Published
Wed, Jun 16, 2021, 11:25
- The Association Of Independent Festivals is one of several industry bodies to once again urge the government to commit to financial support.
The UK festival industry remains on a "cliff edge" after Monday's four-week lockdown delay, according to AIF CEO Paul Reed.
In the past 48 hours, multiple music industry bodies, including the Association Of Independent Festivals, have once again urged the government to commit to financial support packages, primarily in terms of an insurance scheme to protect upcoming festivals against Covid-19 cancellations.
"Ultimately, it's a political choice if government doesn't support the sector with insurance at this stage, pushing festival businesses towards another cliff edge," said Reed in a statement. "We also mustn't forget those festivals that have already been forced to cancel or will do so as a result of the delay. They will need a swift and comprehensive financial package to help them survive until the 2022 sales cycle."
In a statement published yesterday, June 15th, the Department For Digital, Culture, Media And Sport (DCMS) said it is still "exploring" the possibility of an insurance package, before pointing to the extra £300 million of Arts Council England funding to be announced shortly.
Greg Parmley, CEO of LIVE, says a portion of this funding should be ring-fenced for live events. "This money needs to get into the industry without any more delay," he said in a statement.
Parmley also expressed frustration at the government's slow approach to planning the return of live events. The results of the Events Research Programme (ERP) have yet to be published, despite promising early reports several weeks ago. The next pilot event, which will see 10,000 people attend Download Festival, is taking place this weekend.
"The government has been quick to talk up the success of the vaccine rollout," Parmley added, "but other countries are now ahead of us in opening up full-capacity events with simple Covid-19 certification processes, including the Netherlands, Belgium and the US."
Without emergency funding, the festival industry will see many more cancellations—as many as 5,000, according to The Independent. We Are The Fair, a large-scale event and festival production company based in London, has so far had four events affected by the delay. These outdoor shows will either be cancelled or postponed.
At this point, We Are The Fair's director, Yasmin Galletti, isn't even sure how helpful insurance will be if and when it does arrive. "I believe it will be prohibitively expensive," she told RA.
A costly insurance policy could cripple organisers already facing price spikes in other areas, such as supply infrastructure. Shortages of toilets, cabins and marquees, many of which are being used by Covid-19 testing centres, has driven demand and prices up.
"A supplier that we've worked with every year for five years that does the toilets for like £50,000 had them on hold for us," said Galletti. "Usually when someone wants the toilets, they come to us and they say, 'oh can you pay your deposit because someone else wants them, but I said I'd give you guys 24 hours because you're there first.' People aren't asking that anymore. We're going back saying, 'oh hi, we had the toilets on hold with you,' and they're saying, 'we sold them yesterday.'"
The festival organisers who have already paid deposits to suppliers are taking a huge risk. Without insurance, there's no safety net if, say, the lockdown is extended again and events have to be cancelled.
"If those events cannot go ahead the system WILL collapse and we will see many liquidations and redundancies, as well as losing some of the most talented event professionals in the world," Nick Morgan, CEO at We Are The Fair, wrote in a piece for LinkedIn.
"The industry is on a knife-edge yet again," he added. "We are still not open, and uncertainty is again rife."
Photo credit: Vishnu R Nair