THE SKINNY
Safety First Festival Special
With music festivals in the UK scheduled to return in the coming months, we speak to some of the people working on the reopening of the industry, from festival directors to rapid testing innovators Words: Nadia Younes Illustrations: Beatrice Simpkiss
July 2021 — Feature
P
icture the scene: you’re standing in a field in the middle of a crowd of thousands of people. The sun is shining, you’ve got a cold pint in your hand, and you’re waiting for your favourite band to walk on stage. Twenty minutes later, you’re still waiting. A rowdy group of people position themselves next to you. It starts to cloud over and begins to rain. You begin rummaging in your bag for your mac in a sac. You manage to get it on just in time for a torrential downpour and you’re about to lose your shit. But then the music starts, and that whole chaotic lead-up feels worth it. Unnameable international beer companies don’t do (all) UK music festivals, but if they did they would probably look like this. For many of us, festival season feels like a strange and distant memory, and live music is one of the things many people have missed the most throughout the pandemic. In fact, a recent study conducted by ticketing app DICE found that almost a quarter of the nation agree that the number one thing they’re looking forward to after lockdown is returning to gigs and festivals. Over the last few months the UK Government has been gathering information from its Events Research Programme, which has seen large crowds gather at a number of indoor and outdoor events. The programme has been developed and will be analysed by a science board, made up of experts in public health, ventilation, modelling, testing, ethics and analysis, who have all been brought in to ensure that it generates sufficient evidence to inform the UK Government’s decision on lifting restrictions on large-scale events. In the first phase of the pilot events, Festival Republic were brought in to stage an outdoor gig at Sefton Park in Liverpool on 2 May. Attendees were required to take a lateral flow test 24 hours before the event at a community testing site, and had to produce a negative result in order to enter. Additionally, attendees were also encouraged, but not required, to take an at-home PCR test on the day of the event and five days afterwards to monitor any transmission of the virus. Currently in the second phase of the programme, Festival Republic were brought back to stage a scaled-back version of Download Festival. Operating at an eighth of its usual size, the festival took place over three days, between 18 and 20 June, hosting 10,000 people instead of its usual 80,000, where camping and – crucially to a rock festival – moshing was allowed. — 16 —
