Exclude category from WP_Query args not working

After a lot of searching I ended up finding this option that worked: Adding one exclude parameter to the get_terms list at the top. Like this:

$tourDateArtists = get_terms( 
    array(
        'taxonomy'   => 'category',
        'hide_empty' => false,
        'exclude'    => '1',
    )
);

Still not sure why neither 'cat' => '-1', nor the particular tax_query param I was using were working, but the above does, so it’ll do.

error code: 521