Just days after the Government lifted its Covid-19 mitigation measures , the live events industry bounced back in style – safely and successfully entertaining around 100,000 people across three major festivals .
For Festival Republic MD Melvin Benn , Latitude was the promoter ’ s third full-capacity event this year , as part of the Government ’ s Events Research Programme ( ERP ), and by far the biggest . In May , Benn oversaw a 5,000-capacity concert in Liverpool ’ s Sefton Park before running the 10,000-capacity Download Pilot at Donington Park the following month . At 40,000 , Latitude was much closer to business as usual for the man who stages some of the UK ’ s biggest festivals each year – including Reading ( cap . 90,000 ) and Leeds ( 80,000 ).
Having first tabled his Full Capacity Plan back in early June last year , which suggested access to events be allowed for people who had taken a Covid-19 test and downloaded the NHS tracing app , it had been a long road back to staging one of Festival Republic ’ s full-size events .
Benn says it was not only a rewarding experience , but for many very emotional too : “ I always describe these events as having an economic , cultural and emotional value . At Latitude – the sound engineers , riggers , lighting guys and scaffolders : their emotions were all over the place ranging from tears of release to tears of joy . It was an emotional build for a lot of people , we had BBC sound engineers breaking down in tears when testing the audio .”
Having been given the green light from government in late June , Benn ’ s team
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