meaning of "one artist short"

[Lost_Soul]

Hi,

Does On that date we were one artist short and couldn't find the replacement mean that they had lost one of their artists on that date?

Thank you !

Ops... sorry for having posted it in the wrong thread...

[Yankee]

Hi Alex

It sounds as though a certain number of artists had been expected or planned and one specific artist was missing.

To me, the use of the word the (in "the replacement") suggests that they had already determined that one of the originally planned artists couldn't come and had already arranged a replacement -- but the replacement artist didn't arrive.
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[Lost_Soul]

Hi, Amy

Thanks for such a quick responce !

In fact, the part and couldn't find the replacement was made up by me, so now I see that I should have written a replacement because I don't want them to be determined who will be a replacement - the whole situation with a missing artist must be a surprise.

It proves that articles can turn sentences around. It is a pity that in my language there's no articles