Lack of staff As well as the concern that staff may be a little rusty when they return after more than a year without working on events , there is also the questions of availability . The need to keep an income stream flowing during the downturn has led many event professionals to seek employment elsewhere . Among the sectors responsible for a major talent drain is the booming film and TV industry .
“ In the UK we have some of the best technicians in the world but we are losing many of them ,” says Morgan .
Madden says the NoNonsense Group was fortunate to receive a Cultural Recovery Fund grant in the first round , which enabled it to support its freelance crew through difficult times : “ That has been really important to us . Our team are the heart of our business , they are family , and we have to stick together to survive . Some of the team have found temporary employment elsewhere and they can ’ t wait to be back working in a field doing what they do best . Sadly , others have decided to make a permanent career change .”
Drape echoes the concern that key talent is being drained from the events industry but says that long-term the impact will be minimal : “ A lot of the skill sets in events clearly fit well with film and TV , and a lot of the large structure companies have been delivering for that industry too , but we ’ ve always had really good training available for people who
want to work in live events , and it ’ s a very exciting sector for young people to start a career in .
“ Once we are back to full steam in 2022 , we should be OK . I honestly don ’ t think it ’ s going to be a long-term impact but it ’ s going to be bumpy in the short term .”
Before the industry can think about welcoming a new generation of event professionals , there are the many potential hurdles to consider in terms of the Covid-19 mitigation measures that may be deemed necessary by Government this summer .
Testing times “ I ’ m consistently asked what controls we can expect to see on site this summer ,” says Morgan . “ The only control that ’ s been implemented so far is testing at the Events Research Programme shows . There are no further controls on site so that ’ s great if that ’ s successful . We can emulate that fairly easily .”
He says not an hour goes by without a testing company contacting him offering its wares , and he airs concerns that a high level of due diligence is required on that aspect of the supply chain .
“ Lateral flow testing isn ’ t the challenge , the challenge is how do you verify the results ?”, says Morgan . “ If it ’ s done through the private sector off-site and you can ’ t use the current Government facilities , a fulfilment process is needed . I really hope that isn ’ t the case , because many ticketing platforms are set up to only get the lead purchaser ’ s details so there would be an insurmountable amount of work required .
“ My hope is that all our attendees would go through the NHS testing centres and that the test result can migrate through the NHS app so it is verified and then that would be shown at the gate for verification , and it won ’ t need integrating into the ticketing platform .
“ Lots of people are talking about integrating into ticketing platforms ; I just think with everything else being so
“ Lateral flow testing isn ’ t the challenge , the challenge is how do you verify the results ?”
Nick Morgan , We Are The Fair
challenging we need to keep it as simple as possible . I appreciate you would have to show two apps on the door but otherwise there could be so many challenges with people trying to migrate data into different platforms .”
Drape says pre-event testing and Covid-status certification are among the measures likely to be necessary this summer : “ It would be very naive for anyone to expect that we ’ re just going to go from this huge raft of restrictions to having nothing in place . We can ’ t hold our festivals with social distancing , but we expect there will be other restrictions such as screens on the bars , testing regimes , enhanced cleansing regimes . We are expecting there to be some measures , but until they do the ERP we don ’ t know exactly what those measures will look like .”
Despite the many challenges , it ’ s clear there is no shortage of determination to overcome all but the most insurmountable of obstacles and get shows up and running this year .
Says Drape , “ It is not going to be plain sailing but there is a huge desire from everyone to respond and try to get back to what we all love .
“ With the attitude , experience and approach that we have within the world of events and festivals , I ’ m sure we will find a way through it . There may well be compromises and considerable changes in what our shows look like , but there is a huge appetite among the public to get back out there in front of the stages and as long as we can deliver these events safely , I ’ m sure they ’ ll be successful .”
21