September 2021

EVENTS
n Headliner Sophie
Ellis-Bextor was
isolating as her children
had tested positive
“SOCIALLY DISTANCED FESTIVALS ARE EXPENSIVE TO OPERATE AS YOU CAN’T HAVE
NEARLY AS MANY GUESTS ON SITE, AND THAT HAS TO BE PASSED ON TO THE CUSTOMER.
SOME SOCIALLY DISTANCED FESTIVALS ARE CHARGING TWICE WHAT WE WERE FOR A FEW
HOURS OF TRIBUTE ACTS”
nightmare was that the team would all
get pinged and we’d end up with no stage,
or no big top, or no shuttle buses, or no
headliners… you get the idea.
And there was the small matter of
whether we could believe that “Freedom
Day” would happen in July, having been
postponed in June (which is when we
postponed). As it happens, they did grant
it, which seemed a bit odd given that cases
were still increasing, but hey, what do I
know?! I should mention something about
“the science” here, but I’m not a scientist,
and I will bow to their judgement.
AND YET OTHER FESTIVALS HAVE
MANAGED TO GO AHEAD?
Latitude, Carfest, Tramlines etc. went
ahead. These are all much larger,
established events than ours, with more
illustrious backgrounds and much deeper
pockets. All three events had artists pull
out at short notice (“ping”), but the loss
of a major artist was probably felt less for
them given the size of the line ups.
Two of these events were allowed to
go ahead under the Government’s Events
Research Programme (ERP) – in other
words they were being allowed to go on
by BoJo & Co in order that we could learn
how to safely attend mass events in the
Covid era regardless of any restrictions in
place at the time. Euro 2020 (not in 2020),
Wimbledon and the Formula 1 were also
allowed to do the same thing.
Only the results of the ERP weren’t
published.
There had been a test festival in
Liverpool along with a nightclub test and
some other events way back in May under
the ERP. We know now that showing a
negative test or proof of full vaccination
meant very little chance of being infected.
But when we postponed back in June that
report was being suppressed, and it took
Andrew Lloyd-Webber along with various
others threatening legal action to force it’s
publication.
OTHER FESTIVALS ARE TAKING PLACE
THIS SUMMER WITH SOCIAL DISTANCING
IN PLACE. WHY COULDN’T WE DO THAT?
The answer to this is fairly simple – we
don’t have space.
We never planned for Deva Fest to be
socially distanced – to retrofit it would
mean having far less people on site in
order that we could create “pods”. Throw
in that folk haven’t bought tickets in those
“pod” groups (what with not being asked
to) and that we would have had to refund
everyone we didn’t have space for – you
can see it would be a non-starter for us.
Socially distanced festivals are
expensive to operate as you can’t have
nearly as many guests on site, and that has
to be passed on to the customer. Some
socially distanced festivals are charging
twice what we were for a few hours of
tribute acts.
WAS THERE ANY GOVERNMENT
SUPPORT?
I don’t want to make any of this political.
I will leave it to those more qualified to
debate the government’s Covid response,
and some solutions such as furlough and
business rates relief have been a genuine
life saver for certain sectors.
What I would say that the guidance and
support on offer for festivals has been
pitiful.
Other European governments have
underwritten Covid events insurance to
allow festivals to continue planning with
confidence. Around 60% of UK festivals
have cancelled this summer, and many,
including ours, have cited the lack of
such insurance as one of the reasons. The
UK government has finally announced
an insurance scheme, and whilst it is
welcome, it comes too late for us and
many 2021 events, plus the cost and small
print look fairly eye watering. We will,
however, find a way for the scheme to
work for us to put the 2022 event on.
We were invited to apply to round one
of the Culture Recovery Fund but received
a border line insulting rejection letter,
and were then excluded by a rule change
from applying to rounds two or three. We
benefitted from a VAT reduction, which
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