resources through the profit-making winter months and with a market that is hesitant to return to indoor venues , partly because the much-publicised nature of outdoor spaces being less risky for transmission , and also take into account the huge resurgence of festivals and outdoor drinking – I think the summer will see a lot of indoor venues at their most financially precarious ,” he says .
As a result , Wolf says he would like to see Government provide a support package that lasts beyond the return of full-capacity trading : “ We are a 1,250 cap space that requires pre-booked talent to sell the volume of tickets
“ We ’ ve even had some clients move events from 2022 into 2021 , which is really positive .”
required to cover the costs of executing the events , that can ’ t be turned around at a moment ’ s notice . We are being told that we will find out for certain if we can go ahead and return to trading at full capacity just one week beforehand .”
Royal Albert Hall artistic and commercial director , and chair of the National Arenas Association ( NAA ), Lucy Noble says it is not financially viable for the 5,200-capacity venue to stage events from 17 May with a maximum audience of 1,000 , so activity in the building in front of audiences will be held off until after 21 June .
Like Wolf , Noble is concerned about the lack of advance notice that venues will have prior to full-capacity events being be allowed to take place .
Emirates Old Trafford sales director Angela Hodson
“ What is crucial to us reopening is having enough notice to remobilise , and what makes this new timeline challenging for venues is that we will only hear one week before if we are able to proceed to the next stage . Sadly , many venues will have to take decisions on seasons and performances a long time before that which means that many performances across the summer could be lost . At the Royal Albert Hall we are very hopeful that we will host a Proms season again this year from the end of July , and perhaps some performances before then .”
Noble says the venue ’ s management is talking to the Department for Digital , Culture , Media & Sport about running pilot events at the venue , and
that several of the NAA ’ s members are also talking to Government about getting involved in the Events Research Programme . She says : “ We are confident that the industry can prove that we can operate events safely and we are ideally placed to track and trace contacts because we know the details of every booking and where they are sitting in the auditorium .”
Noble is keen to emphasise that not all indoor venues are traditionally quiet during the summer months and that many will be able to begin trading in earnest : “ Venues that host mainly rock and pop acts are hugely impacted , and the extension to the furlough scheme until September will be life-saving for many , but there is a whole host of venues who will be fully booked out with other genres during that time . Classical music venues , for example , will have plentiful programming . Venues in that position would just like to get back to presenting live performances and some venues will be able to operate with shorter lead-in times .”
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