Keep on rocking in the post-Brexit World

Primavera Sound’s Marta Pallarès calls for a solution to Spain and England’s deadlock over visa-free short-term touring… before it’s too late.

“We’ve followed all the rules Driven miles out of our way Paid tons extra to do this properly We’ve had three stamps But now back in England They are refusing to stamp our carnet For some bizarre reason”

Out of context, these lines could sound like a Pulp song complaining about the bureaucratic formalities we common people have to face when going through customs. But this is not a song and it is not funny – although it does come from the wit of a British band. This is the true story of BEAK touring France, shared via Twitter some weeks ago. But hey, at least the French audience was able to enjoy that performance. Here, in sunny Spain, the sun is not shining on British artists anymore. We are not even able to stamp those carnets. Alas, Spain is one of the very few countries in Europe that hasn’t come up with a plan, since 1 February 2020, to solve a very simple problem: how can artists from the UK tour our country without losing all their savings, or their sanity, in endless and highly invasive procedures? If 20 countries all over the EU have found an answer to that, why can’t we?

It feels so long ago but if you are Spanish, chances are that the last gig you attended without a face mask, a negative PCR test or a Covid certificate, was by a British band. Spain is (was?), in fact, the third touring market for British bands. During the final weeks before the pandemic hit, bands like Fat White Family, Stereophonics, and Kaiser Chiefs toured in my country: now, they won’t be able to without lengthy processes and a lot of money spent on working visas.

The ball keeps bouncing from the UK court to the Spanish one and back. Like in a messy divorce where the alleged adults keep fighting and making reproaches, it is always the kids who suffer. In this case, the ‘kids’ being the smaller- and medium-sized bands, as well as the smaller- and medium-sized venues and their teams. In another typical “the winner takes it all” case, artists and concert venues that don’t count on big teams to deal with this level of logistics have to use their own time to do so, taking focus away from what’s really important: making music, promoting it, and bringing it on stage. No more, no less. We warned about it some months ago, that using Covid as a rain check to sideline topics such as gender equality could become a real problem. Not only a problem but a humongous, short-sighted mistake. With Brexit, this has happened already. We knew this would happen, and we sat on our comfy couches just waiting for the world to burn. Well, breaking news: it is burning already. Does this mean we can’t find a solution to stop the fire? I certainly hope we can.

In industries such as digital business, European initiatives like the single digital market have boomed during the last few years. Even though the ideal system has not been fully set yet, we as a continent have understood that we can’t be competitive in a global world if we don’t work together and find common ground and regulations. In music, we should also stop glamourising the lone-wolf attitude. In our hyper-connected world, how on Earth – literally – is it possible that we keep building more useless fences? Regardless of what ballot boxes say, Brexit has proved that we are indeed part of a whole. If a part of the system fails, we all fail… unless we find a way to fix it. And now, we are failing. Thinking ahead and collectively, enhancing European projects and associations, adapting faster to our current reality, and coming up with solutions that work from “us, the continent” to “you, the island” is the only way. Maybe we are a little bit too late for this one, but if our business has survived a pandemic and is able to do so with this political rift, we will be pretty well prepared for what comes next. I hope.

“Here, in sunny Spain, the sun is not shining on British artists anymore”

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