The road to recovery for live events
This is Christmas, what have you done?
For most of us in events and subsidiary industries, the answer for 2020 is likely ‘not enough’. Many of us started the year well before seeing all the work crumble and disappear in March.
For my part I was in Melbourne working on the first event in a planned series of concerts following the F1 circus into different countries. It was ambitious but we’d negotiated with promoters, commercial partners and venues worldwide; everything looked great. We’d planned and designed our bespoke stage with environmentally friendly touring in mind, we even built it ready for event one – March 13 & 14, Albert Park. On Friday March 13th that was cancelled and, as we dismantled it, we assembled in production offices and bars and watched our summer shows tumble one by one.
Everyone has a similar story to tell. The great bonfire of the live events industry, spring and summer 2020. Many of us were optimistic that some of the later summer events might be rescued and that by the time of peak touring, Oct-Dec, we’d be back to normal. It hasn’t happened and even the 2020 shows that were pushed into corresponding time slots for 2021 are looking dubious. Some of this may depend on your location but, from a UK perspective, there’s little cause for optimism.
Whether large-scale touring can resume, with giant productions being hauled across continents, seems doubtful. As I scribble these words many borders to the UK are closed and lorries litter the M20 and Kent countryside. The solution that they’re suggesting for that problem is the only one likely to rescue the 2021 festival season: testing.
I originally wrote of this a few months ago, since when the UK Government has rolled out wider, general testing for cities such as Liverpool and schools in London. There remain some doubts about the reliability of the ‘quicker’, lateral flow or lamp tests but the standard PCR is highly regarded, and results can, in some cases, be produced in under 2 hours. A promoter’s willingness to hand over half his festival site to become a testing facility is unlikely but, given the pace of vaccine roll-out in the UK, there may be few other options to save 2021.
Whether the Govt will make generalised testing more available in the future months is open to question. There’s no doubt they’d have to sign off on any plans to resurrect live events and give substantial reassurance of no further instantaneous tier systems. One potential route is for Governments to provide ‘insurance’ to promoters as none will be available/affordable commercially. Testing and vaccination go hand in hand towards greater immunity and a combination is essential for us to be able to move forward.
There’s been a lot of kick-back against a ‘Covid passport’ for some justifiable civil liberty issues, but whatever name it goes under there seems little chance that artists, crew or audience will be allowed to stage or attend large capacity events without a recent clear test or proof of vaccination. The sooner we start to plan for this eventuality the better state we’ll be in. The campaign to save 2021’s concerts has started, who’s listening?
Footnote.
This is always going to be a rapidly evolving scenario. The US view has them banking on mass vaccination and a return to live by September:
The vaccination prospect seems optimistic and September feels like a very long way away. Also, how will you know who’s had it?
The Guardian reported of the slow pace of British vaccination which, at current rate, would take about 5 years to cover the country.
We should have additional reservations over how similar industries have been treated. The travel industry lobbied for testing and clearance to travel for months with apparent apathy from the Government. Then the policy was dumped on them with very little notice or detail on execution.