The music industry is fighting to survive! In the face of the global pandemic, our head honcho at Kilimanjaro Live and Myticket, Stuart Galbraith has helped pull together the LetTheMusicPlay campaign. We caught up with him to try and find out what the future holds.

What an earth is going on with live music? 

On March 16th our business stopped dead. Working with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sports (DCMS) and guidance from the government we closed down, not knowing when or where to reopen.

It quickly became clear the social distancing techniques couldn’t work for organised events. Studies show that 2-metre distancing gives a venue 25% of its capacity and 1-metre distancing gives it a 33% occupancy. The financials of putting on events in this scenario doesn’t add up. It generally needs to be a full house or working towards one. So instead of strict 1 metre or 2 metre rules, we need to look at reasonable endeavours and safe practice.

Around six weeks ago, a bunch of us in the industry came to the conclusion that we were being left behind the public mind. We realised we needed to engage a political lobbying group and put together the LetTheMusicPlay campaign.

What is the LetTheMusicPlay campaign?

The Live Music industry has not traditionally had a consolidated voice.

Nobody speaks for stage crew, artists, venues, agents and everybody else involved. With nobody speaking up for us collectively, we put some money in and hired a lobby group.

We hired an independent analysis company and found out the organised event industry is worth £5.2 billion to the country’s GDP and employs more than 220,000 people. If you include theatre, it’s £11 billion and more than 500,000 people.

It launched on July 2nd with a letter to DCSM Secretary of State, Oliver Dowden from more than 1,500 artists including names like Mick Jagger, Paul McCartney and Celine Dion. The letter highlighted the closure of the industry, impending redundancies and companies edging closer to closing. We were looking for a timeline to work towards to save the industry and the jobs within it.

What’s happened since?

Our goals were first of all financial aid to protect jobs and venue closure. Secondly, a timeline to work towards. Thirdly an initiative to waive VAT on tickets and finally a government underwritten insurance scheme.

A week after we sent the letter the government announced that outdoor events with limited and socially-distanced audiences can resume and it seems likely theatre and concert tickets will be covered by the emergency VAT rate change.

But there is still a lot to do. We will have months of campaign and need to start planning now. This is a marathon, not a sprint. But we started with a sprint!

Insurance is a huge issue. You can’t get insurance for your event to happen that includes provisions for Covid-19. If you were to plan a big festival and a second wave happens, you’re not protected. Nobody can take the risk. If a government underwritten insurance scheme existed then you could take the risk on big events again and people working on them will get paid if they have to cancel for COVID-19

What about ideas like ‘gig passports’, ‘mist tunnels’ or technology that might help ?

These are the sorts of reasonable endeavours we are looking at. The problem is everything is moving so quickly, so by the time we have reacted to one thing, the landscape has changed.

At the start of June when Melvin Benn at Festival Republic was talking about gig passports, it required a track and trace app from the government. But now the government’s track and trace app plans seems in disarray, so that concept might prove tricky to implement. And the government won’t allow a private one, so it would have to work with the wider public.

With mist tunnels, yes there’s been a demonstration of some public misting arches and it’s one of the operational endeavours venues are looking at. Whether it will work?  

Doesn’t Vladimir Putin use them (mist tunnels) ? 

Indeed! 

What about public sentiment to going out?

With pubs open, you are going to see a change in peoples’ attitudes again. You can get on a train, take the tube, get on a plane, spend many hours sitting next to many strangers. And it is down to personal choice. Transport companies are now working under reasonable endeavours. But you can’t go to theatre or a gig.

It also comes down to your personal choice and practical worry about coming to them. Should you feel comfortable coming to spend your evening amongst a thousand strangers? And how often should you feel that risk is worth it ?

With illegal raves popping up all over the country it shows some people are taking the risk.

Well this is part of the conversation with the government. That is why we use the term organised events not live events. Live events are still happening.

People are still going to them. But with the unorganised gatherings going ahead and picking up steam, the irony is that all the people that make these events licensed, measured and safe, are in danger of losing their jobs.

Finally, will we see organised live music again this year?  

DCMS had a five-stage plan and when it was originally drafted it had dates prior to publication, which talked about no earlier than October, but they have since been taken out. People are planning organised outdoor events.

It will be dependent again on changes in peoples’ attitudes, more work on reasonable endeavours and I guess seeing what opening the bars and restaurants does to the R rating.

Barring second peaks and waves, we hope to be live again in Q1 next year. But we could hope and plan all we want; it is about what is safe. It will be impossible to weather a storm like this year, going into next year without insurance.

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