What Concerts Will Look Like Under New Event Safety Guidelines
What will live music look like as a result of the coronavirus pandemic? What steps can music venues take to ensure the safety of both concertgoers and staff as social restrictions surrounding the coronavirus start to ease, and concerts again become a — however different — possibility? The Event Safety Alliance has issued a new guideline answering some of those questions.
With many U.S. states allowing concerts to resume beginning this month, the non-profit concert-business group has published a 29-page guide detailing the best safety steps that venues can take in reopening. First issued Monday (May 11), the Event Safety Alliance Reopening Guide aims to offered focused guidelines at a time when confusion surrounds the correct practices for event professionals to undertake.
Check out some of the suggestions and read the full report down toward the bottom of this post.
The uncertainty for live music mirrors the more general hesitancy surrounding reopening, as mayors nationwide try to decipher the best plans for their states. As reported by Billboard, bars in Kansas are primed to open at half-capacity May 18; live shows in Branson, Missouri, are due to start up again this Friday (May 15). As Loudwire previously reported, Arkansas on Friday will host one of the country's first "socially distant" concerts.
How should venues proceed to keep people safe? That's where the Event Safety Alliance's Steven Adelman and Jacob Worek come in. As the outfit's vice president and operations director, respectively, the pair assembled the instructions to help in dealing with the issue that's much more dangerous than venue staff usually encounter.
"They're going to miss stuff because they never had to think about it before," Adelman told Billboard. "Everybody wants to keep their stuff clean and in good shape, but my goodness, to avoid transmitting COVID-19 and killing people — that's a lot to lay on somebody who's a theatre manager who's used to wearing all black and Dickies shorts 12 months out of the year."
The idea to publish the guide struck the VP as particularly relevant for smaller venues. "As I looked around the empty streets outside my condo," Adelman explained, "it became apparent that the small event spaces that were going to get to open first would not have the foggiest idea how to do that safely."
The safety group put together the guide after consulting with over 400 different concert promoters, venue owners, managers and more. By late March, the coronavirus pandemic had essentially halted all scheduled concert tours. That included moratoriums from big names like Live Nation and AEG.
The Event Safety Alliance's recommended guidelines include, but aren't limited to:
1. Hand-washing every hour, as well as after sneezing, mopping, smoking, eating, drinking and other select activities.
2. Required masks.
3. Sanitizing door handles, sink faucets, soap dispensers, elevator buttons, phones, water fountains, vending machines, trash bins and computers, among many other things.
4. Stagger lines into venues so patrons don't have to cluster in lines.
5. Temperature screening for every customer.
6. Clear protective shields for will-call and box-office windows.
7. Employers must provide paid sick leave. When employees can't stay six feet away from others, they should form work teams "in which people routinely work together, but they keep their distance from everyone else."
8. Educate fans "in a word, everywhere," including mobile apps, ticket-selling sites and social media.
See the full Event Safety Alliance Reopening Guide here.
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