The Music Venue Trust, a charitable organisation dedicated to securing the existence of public music venues across the U.K., has warned that the Government’s ‘Plan B’ measures represent a financial hammer blow, reporting that the industry has been put “back on red alert”. Likewise, the Night Time Industries Association, a trade union which represent nightclubs as well as live music venues, have expressed concern that the vaccine passport scheme, while not mandating that attendees be jabbed, will prove too much of a logistical, expensive, and time-consuming requirement. Complete Music Update has the story.
Other critics of the scheme are more concerned with logistical matters, in that they question how effective Covid Passport checks really are in restricting the spread of the virus, given the impact the scheme will have on affected businesses, in terms of instigating the checks and likely lost business.
That’s the position taken by the Night Time Industries Association (NTIA), which has repeatedly warned that forced Covid Passport checks will put a big strain on clubs and venues that are already struggling financially after nearly 18 months in partial or complete shutdown.
And, the NTIA argues, that has already been seen in Scotland and Wales, where Covid Passport schemes are already in force.
The trade group’s CEO Michael Kill said last night: “We are disappointed that MPs have today voted into law Covid Passports for nightclubs. The NTIA have consistently opposed their introduction due to the many logistical challenges they pose for night time economy businesses, and what we have seen in Scotland and Wales where they have dampened trade by 30% and 26% respectively”.
“It is very disappointing that, after flip flopping on the issue twice, the Government have decided to press ahead with the plans despite no evidence of their impact on transmission of the virus”, he added. “This is a slippery path we are going down. I would urge the government to listen to its backbenchers now – this far and no further”.
In addition to the specific new rules, representatives for the live music sector are also stressing that the rushed and confused communications that have been coming out of Government since the Omicron variant started to spread are causing as much – or possibly more – damage as the new regulations.
Not all venues in England will have to check Covid Passports. Although any venue or event classified as a nightclub will have to check for vaccine certificates and Covid tests, for gig venues the requirement kicks in at a 500 capacity for unseated venues and 10,000 for seated venues.
And, of course, some gig venues have already been requesting that customers show proof of vaccine or a negative Covid test since re-opening earlier this year.
But even those venues not directly affected by the new Covid Passport rule are reporting a significant downturn in business since Government communications began around omicron, which – of course – has come during a crucial time of the year for venues and night-time businesses.
Based on a survey of the Music Venues Alliance, the Music Venue Trust (MVT) reports that: “A catastrophic drop in attendance, advance ticket sales and spend per head has hit grassroots music venues since the Government announced the implementation of the ‘Plan B’ restrictions last Wednesday, placing the entire sector back on red alert for the risk of permanent closures”.
“Losses across the sector in this first week of this new phase of the Covid crisis hit nearly £2 million”, it adds, “with 86% of grassroots music venues reporting negative impacts and 61% having to cancel at least one event in the second week of December”.
Although artists – or a member of their crew – testing positive for Covid are behind just over a third of those cancellations, people cancelling private hire bookings and poor ticket sales – both as a result of renewed Covid concerns – were responsible for 31.13% and 23.6% of cancellations respectively.
Commenting on the findings of its latest survey of venues, MVT’s Beverley Whitrick says: “This is the busiest time of the year for grassroots music venues, representing more than 20% of their annual income being raised during the party season”.
“Rapid declines in attendance at this time of year represent an exponential threat to the whole sector”, she adds, “and losses of this magnitude cannot be sustained without throwing hundreds of music venues into crisis mode and at risk of permanent closure. A ‘no show’ isn’t just lost ticket income, it’s lost bar take and excess staff costs”.
Worth reading in full.
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I had forgotten about Dakota who called it right from the start. The image I have of California and New York now is so very different to a couple of years back. Such a shame
I heard their Govenor, Kristi Noem, giving a speech about her philosphy, she is one a vanishingly small number of inspiring politicians.
She actually values human freedom and recognises the US constitution as being critical, the very opposite of dementia Joe and the average Republican President.
She is a good speaker and I can remember the early comparisons with the other half of Dakota but it got restricted coverage, which reflects the power and influence of the media, at least outside of the US.
She’s great. She actually seems to believe in small government. Her take on lockdowns seemed to be that she did not believe she had the power to actually impose them. She was probably right. One of her best tweets was “If you’re still worried about covid, wear a mask, stay at home, get vaccinated. We’re not going to mandate anything.”
I don’t think she’s a sceptic about the whole thing in the same way we are, but their approach was to give people information and let them make their own decisions.
She let the sturgis bike extravaganza go ahead
She wanted a lockdown, but her state parliament rejected it.
She then switched sides and tactics eloquently.
Give me DeSantis over her at anytime, politically.
There are numerous studies showing that lockdown policies caused more harm than good.
But it does not matter, lockdown policies (like global warming policies) are in place to serve the globalist political agenda not address any issue they are sold as addressing.
So this study, although it may be rock solid and beyond dispute, will not make a blind bit of difference to our government or any other government.
Because “it’s not about what they say it’s about “
Correct.
Surely this is not the point. The point is Trump, racism, climate change, transgender, taking the vaxx for The Science, and women of colour.
Why the Media Won’t Talk About the New World Order
https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2022/04/13/nwo-programmable-currency-cbdc.aspx?
Why the New World Order Wants Programmable Currency
Analysis by Dr. Joseph Mercola
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OK, I give up: where is Florida on that chart?
I’m glad it is not just me being thick.
I think it’s right on the line near MO, SC, and AR. I think I can just make out FL.
I believe you’re right. Thanks.
For each of these studies, lockdown proponents have one of their own with numbers calculated to show that their policy works. But this is really all irrelevant. The question is not Do lockdowns etc work? but Is it legitimate to impose them on people to accomplish some abstract worthy end? To use a superficially more extreme example, COVID-19 could have been treated like avian flu, ie, cull the infected and all of their close contacts. This would certainly have worked in the sense of eliminating localized outbreaks. Is it legitimate to reduce people to mere objects of disposition of other people because these other people claim to believe that their dictatorship will be for the best of all?
The answer to that is clearly no. That’s not supposed to happen in the kind of society we’re supposed to be living in. Certainly not for a rather mundane, communicable disease which poses no danger for the overwhelming majority of the population. People are not livestock and vets (the head of the Robert Koch Institute, the central German public health agency, is actually a vet) are not supposed to manage them as if they were. That the vets and would-be vets firmly believe otherwise and actually succeeded with putting their grand designs into practice to some degree means there’s something fundamentally broken in our political system.
Ceterum censeo Johnson dimittendos esse.
C’mon, everyone knows the worst performers would have had even worse results had they not taken the actions they did and the best performers would have had even better results if they’d copied the worst performers.
Ah yes. The narrative!