According to the data provided by the scientists working for the Events Research Programme (ERP) – commissioned in February to help ease COVID-19 restrictions – 28 people tested positive out of 58,000 spectators after the pilot events. Indeed, the results come from nine large-scale gatherings, including the Liverpool gigs and Download Festival 2021. The ERP scientists affirmed that the results are “reassuring” but we must proceed with “extreme caution” as only 15 percent of the attendees took a PCR test after the events.
Following the encouraging results, the industry bodies demand to get the entertainment business back on its feet safely. Festivals such as Truck and Kendal Calling already announced their cancellation after the Government postponed the country’s way out of the lockdown restrictions: “The cancellation of Kendal Calling is heartbreaking and, like many other festival cancellations, was entirely avoidable,” Association of Independent Festivals CEO Paul Reed told NME.
The Government is also being criticised for having published the ERP report after a legal action launched by the creative bodies: “The live music and festival industry has spent months participating and investing in pilot events to develop a rationale for how events can safely reopen with the right mitigations in place. Government are now delaying the publication of the ERP report. We call for full transparency and for the release of the report, which will demonstrate how we can safely reopen and inform relevant guidance,” Reed added.
On the same matter, Greg Parmley, CEO of LIVE, stated: “We are pleased that the government has finally published some of the ERP research but it is incredibly disappointing that it took the live music and the theatre industry launching legal action yesterday to force them to do so. We will of course read the report with interest but we are pleased that there were no Covid outbreaks associated with any of the pilots detected, either by testing or by a general increase in community incidence. It is also pleasing to see that the air quality of the indoor events was, in almost all cases, the same or better than being in an office for a short working day.”
Michael Kill, CEO of the Night Time Industries Association, explained: “We are being marginalised by a Government that has no regard or value for our sector, we have businesses suffering, peoples livelihoods destroyed and youth culture excluded. It’s time to give us the certainty that we have been crying out for, and open the night time economy fully, no more excuses.”
On the back of today’s report, I again urge to Government to announce Event Indemnity Insurance, in line with many other countries.
You’ve got artists and freelancers who’ve had no income since March 2020.
A huge supply chain about to go bust.
Time is of the essence. Act now.
— Sacha Lord (@Sacha_Lord) June 25, 2021
