Our first edition of Friday Focus showcased the return to live, and how different states and countries are handling their return to live entertainment in the face of Covid-19. This edition falls along similar lines, but in particular will look at venues, how they persevered through the pandemic, and their future outlook.
IAVM - the International Association of Venue Management, conducted a survey at the end of 2020 amongst their members examining how Covid-19 impacted their venue. Around a third of the venues surveyed were expected to open in Q2 or in Q3 of this year.
The survey was conducted around the same time the Save Our Stages Act was passed through Congress as part of a larger stimulus bill. That stimulus bill was approved to distribute $11B in SVOGs (small venue operators grants). Many venues expected to receive payments from those grants when the survey was conducted.
Nearly all of those small venue operators are still waiting on those grants 6 months later. Out of the 14,020 venues that applied for a grant, only 90 were approved (0.6%), shelling out $127M out of the $11B available.
Given that SVOGs were approved in late December last year, only having 90 applicants approved and only a fraction of applications reviewed represents a major misstep by the U.S. government.
Therefore, while many venues have just begun to host events this summer, an equal amount are still struggling to get back on their feet without grant payments to help cover labor costs, repair costs, rent costs, in addition to other costs associated with reopening.
Not to mention the rising cases around the world in the face of the Delta variant, it limits the capacity for venues to open. In the U.K., they postponed their re-opening by a month in light of rising case counts due to the delta variant.
Final Focus: Even though many in the U.S. are quick to say that live events are back, for many independent venues, especially those in international markets, the reopening of live events still has to wait a bit longer. Most expect a very soft re-opening to continue through the end of the year, with major tours and festivals returning in 2022.
