LONDON (UK) – It appears that music festivals in Britain will have to pull the plug for the second year in a row if they do not get the support of the government in order to book acts and contractors, said the industry representatives on Tuesday.
Jamie Njoku-Goodwin, chief executive at music industry trade body UK Music, said event organisers are seeking a date from when they can resume live music and also want the government to support an insurance policy in case the pandemic causes more cancellations.
UK Music said live music, ranging from the famous Glastonbury – the world’s largest greenfield festival – to opera, folk, rock and everything in between, contributed 1.3 billion pounds to the nation’s economy.
Saving the summer in January would appear strange, said Njoku-Goodwin as infections are surging and England has gone into a new national lockdown.
“But actually summer is meant to be the moment where our country is going to bounce back from this pandemic,” he said. “The music industry can play a huge role in that post-pandemic recovery.”
“So we are asking for an indicative date from the government saying when we can restart again safely as an industry, but also asking for an insurance scheme from the government underwritten by the government that will help insure events, so that if they are cancelled there’ll be some sort of compensation,” he said.
Last month, the organiser of Glastonbury Emily Eavis told the BBC that the event was doing everything possible but it was “still quite a long way” from being confident 2021 would go ahead.
“There’s no news this end yet, we haven’t cancelled. Will let you know right here as soon as we have an update,” she said on Twitter.
For Njoko-Goodwin, it is a race against time. “We have a matter of weeks in which we can actually convince major events to hold off cancelling.”
Britain’s Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport said in a statement that it was “working flat out” to support the live events segment.
“Our 1.57 billion pound Culture Recovery Fund has already seen more than 1 billion pounds offered to arts, heritage and performance organisations to support them through the impact of the pandemic, protecting tens of thousands of creative jobs across the UK…,” said a spokesperson.