This post is a contributed piece by Elizabeth Brandon.
As the entertainment industry in the U.S. prepares to return to in person events with widespread COVID-19 vaccination, many industry professionals are left wondering what safety protocols should be taken to safely return to work. With lineups being announced for late summer and fall 2021 festivals, large scale concerts will be back in the near future. To prepare for this reopening, we need to take a strategic look at how to best prepare while toeing the line of social responsibility.
The event industry suffered major losses in 2020 from cancelled tours, closed venues, and furloughed staff. With a profession that is largely public, the entertainment industry is particularly vulnerable to outbreak and spread. Over the past year, vendors have been forced to reckon with their personal safety versus a paycheck, due to contradictory safety guidelines from the CDC and local government agencies.
Despite the challenges for the industry as a whole, as live music begins to return, there doesn’t seem to be a corresponding increase in ticket pricing for consumers. “As the show season starts, ticket prices have generally not gone up, to the credit of the bands and promoters,” said spokesman Brian Kitts at Red Rocks Amphitheatre in an interview with CNBC. Ticket sales for upcoming shows have done very well in younger demographics as concerts return. A mid April 2021 survey from Bankrate.com found that 26 percent of millennials and 25 percent of adult Gen Zers have tickets in hand for an upcoming live event. Those who are purchasing live event tickets are spending $227 on average for concerts and music festivals tickets.
The pandemic has required many to rethink the norms for their industry, which pivot moves were successful enough to keep long-term, and how to safely get the crowd back together.
Imagining the Post-COVID Industry
In the post-COVID music industry, venue safety protocols will likely be an ongoing discussion. Venues will need to make decisions, in tandem with local public health guidelines, on their safety policies including proof of vaccination, mask wearing, venue capacity, and social distancing. While it’s hard to say currently how these changes will play out with rising local vaccination rates, the industry will need to have a general consensus on best practices with the most up to date safety guidelines.
For music festivals, there’s the factor of bringing together large crowds from different areas together in a contained space. Larger festivals will need to keep in concert with local public health officials to guide their safe return. For some, we could potentially see masks continue as a key part of festival fashion as attendees readjust to being in crowds after a year hiatus. Hopefully for many festivals, the post pandemic industry will call for more sanitation stations and/or high touch surface cleaning to keep a lower impact on local outbreaks as people travel to see their favorite bands. At entry points, symptom checks could be a continued practice or written into entry policies and advertising.
A potential positive aspect from the pandemic will be keeping new traditions, like online sponsored livestreams to access a larger fanbase, increasing direct profits to the artists, and reducing the weight of touring on performers’ physical and mental health. The weight of touring on performers’ mental health has been discussed extensively by GRAMMY U and MusiCares during Mental Health Awareness month in May. Of continued live stream popularity, co-founder and head of talent at First Tube Media Ian LaPlace says, “I think realistically in the next six months we will see more livestreams and people doubling down and digging into the interactivity of them to create more in-depth digital experiences.” Having this hybrid model of virtual and in person concerts will continue to provide artists a greater flexibility for their health, as opposed to the pre-pandemic standard of traveling daily for months on end to increase the number of shows performed next to demand and cut corners to cut down on travel costs for the label. With this hybrid concert model, we can hope to see a better work-life balance for everyone while also keeping in tradition with live performances.
The Synopsis
The music industry is very much alive, just unfolding from a difficult pivot during the pandemic and ready to safely get back to full capacity. There’s been numerous efforts to get us here: the ongoing efforts of the National Independent Venue Association led to Congress passing the Save Our Stages Act as part of the COVID-19 Relief Bill, and the SOS Act helped ensure funding for independent venues across the country facing financial loss from the pandemic. Thanks to these efforts, we can look forward to the return of many beloved local venues as the world continues to reopen.
About the Author
Elizabeth Brandon is a Chicago based freelance journalist and creative, mainly focusing on the intersection of pop culture, arts, and politics. To find more of her work, you can follow her on Twitter @selizbrandon or Instagram @e.lizabrandon.