The live event sector needs continued financial support

The live event management and production sector needs continued and targeted financial support, rather than increased furlough costs from July and no further support from October. Here are some of the reasons why…

• Live events started to be cancelled in February 2020 due to COVID fears – prior to the official lockdown.
• Live in-person events have been switched off by the UK Government since 23 March 2020.
• Business Interruption insurance claims are being refused to many event companies, in spite of the Supreme Court judgement which found in favour of the policyholders.
• Furlough costs increased last summer when live events were not permitted to restart, nor were they permitted to restart in October 2020 as proposed.
• Grants paid to the hospitality, retail and leisure industry have not been offered to event agencies, yet we haven't been able to run the in-person events that form part of the hospitality industry.
• 15 months on, still no live events (other than test pilots) are permitted without adhering to the current COVID restrictions, which are too significant for our clients to adopt.
• 21 June awaits, with doubts now cast over whether all event restrictions will be lifted.
• There is significant client uncertainty about when and for how long the lifting of event restrictions will last, with clients not feeling confident about booking future events.
• There is no insurance available against COVID related event cancellations.
• Once confirmed, most business events take six or more months to market and organise, therefore providing limited income for organisers in 2021.
• Overseas/global events are unable to re-start due to international travel being on hold.
• We are an industry largely of SMEs that don’t have the funds to roll on indefinitely without new income.
• Attendees are divided on whether to attend live events and this will take time to restore confidence – a situation made worse by the ongoing variant concerns.
• Budgets for future in-person events are being slashed due to the anticipated reduction in attendance levels, creating significant reductions in income for event service providers.
• Some venues/hotels are still holding onto event deposits paid prior to March 2020, while refunds have been made by event organisers to registered attendees.

I could go on…

Under these extreme circumstances, how can a sector that has been closed throughout this pandemic be asked to contribute more to the furlough scheme in less than a month’s time? How can it continue to retain staff – which we want to do – from October when the furlough scheme ends and client confidence in events is at an all-time low? How can global events take place when international travel isn’t permitted? These are not insignificant issues.

This is a massive sector that was the first to feel the effects of COVID and (in my view) will be the last to recover. The job losses are going to be significant if targeted financial support doesn’t continue to be provided from 1 July to recognise that in-person UK and global events and our sector’s ability to generate income is going to take longer than most other sectors. We are not yet in a recovery phase and there is no way that as an overall sector, we will be back to anything like normal in 2021.

Yes, we can organise online events and will continue to do so, however that is a completely different business model and cannot be compared financially without an exponential increase in client numbers…not easy to achieve during a pandemic! I can (and will) continue to talk up the great work that we are still doing, but I also believe in honesty and the points in the list above are just some of our daunting realities.