Analysis

UK LIVE INDUSTRY HITS BACK AS BRITISH GOV STALLS ON RETURN

Download was able to host 10,000 guests for a weekend camping festival, as part of the UK’s test event programme

In mid-June, the British government confirmed that live entertainment businesses would have to endure another month of closure, after deciding that the 21 June date on its roadmap to recovery should be delayed while it deals with the spread of the Delta variant of Covid-19.

The devastating decision places numerous businesses in jeopardy, wiping an estimated 5,000 concerts, festivals and events from the calendar and costing the UK industry hundreds of millions of pounds in lost revenues.

The music industry, as well as theatre businesses, have repeatedly called on the government to outline the scientific basis for its decision to maintain restrictions on events.

“The Events Research Programme (ERP) pilot events were supposed to be the key to getting back to full-capacity live performance, and we understand that there were only 15 cases out of 58,000 attendees – although government is refusing to either publish the full report or to allow the sector to open up with the carefully planned precautions, which we have been planning and putting in place for months,” says Lucy

Noble, chair of the National Arenas Association.

Despite portions of the ERP economic impact assessment being leaked to the media, the government refused calls from many MPs in a debate on Tuesday, 22 June to release the report in full.

Live music industry body LIVE (Live music Industry Venues and Entertainment) and a range of theatre businesses have now commenced legal proceedings against the UK government to force it to hand over the report from the ERP.

Stuart Galbraith, CEO of Kilimanjaro Live and co-founder of LIVE, said: “The live music industry has been very willing to work with government for the last year to show that our industry can operate safely. But it is intolerable that after running pilot shows for the government’s ERP, at our own cost, we have been blocked from seeing the results, leaving the whole sector in limbo with the real chance that the entire summer could collapse for the second year running.

“Even now, the live music sector has no idea what the rest of the summer brings, and we are left with a complete inability to plan ahead due to the government’s continued unwillingness to provide some form of insurance to enable events to move forward.”

While the lawsuit focuses on forcing the government to release the findings of its pilot programme, the legal papers also criticise the lack of guidance for the forthcoming final stage of reopening, provisionally scheduled for 19 July.

Several UK festivals, including Kendal Calling, Truck, and Let’s Rock, have cited the non-release of the ERP data and lack of guidance as two reasons for cancelling their 2021 events.

The Association of Independent Festivals (AIF) estimates that 51% of all UK festivals 5,000 cap and over have now been cancelled.

“The Events Research Programme (ERP) pilot events were supposed to be the key to getting back to full-capacity live performance, and we understand that there were only 15 cases out of 58,000 attendees”

Lucy Noble | National Arenas Association

Two months out, the 2021 edition of Tomorrowland has finally been called off, after ministers failed to convince the local town mayors to allow it to go ahead.

Despite a last-minute plea from the prime minister of Flanders, the mayors of the towns of Boom and Rumst, where the 70,000-capacity festival has taken place since 2005, are unmoved in their decision not to grant Tomorrowland a permit to go ahead, citing concerns about the safety of local residents.

Although the Belgian government has cleared 75,000-capacity festivals from 13 August 2021, Tomorrowland – which was scheduled for 27-29 August and 3-5 September – sadly confirmed that mayors Jeroen Baert (Boom) and Jurgen Callaerts (Rumst) had decreed that the event, the world’s largest dance music festival, would not be allowed to go ahead this summer.

While Flemish minister of the interior and society Bart Somers said on 24 June that Tomor-

TOMORROWLAND NEVER COMES MVT HONOURS rowland would not have to pay back in full the FRANK TURNER €1.8million aid it received from the Flemish government earlier this year, the cancellation still MVT principals Mark Davyd and leaves the festival in financial trouble, according Beverley Whitrick presented Frank to a spokesperson. Turner with Outstanding “[It] is a lot of money and we are very happy with the support, but it is a drop in the ocean,” Debby Wilmsen tells The Brussels Times, adding Achievement for Grassroots Music Venues Award 2020 atop the O2 arena in London that the festival has already cancelled orders worth €50m. “We were starting up already,” she explains. “The main stage was finished, we had to pay the advances for ordering materials, the delivery of the wristbands had been ordered, 140 people were working full-time to make the festival, artists were booked… Organising a festival like Tomorrowland costs a lot of money, and a lot of things have to be paid in advance.” The cancellation of the festival leaves Pukkelpop (19–22 August) as the last remaining major music festival in Flanders in 2021.

INDUSTRY FACES STAFF SHORTAGES

As live music prepares to get back to business, industry bodies in the UK, the Netherlands, France and elsewhere have sounded the alarm over the impending labour shortage.

UK industry bodies including LIVE (Live music Industries Venues and Entertainment), the Concert Promoters Association, the Events Industry Forum and the UK Crowd Management Association have written to the prime minister regarding what they describe as crippling staff shortages across large parts of the UK economy.

The live entertainment and events associations are joined by trade bodies representing other sectors, including hospitality, food and drink and retail, in calling for government action to help remediate the situation, with the letter suggesting that EU workers could be allowed to return on a short-term basis to help fill the empty roles.

“While the overall picture is complex, one short-term solution with immediate benefit would be to temporarily ease immigration requirements for the large numbers of workers, particularly from the EU, who have returned to their homelands during the lockdowns. This has contributed greatly to the shortfalls,” reads the letter.

“A relaxation of the rules does not need to be open ended but it needs to happen quickly if we are to support the recovery of the UK economy.”

The letter comes as entertainment and hospitality businesses in other countries also claim they are facing a staff shortage as they begin to reopen this summer.

In the Netherlands, live music association VNPF is warning that the industry will likely be short of staff when full-capacity shows restart later this year, with many professionals having left the industry over the past 16 months.

Both venues and festivals are short of people, VNPF director Berend Schans tells NU.nl, with the former sector having laid off an average of 20% of their staff last year and the latter probably even more. “Exact figures are lacking, but because that industry [festivals] has been hit even harder than venues, and they have received relatively less government support, I would say that the situation there is even more serious, especially in view of the lay-offs at Mojo Concerts and ID&T, for example.”

Similarly, France, the United States and New Zealand are all facing post-pandemic labour shortages, particularly in the hospitality sector, and while the issue has been exacerbated by Brexit in the UK, experts have been warning of shortages for months.

The UK Door Security Association (UKDSA) said back in March that venues and clubs could face trouble reopening as planned following an exodus of security staff during the pandemic. In addition to EU workers who have gone home, many qualified door staff were forced to find work elsewhere when venues were closed in March 2020.

According to the Security Industry Authority (SIA), over a quarter of the UK’s total security workforce were non-UK nationals in 2018. The UKDSA estimates that over half of the vacancies in the sector may be left unfilled when business restarts gets back to normal later this summer.

“This will need a government intervention to ensure that the industry has the ability to provide enough staff,” says Michael Kill, CEO of the Night Time Industries Association. Concerning new elements in the SIA door supervisor licence which require more training for door staff, Kill adds: “While the training is welcomed, it is not timely given the current economic situation across most of the sector, and consideration needs to be given to it being pushed back to 2022.”

A TESTING TIME FOR SOME

While scientific data from pilot concerts have helped many European countries get back to business, others are still trying to determine how live events can take place during the pandemic.

Spain’s Mallorca Live will hold a pilot concert later this month using the local health passport to do away with social distancing.

The show, featuring Barcelona-based band Sidonie, will take place on 25 June at Antiguo Aquapark in Calvià, Mallorca, with 5,000 people, all of whom will have their health status certified by the Certificado Digital Covid (Digital Covid Certificate), the Balearic Islands’ digital health ‘passport’.

To gain entry to the venue, all patrons will have had to have received a dose of the Covid-19 vaccine (interestingly, only a single dose is required), or to be immune after having recovered from the disease, or to have had a negative later-flow or PCR test in the previous 72 hours.

Unlike at previous events in Spain, the all-standing audience of 5,000 will not be divided into sectors, but they will be required to wear a mask at all times.

The show was previously organised as a seated, socially distanced event. Promoter Mallorca Live says that those who already have tickets and aren’t comfortable being in the pilot will be offered a full refund.

Elsewhere, in Germany, academics, associations and festivals in Lower Saxony are aiming to prove that open-air dance music events may be held safely this summer with a new pilot project, Back to Dance, which began Friday 18 June.

An initiative of Fuchsbau Festival, SNNTG Festival, local industry associations such as Musikland Niedersachsen, MusikZentrum Hannover and KlubNetz, and Hannover’s Leibniz University, the Back to Dance events will take place over four days (18 June and 2, 3 and 4 July) in four different settings, with scientists from Leibniz University in Hannover and the Hannover Department of Health examining the impact of each format on the risk of infection with Covid-19.

The pilot will look particularly at effects of dancing on the transmission of aerosols, with organisers noting that, for both promoters and fans, dance music events are “simply unthinkable without guests having permission to dance.”

As scientists are testing different formats, masks were compulsory for the first event, on 18 June, while alcohol is available for all shows except those on 2 July. All eight events (two each day) will take place in the inner courtyard of MusikZentrum Hannover (pictured). All visitors must be at least 18 years old and have produced a negative Covid-19 test within 12 hours of attending the event (even those who are already fully vaccinated against Covid-19).

Organisers will make use of Germany’s Corona-Warn-App for contact-tracing purposes during and after the shows, which will feature a mix of live DJs and recorded electronic dance music.

The pilot will look particularly at effects of dancing on the transmission of aerosols, with organisers noting that, for both promoters and fans, dance music events are “simply unthinkable without guests having permission to dance”

EUROPEAN MARKETS SET TO GET BACK TO BUSINESS

Organisers of Pukkelpop are preparing to start the build for the festival’s 2021 edition

France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Austria, and the UK have set a date this summer for the resumption of non-socially distanced shows.

In France, there will be no capacity restrictions on open-air concerts and festivals from 30 June. The news follows sustained lobbying by industry associations and the success of the Ambition

Live Again pilot concert.

As of next Wednesday, concert organisers will be able to do away with social distancing, and the current attendance cap of 5,000 people for outdoor events. Indoor shows, meanwhile, remain limited to 75% of capacity.

All events of more than 1,000 people must ask for attendees’ pass sanitaire, the French health passport, certifying that they have had either both vaccines, or a negative Covid-19 test in the last 48 hours. Masks are advised but not compulsory.

Previously, outdoor festivals in France were limited to 5,000 people, seated, with social distancing equivalent to a space of 4m² for each festivalgoer – restrictions that forced the cancellation of festivals including Hellfest and Rock en Seine.

In Belgium, the country’s federal government has announced that large-scale events of up to 75,000 people may take place from 13 August.

In a press conference on Friday 4 June, Belgian health minister Frank Vandenbroucke confirmed that mass events held in the open air, such as festivals like Pukkelpop (66,000-cap.), would be permitted from that date, provided attendees can present a ‘Covid safety ticket’ (proof of full vaccination) or a negative Covid-19 test before entry.

The penultimate stage of Belgium’s easing of lockdown will commence 13 August, with the final restrictions planned to be lifted from 1 September.

Pukkelpop (19-22 August) is aiming for “full-capacity, 66,000 people a day,” organiser Chokri Mahassine told radio station Studio Brussel, adding that the festival will be “without social distancing and without masks.” Tomorrowland – which was scheduled for 27-29 August and 3-5 September – has been officially called off (see page 11).

In the Netherlands and Denmark, live events will be permitted at full capacity this month provided fans can produce proof of vaccination or a negative Covid-19 test.

The Dutch minister for economic affairs, Mona Keijzer, announced on 11 June that ticketed events in the Netherlands may go ahead at 100% capacity after 30 June as long as attendees provide a vaccination certificate or negative test (the latter a maximum of 40 hours old). Currently, a minimum distance of 1.5 metres is required between each eventgoer.

The new rules initially apply only to ticketed single-day events, though multi-day events and overnight stays will be possible from 29 July, according to Nu.nl.

In Denmark, as of Monday, 14 June, up to 10,000 people are allowed at “public events,” AFP/Reuters reported, thanks to the country’s Covid-19 ‘passport’, Coronapas, which certifies that the bearer has either tested negative for the coronavirus or is immune/vaccinated.

The loosening of restrictions initially applies only to outdoor events, with 11 August the date when any form of assembly limit (indoors or outdoors) is scheduled to attend, according to The Local.

Additionally, there are different rules for music compared to sport and other live events: the live music industry is currently permitted only 2,000 guests for outdoor events and in sections of 500. From 1 July it will be 2,000, in sections of 1,000, and from 15 August it will be 10,000 attendees, in sections of 2,500.

The Danish government is aiming for the Coronapas to be phased out completely by 1 October, when it is hoped enough people will be vaccinated against Covid-19.

Promoters and festival organisers in Austria are also looking forward to the resumption of full-capacity standing events, both indoor and outdoor, which will be possible from 1 July onwards.

Social distancing and masks will not be required, but event attendees will still need to meet one of three rules to gain admission: they must be vaccinated; they must be able to provide a negative Covid test; or they must be able to prove that they have recovered from a Covid infection.

The UK is set to resume non-socially distanced shows from 19 July, after the British government delayed the final stage of reopening by a month (see page 10).