Analysis

TOURING BUSINESS ON ALERT AMID OMICRON WARNING

The global touring business is on high alert following the detection of the new Covid variant Omicron.

While definitive data was still to emerge at the time of going to press, an interview with Moderna chief Stéphane Bancel in the Financial Times – in which he predicted existing vaccines would be “much less effective” at tackling Omicron than earlier strains of the virus – raised alarm bells across the industry.

Speaking to IQ, AEG Presents France head Arnaud Meersseman concedes the fresh developments brought cause for concern.

“I think it’s not looking good, but it’s still early to tell,” he says. “We’re already seeing a lot of requests of acts in Q1 asking to move their shows – the problem is we have nowhere to move them.”

The UK government has reintroduced measures including wearing masks within shops and on public transport in England, coupled with more stringent border controls.

Michael Kill, boss of the UK’s Night Time Industries Association (NTIA), describes the new variant as “hugely concerning” but says he is “encouraged” by the government’s decision not to mitigate against hospitality and night-time economy settings. All adults in England will be offered a booster jab by the end of January.

“Although somewhat tentative about the coming weeks, [we] need to be clear that the sector is still extremely fragile and will not survive further trade-inhibiting restrictions or a potential lockdown,” says Kill.

“The current baseline mitigations within businesses across this industry have been extremely effective. Coupled with the vaccination programme, we must remain confident that we are in a stronger position to deal with variants than many other countries across the world.”

Down under, Australian live music and entertainment industry bodies have responded to Omicron by reiterating calls for a government-backed insurance scheme.

“The emergence of this new variant on the heels of Delta and the rapid global response to limit its spread, is a salutary reminder that this is not over yet,” says the alliance, which comprises AAM, AFA, ALMBC, AMIN, APRA AMCOS, ARIA, PPCA, and Live Performance Australia. “Thousands of businesses, sole traders, and artists are at the mercy of new strains and the ongoing threat of more government lockdowns and reimposition of restrictions.”

The Victorian government recently announced plans to launch a 12-month pilot scheme that will insure up to AU$230million (€148m) of events.

“For this scheme to truly work, however, the industry urged the prime minister to develop a national scheme that reflects the industry’s national economic and employment footprint,” the statement continues. “We again call on the Federal Government to step up and coordinate a co-contribution scheme shared with the states and territories.

“The Australian live music and entertainment sector has long argued that a government-backed insurance scheme is crucial to allowing the sector to rebuild, maintain employment, and rapidly restore its critical economic and cultural contribution to the nation.

“The industry calls on all levels of government to come together and establish a partnership approach with industry, delivering a government-backed insurance scheme and ongoing support.”

“Although somewhat tentative about the coming weeks, [we] need to be clear that the sector is still extremely fragile and will not survive further trade-inhibiting restrictions or a potential lockdown”

Michael Kill | Night Time Industries Association (NTIA)

LA’S STAPLES CENTER TO BECOME CRYPTO.COM ARENA

SPAIN WAIVES VISAS FOR UK TOURING ARTISTS

British artists will no longer need a visa when entering Spain to undertake a short-term tour following months of lobbying from live music trade bodies.

Previously, artists and their promoters were required to file applications for short-term visas entirely in Spanish, provide a host of itinerary details before knowing whether the tour could go ahead, and give proof of applicant earnings of up to nearly £1,000 (€1,100) before ever having left the country.

Touring artists and their production teams were also required to wait for over a month for a decision, making long-term scheduling impossible.

The agreement would not have been possible without the dedicated work from live music inA EG’s Staples Center in Los Angeles is to be renamed the Crypto.com Arena as part of a new 20-year naming rights deal with the Singapore-based cryptocurrency platform.

Reportedly worth $700million (€615m), the agreement was brokered by AEG Global Partnerships and will result in the first name change in the 20,000-cap venue’s 22-year history.

“This partnership represents the fastest-growing cryptocurrency platform and the biggest sports and live entertainment company in the world converging to drive the future of sports and live entertainment, as well as the incredible legacy of this arena for decades to come,” says Todd Goldstein, chief revenue officer of AEG.

Opening its doors in 1999, the downtown Los Angeles arena is home to the NBA’s LA Lakers and LA Clippers, and the NHL’s LA Kings and LA Sparks, and hosts over 240 major high-profile events a year, including 19 of the last 21 Grammy Awards shows.

The move appeared to pay instant dividends for Crypto.com, whose currency, CRO token, surged almost 70% in the aftermath of the announcement, according to a report by Forbes, prompting some observers to declare the deal had already paid for itself more than a dozen times.

dustry trade body LIVE, the Association for British Orchestras (ABO), and their Spanish counterpart, APM (La Asociación de Promotores Musicales) as well as Live Nation Spain.

“We are delighted that our hard work has paid off, and the Spanish government has agreed to lift the restrictive visa process for touring artists, ending the complicated and painful process of expensive visa applications,” says Craig Stanley, chair of the LIVE Touring group. “A whole host of people came together, both here and in Spain, to fix this situation, and this shows what we can achieve when we work together.

“However, that is still only one small part of a very large problem affecting our ability to tour in the round. We are calling on the [UK] government to follow our lead and urgently work to fix the rules with the remaining member states so that we can continue to tour across the entirety of the European Union.”

Twenty other EU Member States have confirmed they offer visa- and work-permit-free routes for UK musicians and performers: Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and Sweden.

TEN DIE IN ASTROWORLD TRAGEDY

Criminal investigations are ongoing into the deadly crowd crush at Travis Scott’s Astroworld Festival, which killed ten people and injured hundreds of others.

All ten victims of the 5 November tragedy, which unfolded during Scott’s headline set at the 50,000-cap NRG Park in Houston, Texas, were under the ages of 30 – the youngest being just nine years old and the eldest, 27.

Event promoter Live Nation released a statement saying they were “heartbroken for those lost and impacted.

“We will continue working to provide as much information and assistance as possible to the local authorities as they investigate the situation,” the statement said.

Houston fire chief Sam Peña told MSNBC the cause of the “unspeakable tragedy” was still being investigated.

“We still don’t know what caused the initial surge of the crowd up towards the stage, but the Houston Police Department is looking at video that was taken from cameras that were present there for security purposes and other reasons, so that’ll be part of their investigation,” he said. “They’ll be dissecting exactly what the issues were and what caused the surge and if there was anything else that contributed to this tragedy.”

Live Nation and Austin-based subsidiary Scoremore announced the launch of a health fund to cover the medical expenses of attendees, while the Texas Task Force On Concert Safety has been established and will be led by Texas Music Office director Brendon Anthony.

Inquiries into the disaster are expected to take “weeks if not months” to complete

Crowded-space expert Professor Chris Kemp of Mind Over Matter Consultancy shared his hopes that the findings would help prevent similar tragedies in the future.

“These reports sometimes contain less than is actually needed because they tend to focus on blame, rather than support in delivery and development,” he tells IQ. “But what needs to be looked at is both the distal and proximate causations – those elements are so important for the industry to learn from – because this is about learning.”

“I can’t cast aspersions about anything that happened to that event because I don’t know and we don’t know. We need to know the underpinning facts. And as those come out, to learn from them and take that on board.”

Kemp outlines the key areas likely to be scrutinised by the authorities.

“It’s most likely going to focus on the planning of the event, the management of the event, the artist’s behaviour, the crowd behaviour,” he says.

Such concert tragedies are infrequent but not unprecedented. Eleven people died in a crush at a gig by The Who at Riverfront Coliseum in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1979, while two people were killed at a Guns N’ Roses performance at the UK’s Monsters of Rock festival in 1988, and three people died at an AC/DC concert at The Salt Palace in Salt Lake City in 1991.

Since the turn of the century, nine people died at Pearl Jam’s 2000 headline show at Denmark’s Roskilde Festival and 21 died and more than 650 were injured in a July 2010 crush in a tunnel that served as the sole entrance to the Love Parade festival in Duisburg, Germany.

“The occurrences themselves are fairly rare,” says Kemp. “But there are thousands of near misses. And it’s about three key elements: security, safety, and service, which are things that you balance to make the event work.”

Hundreds of lawsuits totalling more than $2billion (€1.7bn) have been filed on behalf of concert-goers against Scott, Live Nation and Scoremore, as well as other parties including Drake, who appeared as a special guest during the headline performance.

In his sole public statement since the incident, Live Nation chairman and CEO Michael Rapino wrote on Twitter that his “heart goes out” to all those affected.

“We are doing everything we can to get the families and fans the answers and support they deserve,” he said.

Meanwhile, in an apparent response to the Astroworld tragedy, organisers of Live Nation’s Rolling Loud hip-hop festival in the US are introducing an 18+ age policy for its 2021 California leg at NOS Event Center, San Bernardino, from 10-12 December.

“We welcome everyone to experience our festivals, however, in light of recent events, we will be implementing an 18+ policy specific only to our upcoming 2021 California festival,” says a statement on the festival’s website.

Chris Kemp of Mind Over Matter