INTERVIEW
JUNE 2020
32
What Are The Possible Scenarios When Events Come Back?
The Events industry has been hard hit by COVID-19 and the production companies as part of the chain are going through tough times. The now familiar saying is that, we all need to be prepared for ‘the new normal’. Many are hoping for concerts, sports and other events to come back but for the foreseeable future this will see a slow and calibrated approach. ETA has a quick chat with Damian Bush, Managing Director of the Singapore Sports Hub. The destination is a fully integrated sports, entertainment and lifestyle hub in Kallang, Singapore. Other than holding international sporting events and community-based events and activities, the venues within the Singapore Sports Hub hold concerts as well. As venues are part of the eco-chain for events, ETA wanted to get a perspective from a venue operator as to the new normal. From your organisation perspective what are some of the aspects that organisers have to take into consideration when planning for their event? There are many unknowns at this time and the forward planning for our larger events is 6-12 months. As a business we are looking globally to the events/sports that have just started to emerge again. This doesn’t meant that we just sit back and watch. We are in discussions
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with industry partners and government agencies to work collectively towards the best solutions for our venues in Singapore. Many external factors will affect us but we need to make sure that internally we are prepared but that doesn’t mean we work in isolation. We are multi-use venues so our client base is far and wide which also means global. Social distancing is the key word but this can take many forms when overlaid into different events. Is there a Standard Operational Procedure (SOP) that Singapore Sports Hub will be implementing related to the virus situation when events are allowed to start? Before the events stopped earlier in the year we had already put in place measures for temperature screening, isolation and medical responses. Our community leisure facilities were operating until a couple of months back and we had screening in place and social distancing measures. These same principles will be used to devise our new SOP’s along with contact tracing safe entry systems which we have already put in place for staff.
