IN FOCUS: The post-COVID challenge of restarting events

From the heartaches and headaches of cancelling large-scale events during the 2020 COVID pandemic, Tasmanian promotors and planners are adjusting to a new way of organising events.

Whether its marathons or music festivals, events are reemerging. But the “new normal” of event organising involves amplified risks, both financially and physically, and it’s taking some getting used to, with clear communication becoming an even bigger necessity and paramount for success. The “show must go on” if the crew from Vibestown have anything to do with it. The festival organisers managed to conduct one of the last large-scale events before COVID struck - Party in the Paddock - and have also become one of the first to return live music to the masses. Festival Director Jesse Higgs says while they couldn’t manage to stage a New Year’s Eve event as they’d hoped, they thought their fortunes had changed with the rebirth of Launceston’s iconic Basin Concert. For months they worked with the Department of Public Health on a COVID plan for the music festival at Cataract Gorge in late March. “It was two weeks out and we still didn’t have approval despite the on-going conversation for months. Their decision was based upon their concern of the complexity of the Basin site. With the updated restrictions, everyone would have had to be seated on chairs, even on uneven and hilly ground, given the lay of the land,” Jesse explains. “The original vision of everyone comfortably spread out on picnic blankets and even after meeting the original square metre coverage requirements, was deemed unsafe and too complex for the event site and the amount of patrons that we had already coming - this also included strictly no dancing. We would have had to compromise the integrity of the event to continue it at the Basin, our only options were to postpone, cancel or continue on at another location. After reaching out to our audience with the question, the overwhelming consensus was that the show must go on.” At an extra cost of close to $100,000, Vibestown managed the “logistical nightmare” of relocating the event within the space of a week to Inveresk and rebadging it the Basin-ish Concert. In an ironic twist, the COVID regulations actually ensured the Basin-ish Concert went ahead. Had it remained at the Basin, the event would have been flooded out after torrential rain caused flooding of the South Esk River. The East Coast Harvest Odyssey 2021 was not so lucky, it had to postpone after the weather event caused flooding across the ECHO Festival’s Cranbrook site.

But organiser Angela Boxhall is not going to let Tassie’s fickle weather stop her from curating and delivering a program of boutique experiences after the disappointment of cancelling for COVID. The rescheduled event is due to take place as we go to print from April 23-25. Ange recalls the heartbreak of cancelling the 2020 version just two weeks before it was scheduled to take place. “I felt the social responsibility to everyone involved in ECHO and to our patrons. Of course this meant that everyone lost out - the artists, the food suppliers, the patrons, everyone. I had no choice and it was heartbreaking,” Ange remembers. While it’s always been a boutique festival, ECHO 2021 will look different to previous years, running over two nights instead of one to comply with social distancing restrictions. “I had to think quite differently regarding programming - how to roll out concepts safely but effectively and from an artistic viewpoint,” Ange says. “An example of this is the Womb Room. In 2020 this was planned to be coined the world’s largest adult afternoon nap! We were to have a (slightly) naughty bedtime story read and a big siesta - a chance to take some time out and refresh for the evening’s activities. “Now it will have a capacity of just 10 people at a time and is focused on senses - touch, smell and sound. “We have engaged artists to create sensory pieces for the audience to gently enter a soft pink space and lose themselves for ten minutes. Beautiful and immersive yet very COVID safe.” Jesse believes Vibestown was a test-case for Public Health when it came to crowd control. They had to manage the allowance of only 250 people out of the crowd of 3500 to dance at once, with Public Health officials on site during the festival. “It was a confusing message to convey to the audience and we tried to communicate as best we could, but at the end

Photo credit: Cameron Jones Visuals

of night one, with one of our headline acts on stage, it started raining and everyone went a little ‘festival crazy’ and we lost control of the crowd for a song or two. We had to ask for no more dancing for the rest of the night or we would have had to cancel the event. Everyone took it really well considering. “On the second day we were able to introduce our contingency plan of dance zones. Within our four seated area zones, we had another four enclosed dance zones, with the 250 people dance capacity spread throughout the venue evenly within the four areas. It worked great and we were able to have people share the fun with a rotation system managed via our brilliant COVID marshalls. “The whole situation was very surreal, but a great success in the end.” Weighing up the risks and rewards for staging an event is an even bigger challenge for organisers now, they say. “There will always be risks involved in events, particularly outdoors. This is not an industry

Richard Welsh With Half Marathon Winners Brett Robinson and Andrea Seccafien

for the faint-hearted. Of course COVID-19 has amplified the risks in every way,” Ange says. “Everything has cost more, from marketing awareness and materials to engaging artists and presenters for longer durations and more sessions. More time has gone into planning and programming too. “The physical costs are also greater in staffing to maintain social distancing, cleaning spaces, hand sanitiser and so on. “The rewards will always come from bringing community and artists together, to showcase the region that you feel is so special. Creating a platform for fun times, sharing what you love whilst gently educating people means a lot to me.” Adds Jesse: “It’s very important for the moral and happiness of our community and the influx of financial gain into our economy that this undervalued industry continues.” The Tasmanian culture of being “last-minute” ticket purchasers at the best of times, is further highlighted in the current climate. “COVID-19 has made it very difficult to plan and prepare,” Ange says. “People have lost confidence in committing to attending. This is certainly detrimental to events planning and execution. Small events do not have the financial support and larger events are at a high financial risk. Without the assistance of Events Tasmania, ECHO Festival would not have been able to continue throughout COVID-19.” The split of ticket holders for ECHO this year is around 85% local and 15% interstate, with Ange suggesting it wise to focus on the safety-net of locals rather than risking losing ticket sales due to last-minute flight cancellations. “It’s difficult to find the balance,” she admits. For Epic Events and Marketing, the Launceston Running Festival was one of the biggest events post-COVID to proceed and nationally was the biggest mass participation sporting event to proceed. The decision for Race Director Richard Welsh to go ahead late last year was driven by the desire of average participants to enjoy a fun run as well as elite athletes desperate to compete given the cancellation of all major International competition. Financial futures were also at stake. “Our industry was and still is on its knees,” Richard says. “Epic Events and Marketing is a small Tasmanian business and we rely on events like this to continue, but so do all the suppliers. From the people who do our timing to signage, road closures, equipment hire - it’s the whole ecosystem of people who regularly work on these events at they all needed to earn something.” “Our business actually bought the event from Sydney-based Pont3 at the start of 2020, so we were already down to begin with, having paid for the event. “We just re-scheduled it for the last weekend possible in the year and hoped for the best, which happened. We had 80 or so coming from Sydney and if we were a few days later, the Northern Beaches break-out would have hampered that.” The event will return on June 13 after the one-off Summer scheduling. Epic has also since organised the Tasmanian Christmas Carnival series, Hobart Run The Bridge and The Easter Marathon. Despite thousands of people pounding the pavement at once, Richard says the feedback from participants around safety has been fantastic.

“Our post event survey showed that 84.9% of participants felt completely safe and the remainder only had minor issues with their safety at the event. That’s really important to us, as we were the first of hopefully many events to return, so it was imperative that we lead the way safely so governments can feel confident about our industry and participants will continue to enter these great events.”

Extra planning needs to be taken into consideration by event organisers, with the Launceston race taking an extra 300 hours of planning to meet COVID requirements, he says. But it’s better than the alternative of not having events, Richard says. “The Tasmanian Government has developed their three tiered framework for the events industry and so it’s on event organisers to make sure they can deliver events within that framework and demonstrate to government agencies that all steps are being taken to organise events within the framework. “Work with Government authorities and be understanding,” he advises. “Everyone is new to this and there is no precedent for managing events during a pandemic, so everyone from policy setters, to bureaucrats, organisers, volunteers and patrons are learning.” Jesse agrees. “Everyone is making it up as they go at the moment and I’d advise for anyone planning events, Public Health should be some of the first people you are interacting with to get your COVID plan approved, before announcing your event,” Jesse advises. “We are conscious that we have a vulnerable population and how dangerous COVID has been for other places, but at the same time it’s important not to allow a very important industry for the state’s economy to be crippled. Tasmania is internationally renowned for its art and culture and our little island has been attracting large scale attention for it’s brilliant work within the arts industry. It’s really important that this industry can be supported through a really tough time, as we still need to be progressive and continue to build culture as this island clearly has a talent for it. “We will look to this summer and if the restrictions ease, then we will be aiming to have The Basin Concert back at The Basin. Otherwise we are prepared to pivot and will do our best to continue to provide our community with the best events that we can manage to produce in these tricky times, as the show must go on.”