The Day UK Venues Dressed In Red
#WeMakeEvents Campaign Turned Into ‘Red Alert’
Last Tuesday, 11 August 2020, over 300 UK venues turned their lights red to create awareness about the crisis the Live Event industry is currently facing. We, at venuedirectory.com, were delighted to join this national effort and be part of this great campaign by also dressing our website in red for the day.
UK’s Art & Culture sector has been deeply impacted by the COVID-19 lockdown. According to Event Industry News, this particular event sector is likely to never reopen again affecting the UK GDP of over £100Bn to European and U.S production companies.
Peter Heath, CEO of leading trade body PLASA, commented to the same source: “The live events industry supply chain that contributes to every single event in the UK is set to completely collapse, social distancing prohibits mass events, and even if this stopped now, long-term planning for events won’t enable a return until around March 2021. Now the whole industry is coming together to initiate a Red Alert. We have been campaigning for financial support from the government using #WeMakeEvents because the sector is on its last legs.”
It is not very encouraging, the idea of losing over a million direct or indirect jobs due to the incapacity to comply with the repayments, losses for furlough payments and lack of funding to support the industry’s staff.
James Gordon, CEO of Audiotonix, the UK’s largest Pro Audio manufacturer and a key supplier to the events industry, adds: “As the first industry to stop working back in early March, we will also be the last to get our businesses working again, with ongoing social distancing making it impossible to open up live event venues to allow capacities that are commercially viable for all. Without an ongoing sector specific furlough scheme which other European countries have introduced, and other financial measures that will help our freelance workers who make up 72% of this sectors workforce, we cannot secure the long term future of the UK’s leading, internationally respected and commercially contributing events industry.”