Portuguese festivals eye ‘Covid-free bubbles’
Portugal’s music festivals are looking into the possibility of restricting entry to ‘bubbles’ of vaccinated fans as a way of enabling their events to go ahead safely this summer.
A proposal to create infection-free “safe bubbles”, comprising fans “who are already vaccinated against Covid-19 [and carrying] their vaccination records”, was presented to the Portuguese government by the Association of Promoters, Shows, Festivals and Events (APEFE) in a meeting with the minister of culture, Graça Fonseca, on 15 January.
The meeting, also attended by the Association of Portuguese Music Festivals (Aporfest) and the new Association of Show Agents and Producers (AEAPP), also led to creation of of an industry-government working group that aims to find a solution to restarting live entertainment in Portugal in 2021.
Speaking to the Lusa news agency, Aporfest president Ricardo Bramão explained that while the meeting yielded no “guarantees” from government that there could be festivals this summer, “a door was opened” for festivals to present “specific solutions” as to how they could go ahead.
The ‘bubble’ solution, as being explored by APEFE, takes inspiration from hospitals, where a negative Covid-19 test or proof of vaccination is required for certain procedures, says the association’s head, NOS Alive festival director Álvaro Covões.
Speaking to Blitz, Covões explains: “What we are trying to study is the possibility of creating bubbles for events, as is done today in hospitals. To be operated on, you have to be tested, and you may only enter the hospital after you have been tested.”
“What we are trying to study is the possibility of creating bubbles for events”
“Travel is also a bubble,” he adds. “Theoretically, to get on a plane people must all be tested and be negative [for Covid-19].”
The APEFE solution is similar to the yet-to-be-implemented ‘Full Capacity Plan’ introduced last summer by Festival Republic’s Melvin Benn, which would only permit entry to those who test negative for the coronavirus.
The festival bubbles, however, should be even more rigorously enforced in hospitals, where staff are not tested every day, continues Covões.
The NOS Alive boss adds that similar conversations are currently taking place in other countries, including neighbouring Spain. “Barcelona, for example, is very focused on this, both the municipality and the autonomous government [of Catalonia],” he adds, “because they have Sónar and Primavera Sound and they absolutely want to be working at that time, because otherwise they lose another economic year.”
The next meeting – between APEFE, Aporfest, AEAPP and APSTE (Portuguese Association of Technical Services for Events) on one side, and Fonseca, the State Secretariat for Tourism and the State Secretariat for Health on the other – is scheduled for this Wednesday (3 February).
This article forms part of IQ’s Covid-19 resource centre – a knowledge hub of essential guidance and updating resources for uncertain times.
Get more stories like this in your inbox by signing up for IQ Index, IQ’s free email digest of essential live music industry news.
“All our stages are main stages”: Álvaro Covões on booking NOS Alive
NOS Alive promoter Álvaro Covões has told IQ that the 13th edition of the festival, held in Lisbon earlier this month (11–13 July), was among the best in its history – and a further vindication of a booking philosophy that prioritises a diversity of talent over one or two must-see headliners.
“When I designed this festival, I wanted all the stages to be the main stages,” explains Covões, the managing director of Everything is New (EIN), who founded the 55,000-capacity festival in 2007.
“Of course, last year, capacity-wise it would have been impossible to put Pearl Jam, for example, on the second stage [because of its smaller size]. But that’s the only reason we talk about main stages, second stages, third stages: capacity. It’s nothing more.”
That ethos is evident in the quality of the acts who played under cover on the festival’s second stage (sorry), the Palco Sagres stage, in 2019, including Smiths legend Johnny Marr (overlapping with main-stage acts Primal Scream then Greta Van Fleet); critical darlings Idles, who packed out the tent with their brand of angry, socially conscious punk rock (a decidedly less angry Tom Walker, then Bon Iver, played the main stage); and platinum-selling force of nature Grace Jones, who went up against Friday’s main-stage headliners, Vampire Weekend.
“We want people to have good options,” Covões says. “For example, we have Thom Yorke [on the second stage] at the same time as Smashing Pumpkins, Idles and Marina at the same time as Bon Iver – plus the comedy tent, the NOS Clubbing stage, the Fado Café…” In total, he adds, there are more than 40 shows a day across Alive’s seven stages.
“I want people to want to see everything. We don’t want to have a festival where people only come to see the headliner”
“From the outset, I wanted it to be like Disney World,” Covões continues, “with all these different areas. I want people to want to see everything – we don’t want to have a festival where people only come to see the headliner. Because if everything else is shit, people aren’t going to return.”
Since its inception in 2007, NOS Alive (called Optimus Alive until 2014, after the previous name of sponsor NOS Comunicações) has been Portugal’s preeminent annual rock festival, helped by the reliably sunny Lisbon weather, positive reviews in the international press and a low barrier to entry, with three-day tickets priced at just €139. (Competitors include this weekend’s Super Bock Super Rock, which is smaller to the tune of 20,000 people per day, while the Lisbon edition of Rock in Rio alternates with its sister festival in Brazil.)
“We started with three stages; now we have seven,” recalls Covões, who says the festival’s philosophy is to keep adding content while keeping ticket prices low. Sponsorship certainly helps – in addition to naming partner NOS, ‘premium sponsors’ include energy company EDP, Volkswagen, Sagres beer and underwear brand Tezenis, while ‘official sponsors’ include Red Bull, Fnac, Uber and recruitment firm Randstad – as does support from public bodies such as the mayor of Oeiras and Portugal’s national tourist board, which provide funding to advertise to foreign customers.
Covões estimates that NOS Alive accounts for around 30% of EIN’s business, with the rest made up of headline shows (major 2018 events have included Ed Sheeran, Eddie Vedder, Bob Dylan and Rod Stewart, with Billie Eilish, Madonna, the National and Muse set to follow over the winter) and exhibitions such as Banksy: Genius or Vandal?.
He says this summer’s slower European festival season is partly due to several major artists bypassing festivals altogether. “It happens sometimes,” he explains. “Lots of bands this year are choosing to do headline shows. We’ve had Ed Sheeran in a stadium [Estádio da Luz], Eddie Vedder in [Altice] arena – people need to choose what to spend their money on, and everybody wants to see Ed Sheeran…”
“The way we concentrate on our customers – that’s what makes NOS Alive special”
Despite the challenging conditions, NOS Alive 2019 sold out its first and third days – headlined by the Cure and the Smashing Pumpkins, respectively – and was at 85% (40,000) for its second, headlined by Vampire Weekend, which Covões describes as a “very good” result. “We’re a country of 10 million people,” he adds, “and we do a lot of shows. Festivals in Portugal very rarely sell out.”
Additionally, the festival’s international audience continues to grow, with around 10,000 weekend tickets – 20% – being sold to British festivalgoers this year.
The secret to Alive’s success, Covões suggest, is in its focus on people: the event has won the Portuguese Consumer Choice award for best festival every year since 2013, helped by consumer-friendly initiatives such as an abundance of seating and shade, subsidised public transport to the festival site and, this year, a separate area for pregnant festivalgoers.
“If we want people to be inside the festival for eight to ten hours, we have to make them comfortable and happy. For example, I went to [a well-known festival in England] and the toilets were shit, it was cramped, I could only find one place to sit… It’s things like that that makes people prefer seeing shows in theatres and arenas. Whereas we have a 40,000sqm site and over 2,000 seats in the food area alone. And our toilets are great!”
He concludes: “The way we concentrate on our customers – that’s what makes NOS Alive special.”
NOS Alive returns on 9, 10 and 11 July 2020.
Get more stories like this in your inbox by signing up for IQ Index, IQ’s free email digest of essential live music industry news.