session, Industry Insights — previously known as NAMM’s Breakfast of Champions — Mlynczak will unveil a number of new initiatives and stress that NAMM is a year-round organization that supports and provides services to its members year-round.

“In my job as an industry leader, you wont ever do things that everyone will approve of at same time,” Mlynczak noted. “But we make everyone feel cared for and approved of. I see myself as an evolutionary agent more than an agent of change.”

True to his word, rather than shy away from AI — which some see as a major threat to NAMM’s constituents and the way their industry does business — Mlynczak is embracing it. He estimates that about 20 percent of this year’s 200 NAMM Show educational panels and related presentations will include an AI component.

“The NAMM Show started in 1902 and the history of our industry is a history of threats and opportunities,” said Mlynczak, who is embracing social influencers as a vital part of this year’s NAMM Show.

“We have thrived on new threats, dating back to back to bicycles becoming popular. That was a huge threat because kids were riding their bikes and not practicing piano. There were lawsuits filed over (the surge of) drum machines.

“Is AI a threat to our industry, or an opportunity? Long term, it’s absolutely an opportunity. It will allow us to do things we never imagined. Is it perceived, in the short term, as a threat? Absolutely. Our job at NAMM is to help our members get ahead and provide as much opportunity as possible to innovate.”

2024 NAMM Show

When: 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Thursday-Saturday; 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Sunday

Where: Anaheim Convention Center, 800 West Katella Ave., Anaheim

Tickets: $150 for a general attendee and $75 for NAMM members for a four-day pass at namm.org/thenammshow/attend. NAMM+ digital access only is $35, with some virtual events costing extra at namm.org/thenammshow/namm-show-plus.

From the outside, Chula Vista’s Third Avenue post office looks exactly as it has for decades, with its sand-toned column rows and opaque windows.

It’s easy to miss, even from the lobby, that the 56,500-square-foot facility has undergone a major facelift.

Step inside its processing floor and you’ll get a glimpse of the future of the U.S. Postal Service.

“This is not your grandparents’ post office anymore,” said Mayra Elena, a customer relations coordinator at the South County site. “The post office is evolving.”

Behind her were a handful of coworkers enjoying small talk as they laid packages on a conveyor belt and others sipped coffee waiting for the mail carriers to arrive just before their 8 a.m. shift on a recent Thursday.

The typical, early-morning shift of manually scanning and sorting thousands of pieces mail by ZIP code in time to load them up for delivery is now set at a more favorable pace.

“It used to be way more stressful, especially during the holiday season,” said Jacqueline Arias, a distribution clerk. “But right now, it’s only 8 a.m. and we are almost done, when before we used to sometimes finish until 9 a.m.”

It’s all thanks to technology.

At the center of the floor is a large conveyor belt that has already boosted processing by 15 percent since it came online in September. The Chula Vista Sorting and Delivery Center, as it’s now called, is processing an average of 3,100 packages an hour or up to 18,000 a day for three ZIP codes that cover most of Chula Vista and Imperial Beach: 91910, 91911, 91932.

Employees were accustomed to a less ergonomic routine, they said: unloading cages full of packages, bending over to pick them up and carrying them over to the correct area for delivery.

Now, workers are loading mail pieces onto the long conveyor belt, which scans each piece and identifies the bin it has to release it to. From there, bins are routed for delivery. This also gives workers more time to check their large digital screens for errors, such as poor-quality labels on packages.

“It doesn’t take away from the human component,” said Elena. “You still need a clerk to sort things if (the conveyor belt) can’t scan it, if a mail piece falls off, to make sure it’s rerouted if needed. It’s just that now everything gets done a lot faster, more efficiently.”

The processing floor has also been reorganized to have designated, labeled stations for letter carriers to prep for their routes, for supervisors to better communicate orders of the day and to accommodate mail carriers from Imperial Beach. Each mail carrier also uses upgraded scanners that look like smartphones and are less clunky to carry around. They also have improved GPS systems and are user-friendly for timekeeping.

Besides infrastructure upgrades, the facility appears more modern and lively. There’s brighter lighting, fresh paint, new flooring in the restrooms, improved workstations for floor supervisors and even an upgraded lunchroom with more seating and refrigerators.

As the USPS swaps its carrier vehicles for electric ones, the Chula Vista facility is expected to eventually accommodate electric vehicle charging stations.

All these changes are part of the USPS Postmaster General Louis DeJoy’s massive 10-year effort to modernize its delivery network nationwide. The Chula Vista Sorting and Delivery Center is among the first in the country and the first in San Diego County to come online.

The $40 billion plan, now in its third year, is aimed at better positioning the agency to compete in the package business against competitors like UPS and Amazon, which last year opened a 550,000-square-foot sorting facility in Otay Mesa that can process 18,000 packages an hour with the help of robots. The USPS plan also is intended to avoid $160 billion in losses over the next decade as fewer people send first-class mail.

Dubbed “Delivering for America,” the strategy involves raising prices, reducing post office hours, adding more than 60,000 electric vehicles to the agency’s fleet and opening or converting post offices into new sorting and delivery centers. The Postal Service has opened sorting and delivery centers in Athens, Ga., Texas, New York, Florida and Massachusetts. More than 100 new locations across the nation are also being considered. Chula Vista was selected, in part, for its size to accommodate new infrastructure and its location to add 13 routes from Imperial Beach.

“This is the future of the post office,” said Postmaster Henry Roberson, who has worked for the USPS for more than 20 years. He previously served at post offices in San Diego and Imperial Beach. Now at the Third Avenue site, he oversees about 170 employees and 101 routes that cover most of Chula Vista and, recently added, Imperial Beach.

Even with technological improvements and a reorganization of the facility, operations of a post office can be stressful. But even before coming online, the Chula Vista post office heard concerns from Imperial Beach residents about the future of Imperial Beach’s only post office, an 18,000-square-foot facility the USPS leases on Donax Avenue and Emory Street

Duke Gonzalez, a Postal Service spokesperson, reiterated last month that the Imperial Beach site is not closing and that customers will not experience changes to the retail and P.O. Box operations. Customers will still be able to pick up undelivered packages.

Critics of the 10-year plan have said that the conversions will lead to inefficient routes and delays in mail deliveries. The Imperial Beach post office is about 5.5 miles southwest of the Chula Vista location.

Roberson said the key to keeping order is welcoming and adapting to change, as well as respecting others.

“Because at the end of the day, we’re all here to provide a service and we want to make sure we get it right to benefit the South Bay community,” he said.

This story originally appeared in San Diego Union-Tribune.