In today’s long-awaited announcement on the future of covid restrictions in England, Boris Johnson has announced that as of the 19th of July the vast majority of remaining restrictions will be lifted. As well as being a relief to the population as a whole this means that live music will finally be able to return.

Included in the changes, face masks are becoming voluntary, the now-mandatory QR code scans will be a thing of the past and so will businesses collecting contact details for track and trace. Since the beginning of the pandemic, rules against social gatherings have prevented the £4.6billion live music industry from holding full capacity gigs and events, even when the rules have been at their most lax.

While the reopening of live music is welcome, festivals and the associated professions have continued to repeat that a comprehensive insurance policy for such events must be implemented by the government, or this sector of the live music industry will not be able to reopen fully or recover properly.

 Speaking about the planned relaxation of restrictions and festival insurance, the chairman of the Concert Promoter’s Association today said that “I am delighted that the government has made the right choice today, letting the much-loved live music sector get back to doing what it does best….While we absolutely cannot wait to safely welcome back our fans, we are missing one piece of the puzzle – insurance. We need a government backed scheme to provide the security needed to start investing in events over the coming months, shoring up our industry and stimulating the wider economy as we build back following the pandemic.”

CEO of the Independent Festivals Association, Paul Reed, made a similar point, saying – “We now urge government to finally act on insurance and announce a government-backed scheme immediately. Insurance remains the key obstacle to planning with confidence and there is no rationale for not implementing such a scheme if the government’s roadmap is truly irreversible.”

This sentiment was also reflected by Mark Davyd, MTV’s CEO, who stated that the reopening is “obviously extremely welcome news for millions of live music fans, for artists, crew, venues and local communities who have been deprived of music for so long” But cautioned fans and organisers that “This announcement is hugely important and provides the opportunity to revive live music. It does not, however, change the central mission or the importance of the word ‘safely’. We are re-energising our efforts to work with our fantastic network of grassroots music venues to ensure that what each of them delivers to the public meets the highest standards of covid security and safety within the new guidelines.”

The covid rules are planned to relax on the 19th July 2021 as part of the government’s pandemic exit plan.

Photo Credit: Raymond Flotat