The team at All Points East IMAGE : TOM HANCOCK
not worked in a live music environment for two years come together to deliver a show of high quality .
Operationally , it ’ s hard to single any area out . I thought all the suppliers did a great job in how they met challenges in the planning and then dynamically as they presented themselves throughout the weekend . I tend to judge how things have run based on the frequency that I get told about a problem . Thankfully , I was hardly troubled with anything that needed my input .
What was the atmosphere like around the site among the staff , suppliers and production team ? I think the leadership from AEG ’ s Festival management team was exemplary in setting the right tone of what this meant to our company and how this needed to be articulated throughout the entire operation . Loud Sound then delivered AEG ’ s vision throughout the weekend with the minimum of fuss . The fact the outcome was so good demonstrates the understanding , togetherness and work ethic between AEG , our operations teams and suppliers .
The past few weekends have been the busiest with festivals in two years , are you pretty confident there won ’ t be a significant Covid uplift ? Bank holiday weekend is the largest weekend for the entire leisure and sports industries .
Any uplift in Covid cases , which are inevitable when the total number of people leaving their houses increases , needs to be measured using data not just from the number of people attending Reading / Leeds , All Points East , Lost Village etc , but the 2 million fans watching live sport that weekend , also factoring in that the cafes , pubs , restaurants , betting shops , travel systems surrounding major sports venues will be packed shoulder to shoulder from 9am until 9pm , or even later .
Having been to major sports events in the last two weeks , I refuse to accept there being any greater risk at All Points East or similar events of this format . Rather , I would suggest very strongly that the risk of tens of thousands of fans packed into indoor venues before , during and after major sport carries a higher risk than walking around Victoria Park in the open air for the afternoon .
Leaving major music and major sports to one side , the leisure industry as a whole offers less mitigation and higher risk indoor density environments than outdoor music events .
While not wanting to suggest in any way that these other operators should not be operating , its completely unacceptable that music festivals are being held singularly to account .
What ’ s you view on the Government ’ s insurance scheme – will you be tapping into that in the year ahead ? Our position is that it ’ s not a one-sizefits-all solution and so we may use it for some events , but it is unlikely we will use it for them all . I remain optimistic though that this is a positive step for the industry , but I hope consultations and some refinements will continue to be developed .
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