JUNE | COVER FEATURE
By Stuart Wood
lan Crofton was just
three hours away from
boarding his flight
to France when the
decision was made to cancel his festival.
“We already had contractors in France, we
already had some staff out there,” he says.
Crofton is Festival Director at Mainstage
Festivals, organisers of skiing/music event
Snowboxx, which takes place in the French
Alps. The last-minute cancellation was back
in March, when the scale of the Covid-19
outbreak was becoming apparent. The team
realised there was no way the event could go
ahead, and pulled the plug. “It was one of the
hardest weeks we’ve had to deal with as a
company,” says Crofton.
Now that the dust has settled, Mainstage
– which is still hoping its Snowboxx New
Zealand can go ahead in September - is
joining a selection of event organisers which
are planning safe, socially distanced events
in 2020 and beyond. But what kinds of
events can we hold, while maintaining a 2m
distance from one another?
One solution is drive-in events. Following
the model of the American drive-in cinema,
these events see attendees turn up in their
cars to collectively enjoy live entertainment
of some kind. Mainstage plans to launch a
series of Americana-themed events in July
called @TheDriveIn, offering outdoor movie
screenings, stand-up comedy, bingo and
silent car discos.
“The audio from these events will be
played through an FM frequency on your
radio, which naturally encourages people
to stay in their car,” says Crofton. “We
have waiters on rollerskates to deliver
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