Live music post-covid

...so I've gone against what I said and booked another gig for this year. Gotta be OK by December hasn't it... surely...
 
...so I've gone against what I said and booked another gig for this year. Gotta be OK by December hasn't it... surely...

You’d bloody well hope so. I have Low Island booked for September at the Jericho.
 
You’d bloody well hope so. I have Low Island booked for September at the Jericho.
I thought about that but decided against. Kanadia at the Bullingdon next month as well, which was very optimistic.
 
Well, I've taken the plunge. Following confirmation of the already certainly postponed Green Day tour in May I've booked tickets to a "picnic concert" in September. Everyone gets a square to lay out their blankets and stays in it.

Hope springs eternal, as they say.
 
There is a positively mental email doing the rounds from one of the biggest music promoters in the country regarding a system he has devised to get gigs going again. When I say he’s devised it, he’s basically written it out on an iPad while taking a dump and has then sent it to someone, who is now gleefully showing it to dozens of people through tears of laughter.

Long story short, he’s basically said that people buy their gig tickets as normal, then they have a covid test one week before the show, which if it comes back negative will then give them a code that lives in an app, which is basically like a passport, so that it’s scanned and allows them entry to the venue.

There is no mention of where or how people are tested, how the app integrates with those results, who pays for said testing etc. It also offers no protection or assurances in terms of that person between being tested and the show itself. For example, I could get tested on Monday, be given the all clear on Wednesday, catch the thing on Thursday / Friday (I could’ve even caught it between the test and the results being given to be honest), and then unwittingly spread it across a venue at a gig on the Saturday. It is absolutely bananas, but this man is basically the head of the biggest live music promotions company in the world, so they’re now using this as an official blueprint to start working from. Absolutely wild.

This is before he’s even considered things like what happens to ticket holders who buy a ticket in good faith and then can’t attend, how any sort of refund policy would affect financial projections and profit, if the bands and crew are even willing to travel across land and sea to begin with, what the tour bus situation is etc. Tour buses are already like Petri dishes - if one person gets sick then most of the rest of you catch it within a week. That’s what happens when you’re all breathing recycled air and living literally on top of each other, sleeping inches apart in a vehicle that is a double decker bus / normal coach that carries 12-16 people.

There are gigs and tours being pushed back to spring / summer of next year that people are already quietly saying still won’t be able to happen even then. But I thought the above would at least serve as a bit of an example as to how screwed live music will remain probably until vaccination.
Well, here we are 11 months on from this post, and they’re running test events on a slightly evolved version of the above. The person I referred to as “one of the biggest music promoters in the country” was indeed Melvin Benn, who has been in the news all week telling us that gigs are coming back as normal imminently.

I love looking back like this, and being able to see things that sounded mental actually coming to fruition.
 
Well, here we are 11 months on from this post, and they’re running test events on a slightly evolved version of the above. The person I referred to as “one of the biggest music promoters in the country” was indeed Melvin Benn, who has been in the news all week telling us that gigs are coming back as normal imminently.

I love looking back like this, and being able to see things that sounded mental actually coming to fruition.
Please please please don't f*****g cause a spike 🤞 🤞 🤞
 
Well, here we are 11 months on from this post, and they’re running test events on a slightly evolved version of the above. The person I referred to as “one of the biggest music promoters in the country” was indeed Melvin Benn, who has been in the news all week telling us that gigs are coming back as normal imminently.

I love looking back like this, and being able to see things that sounded mental actually coming to fruition.

Madness madness. People on beaches. Etc
 
Madness madness. People on beaches. Etc
Here we go again. Second and third waves right next to each other a few months after you said it was all nonsense, variants that are proven to have evolved from mass mixing prematurely, three times the amount of people dead now than there were when you claimed there weren’t any problems forthcoming, and you’re still claiming a ‘win’. I would hate to see what a loss looks like.

And you’ve even brought it up while quoting a post from 11 months ago, where the things I said are now happening. Weird, patchwork quilt testing plans to get gigs going, tours and events for this spring and summer already cancelled when people said they wouldn’t be. Fabulous.

Thank God covid never caused us any problems. I feel silly.
 
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Please please please don't f*****g cause a spike 🤞 🤞 🤞
The vaccine should help a lot, but I really wish they would just wait another 6-8 weeks until all adults have at least had first shots, given the confirmation that they slash transmission as well as providing protection. We’re clearly on the right path, we will get out of this and hopefully fairly soon at that, but I have a feeling that this is being done now because Melvin has got Reading & Leeds on the horizon in August. I don’t think it’s geared towards regular shows in the clubs, it’s about making sure the big outdoor festivals happen. And when I say ‘the’, I mean ‘his’.

Hopefully it will be fine, but smaller indoor shows in Academy venues are what I’m most craving.
 
The vaccine should help a lot, but I really wish they would just wait another 6-8 weeks until all adults have at least had first shots, given the confirmation that they slash transmission as well as providing protection. We’re clearly on the right path, we will get out of this and hopefully fairly soon at that, but I have a feeling that this is being done now because Melvin has got Reading & Leeds on the horizon in August. I don’t think it’s geared towards regular shows in the clubs, it’s about making sure the big outdoor festivals happen. And when I say ‘the’, I mean ‘his’.

Hopefully it will be fine, but smaller indoor shows in Academy venues are what I’m most craving.
The worrying thing is that I'm OK, I've had a shot... But I'm 48. Now how old is your average festival crowd? 20s? How many have been vaccinated?
 
The worrying thing is that I'm OK, I've had a shot... But I'm 48. Now how old is your average festival crowd? 20s? How many have been vaccinated?
That’s why I would’ve preferred that we had waited just 8 weeks longer. Get all adults over 18 vaccinated with at least a single shot, so that there’s some sort of protection rather than none for everybody. We’re nearly there - just get it done. It might be fine as is, absolutely, but it feels like more of a risk than just waiting for the last needle to go in. That’s why I think it’s mainly geared towards getting Reading & Leeds on. Get the test events done now, not a month before the festival, to give them the best chance of not cancelling the biggest festival in the country.

If only they would put all gigs on beaches, eh. Everyone knows that covid is scared of flip flops. That’s just science.
 
I am still positive I will be able to attend Bloodstock in August. It's only 12,000 people I believe. Haven't brought a ticket yet mind.
 
So the plan I believe is that all adults will have been offered a vaccine by July (first one for the younger adults I assume)
If the numbers keep coming down (people in hospital with COVID are now under 1500) and all adults have been offered a vaccination, outside gigs and festivals should be pretty safe surely?
The way that the vaccinations appear to be working, the only risk that I can see is other variants coming in that can avoid the vaccines?
 
Truck festival are releasing more tickets on Monday by the way.
 
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