News
Leipzig stages indoor concert
experiment with 1,500 fans
ifteen hundred music fans in
Leipzig, Germany, attended a
live rock concert by German
singer Tim Bendzko, 22
August, in the name of a scientific
experiment designed to better understand
how Covid-19 spreads at large events.
Fluorescent hand sanitiser, face masks
and contact trackers for transmitting the
contact rates and distances of individual
participants, were all laid on by researchers
for the audience who gathered in three
separate groups.
The first group aimed to simulate a
pre-pandemic music event, the second
involved hygiene measures and some social
distancing, and the third involved half the
number of people, with everyone standing
1.5 metres apart.
All attendees had to provide a negative
Covid-19 test result prior to the concert
and were mostly young, healthy and not
belonging to any high-risk group.
University of Halle researchers will now
use data from the tracking devices to
investigate how best to bring big live events
Below: Dr
Stefan Moritz
with the tracing
device used
in the concert
back safely.
“We want to study how much contact
the participants have with one another
during the concert – which is still not
clear,” said research lead Dr Stefan Moritz.
“We cannot afford another lockdown.
We have to gather the data now in order to
be able to make valid predictions,” said
professor Michael Gekle, the dean of Halle
University’s medical faculty.
Researchers hope to have results by the
end of the year.
Germany has seen an uptick in Covid-19
cases , recording the highest number of
daily infections since April on 22 August.
“This was our first real applause from
the audience in months,” Bendzko said of
the gig. “The atmosphere was surprisingly
good — it almost felt like a real concert.”
In some countries event organisers
trialled concerts where the audience sit in
small groups and some have used the
drive-through model, usually with PPE
mandatory and temperature checks on
arrival.
UK association survey reports 126,000 industry job losses
survey by the UK’s
Meetings Industry
Association (mia) has
reported that the average
venue value loss reported as a result of
coronavirus pandemic is £2,398,600
(US$3.14m). The association also
estimates that 126,000 events jobs have
already been lost in the UK during this
period.
Over a third of 197 responding venues
(34%) in the survey reported values
between £1m and £5m for lost business
as a result of Covid-19, according to the
research.
The mia has called for urgent UK
government intervention to help the
sector.
Scaling this survey’s findings to
reflect the 700,000 employed within the
industry, the trade association estimates
there has been 126,000 total job losses to
date, with catering, front-of-house and
events/account managers being the roles
most severely affected.
The impact has gone further than just
the venues with almost half (47%) having
had to reduce, or request, more flexible
terms with their suppliers, while 7% are
having to already source new ones
because their regular pre-Covid-19
Below: Jane
Longhurst, chief
executive, mia
suppliers are no longer in operation.
Jane Longhurst, chief executive of the
mia, said that despite events now being
permitted for up to 30 people in
Covid-secure venues, the UK industry is
yet to see the green shoots of recovery.
“Both short- and long-term business
enquiries continue to remain well below
pre-Covid levels,” said Longhurst.
While business meetings of up to 30
are permitted in England, the majority of
venues currently remain closed. Most are
planning to reopen in Q4 with 15%
opting to wait until 2021.
With government intervention,
including the extension of the furlough
scheme and other support, 75% of venues
indicate that 140,000 jobs across the
industry could be saved. “The
government therefore has a simple
choice, to save jobs by offering an
extension, or fund those individuals
through benefits,” said Longhurst.
8 / CONFERENCE & MEETINGS WORLD / ISSUE 108