Promoter wins $2.8m over axed Robbie Williams gig
World Touring Melbourne (WTM) has won its multi-million dollar claim against the Australian Grand Prix Corporation (AGPC) over the last-minute cancellation of a Robbie Williams concert in 2020.
AGPC has been ordered to pay A$2.84 million (€1.74m) to the promoter for loss of earnings after a judge found it to have provided misleading health advice that prompted the show’s cancellation.
Williams was set to headline the first World Tour Melbourne event at Lakeside Stadium on 14 March 2020 as part of the Formula 1 weekend, but the Grand Prix and surrounding events were called off the day before amid the looming threat of Covid-19.
WTM sued AGPC for breach of contract, seeking $8m in damages, after alleging it had been deceived by the organisation when it compelled the cancellation of the show by citing health advice supposedly mandated by Victoria’s chief medical officer Brett Sutton.
The case went to trial in May, with Justice Clyde Croft delivering his ruling this morning (30 August).
An email sent to promoters by organisers of the Formula 1 race claimed that Dr Sutton had advised Williams’ concert should not go ahead. However, evidence presented during the trial confirmed that no such directive had been issued.
“There was no reason to suppose that a concert of this nature could not otherwise proceed in any other part of Victoria”
According to the North West Star, Dr Sutton had texted AGPC officials to say that while he supported cancelling the gig, it was ultimately a decision for the organisers.
The pandemic state of emergency declaration, which restricted non-essential mass gatherings, did not come into effect until 16 March – two days after the scheduled show – with many other events proceeding as planned across Australia that weekend.
The court found that AGPC unlawfully prevented WTM from proceeding by depriving its access to the event site.
“There was no reason to suppose that a concert of this nature could not otherwise proceed in any other part of Victoria,” said Justice Croft.
Becky Artmonsky, co-CEO of WTM, says the company is “delighted” the case has been resolved in its favour.
“While the cancellation caused massive issues for our business and investors, this outcome clearly demonstrates that we were right to pursue this claim,” she says. “We had spent years and millions developing our partnership with AGPC to bring major talent to Melbourne and the investment we made in our business to support their goals needs repaying.
“We are grateful to the Right Honourable Justice Croft, the court, and our dedicated legal team for their relentless pursuit of justice in this matter.”
“Today’s ruling by Justice Croft affirms that we were treated unfairly, and we are grateful for his careful consideration and diligence”
Richard Beck, director of global touring for World Touring, adds: “We spent over four years planning our event series with AGPC and invested millions of dollars to produce this show, only for it to be wrongfully cancelled. The stage was set, the venue was ready, and Robbie Williams, along with his band, dancers, and crew, were all in town and eager to deliver an unforgettable performance for the Australian public.
“Today’s ruling by Justice Croft affirms that we were treated unfairly, and we are grateful for his careful consideration and diligence. This decision serves as a reminder that those in positions of authority must exercise greater care when making decisions that impact the live music industry and beyond.
“I’d also like to thank our promoter partner in Australia Paul Dainty, whose support throughout was unending and unparalleled. We look forward to returning soon with our global event series to deliver the incredible shows that were meant to be.”
An AGPC spokesperson said it acknowledged the court’s decision and would review the judgment to determine next steps.
WTM is now exploring further legal action against AGPC regarding the frustration of its exclusive five-year contract with the organisation.
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Covid pandemic – once in a generation?
Just a few short years ago a global pandemic would have seemed to be something which could only happen in a Stephen King novel, or in science fiction – The Stand, or 28 Days perhaps. The ‘Spanish Flu’ epidemic of 1918/20 notwithstanding, the thought of a virus today bringing the world to a halt, resulting in the deaths of millions of people would have seemed incomprehensible, but the warning signs were already there…
There were some near misses, most recently SARS in 2002 and Avian Flu in 2013, but the effects of these outbreaks were relatively contained, and anyone warning of a global pandemic was largely seen as a conspiracy theorist or worse.
The smart money now is on another pandemic happening sooner, rather than later. Covid is not expected to be a once in a generation occurrence, but, and it is a very BIG but – no-one can predict when or how it is likely to occur, although some studies suggest that there is a 30% chance that another pandemic will hit within the next 10 years. This shouldn’t be taken that we have 10 years to prepare ourselves for the next one as it could occur at any time – in 2024 alone, although not widely reported, there have been outbreaks which could quite easily have escalated very quickly, particularly one outbreak of Avian Flu. Fortunately these were controlled.
The live entertainment business fell off a cliff for a period of time, and it is great testament to all of the people in that industry that the business has recovered incredibly well – pre-Covid annual global live music revenues were $28.56 billion, in 2023 revenues were $28.86 billion, with 2024 expected to be even stronger.
As a direct result of the pandemic, insurance losses are estimated to be $44 billion, which makes the pandemic the third largest insurance loss ever, after 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina. Total losses, including uninsured, are calculated to be in the $trillions. It will come as no surprise that insurance companies, realising the sheer magnitude of their losses, retreated to lick their wounds, then applied huge rate hikes, and exclusions to coverage for almost anything Covid-related.
“If an insurance policy provides cover for the non-appearance of an artist due to illness, why should Covid continue to be excluded?”
Non-Appearance insurance and Event Cancellation insurance are essential for savvy promoters, managers, artists and almost every business involved in the staging of live events. So much investment, or potential revenue could be riding on a tour, or even one show – the values can be staggering – the Taylor Swift tour grossed over $1 billion. But since Covid, everyone has had to accept that insurance for this risk – the one that got up and punched the industry on the nose so badly that for some, it was a knock out blow – is one that they have to shoulder themselves. Should insurers now be doing more to offer protection for this?
Well, yes actually, and there are some extremely innovative solutions available now using parametrics, but these solutions really offer balance sheet protection for major corporations rather than for a show or a tour, and the cost is serious – minimum premiums are at least $100k, if not more.
Covid is now part of our lives – most of us consider it to be akin to flu, and if an insurance policy provides cover for the non-appearance of an artist due to illness, why should Covid continue to be excluded?
We’re making headway. Some of the insurers we work with have agreed tentatively to offer cover when an artist cancels a show because they’re suffering from Covid, but there are limitations – the number of shows which can be affected is limited, as is the monetary amount.
It’s not a total solution – that is a very long way off, but it’s a step forward, and every step forward is a step in the right direction for the industry.
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Metallica’s Covid insurance lawsuit rejected
California’s court of appeals has dismissed Metallica’s lawsuit demanding more than $3 million (€2.75m) in losses for concerts cancelled due to the pandemic.
The band sued Lloyd’s of London over six axed South American dates in 2020, saying they had acquired a standard cancellation, abandonment and non-appearance insurance policy to cover their losses if any of the tour was postponed or cancelled.
But Justice Maria Stratton ruled the shows were not covered by Metallica’s insurance policy because of an exclusion in the contract for any losses stemming from “communicable diseases”, reports Billboard.
The group had argued the case should have gone to trial, as a jury could have decided the gigs were cancelled for non-Covid reasons. But Stratton, who bizarrely quoted Taylor Swift in her ruling, said it was “absurd to think that government closures were not the result of Covid-19″.
“To paraphrase Taylor Swift, ‘We were there. We remember it all too well’”
“To paraphrase Taylor Swift, ‘We were there. We remember it all too well,’” she wrote. “There was no vaccine against Covid-19 in March 2020 and no drugs to treat it. Ventilators were in short supply. N-95 masks were all but non-existent. Patients were being treated in tents in hospital parking lots.
“The mortality rate of Covid-19 was unknown, but to give just one example of the potential fatality rate, by late March, 2020, New York City was using refrigerated trucks as temporary morgues. People were terrified.”
Lloyd’s has not commented on the lawsuit, except to point out that it is not an insurance company, but rather oversees and regulates a market of independent insurers.
Meanwhile, a lawsuit filed by Live Nation in 2021 against insurer Factory Mutual for failing to cover its “unprecedented” losses as a result of the concert business shutdown, is still pending.
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Strong bounceback for Danish concert business
The Danish concert business has bounced back to near pre-pandemic attendance levels according to newly released figures, but several venues say they have suffered a drop in ticket sales.
The latest publication by Statistics Denmark reveals the number of concertgoers reached 7.4 million in 2022 – close to the 7.5m and 8.2m reported in 2018 and 2019, respectively. The total had dipped to 2.8m in the Covid-ravaged years of 2020 and 2021, according to data registered with national collection society KODA.
While trade body Dansk Live welcomes the positive momentum, it notes that several of its members have reported a downturn in ticket sales, with the situation remaining unchanged as of spring 2023.
“It bodes very well for the future in the live sector and shows that we have come back well after a few years which hit the organisers hard”
“It is very good news that the figures for 2022 are so positive,” says Dansk Live director Esben Marcher. “It bodes very well for the future in the live sector and shows that we have come back well after a few years which hit the organisers hard. However, we must not forget that there are still venues that experienced challenges in ticket sales as recently as spring 2023.”
In 2019, Denmark’s regional venues had 700,000 fans for 4,600 concerts, compared to 530,000 guests at 3,900 gigs last year. The same trend applied to the country’s other venues, where there were 850,000 concertgoers at 6,900 shows in 2019, which fell to 630,000 guests at 4,400 concerts in 2022.
The country’s music festivals fared better, however, attracting 1.3m guests in 2022, up slightly from 1.2m in the last pre-pandemic year.
“We hope that the concertgoers really return to the places that have experienced the number of visitors as sluggish”
“We hope that the concertgoers really return to the places that have experienced the number of visitors as sluggish, and that they too can again reach the same level as before corona,” adds Marcher. “In any case, we will follow developments closely.”
A previous Statistics Denmark study indicated the number of young people attending concerts in the country has increased significantly on pre-pandemic levels. The Culture Habit Survey showed that one in four of the population attended a gig in the second quarter of 2022, with 38% coming from the youngest age group (16-24 years) – up from 25% in 2019.
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Attendances up for Dutch live business
The concert business in the Netherlands has reported a post-pandemic resurgence, but concerns over rising costs remain, according to the Association of Dutch Music Venues and Festivals’ (VNPF).
The newly published Poppodia and Festivals in Figures 2022 report shows venues and festivals received a total of 7.6 million visits in 2022, compared to 883,000 in 2021 and 8.6m in the last pre-Covid year of 2019, despite an “abnormal” year for the business, with corona restrictions not lifted until three months in.
Employment in the industry was also up, with music venues employing more than 8,000 staff last year – approximately 3% more than in 2019 – with more paid working hours and less voluntary work.
The statistics are based on figures from 48 music venues and 55 festivals. However, the report notes that the total expenditure of those venues increased by 8% in 2022 compared to 2019, even though fewer activities were organised in Q1 2022 due to the strict Covid measures.
Chief among its stated concerns are high cost increases for venues, including for personnel, housing, catering and programme, while municipal subsidies “were not increased proportionally”.
“The costs for energy, personnel, catering purchasing and artists rose sharply, and will still do so in 2023”
“In addition to the aftermath of the pandemic, VNPF members also faced high inflation in 2022,” it adds. “Among other things, the costs for energy, personnel, catering purchasing and artists rose sharply, and will still do so in 2023.”
VNPF stages received €36.1 million in Covid intervention in 2021, with the vast majority of that amount coming from the national government and the organisation stresses the need for further support from the authorities.
“The figures for 2022 show that the municipal subsidy is increasing, but not enough to cope with autonomous cost increases,” it says. “This is particularly worrying for the longer term. This means that talent development of both artists and staff and the retention of good staff will come under further pressure.
“Adequate and appropriate subsidies for the subsidised part of our sector remain of vital importance. Organisations that are not subsidised also need the government as a cooperation partner and facilitator.”
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LIVE study highlights ‘battle for next generation’
The pandemic’s impact on young people’s concert-going habits has been made clear by the latest study by UK live music industry umbrella group LIVE.
LIVE’s Deep dive into consumer trends Q2 report is based on a nationally representative survey carried out by insight agency Opinium, which collected 2,000 responses in November 2022 and a further 2,000 responses in April this year.
While the previous report highlighted how a section of customers had got out of the habit of attending gigs and others were attending less frequently due to financial pressures, the 2023 findings are more positive.
Among the headline findings are that 16% of respondents are now attending fewer events overall, compared to 22% five months earlier. Ticket-buying attitudes also appear to be softening, with 27% (a 4% decrease) of participants saying tickets are too expensive, 19% (-3%) saying everything feels expensive post pandemic, 18% (-4%) saying they have less disposable income to spend on tickets and 15% (-4%) saying they were trying to reduce their spending to only essentials.
However, concerns remain around nurturing young fans, denied the opportunity to develop a gig-going habit by lockdown. LIVE chief economist Chris Carey tells IQ the findings highlight the “battle for the next generation of lifelong music fans”.
“The world has changed in terms of convenience – people expect things to be available last minute and don’t plan as far ahead”
“Because they never got the habit, they’re going to less events overall,” says Carey. “We can make sure we’re promoting the right stuff for them and putting on things that are cost-effective.”
The 18-24 and 25-34 age groups also retained the biggest concerns around Covid, indicating they were put off buying tickets because they were worried they would get ill and be unable to attend the show.
“It’s a bigger barrier for them than for the older groups,” says Carey. “Gigs were banned for health reasons. [To them], gigs were dangerous, other people were dangerous. And I think we’re still living with some of that.”
Elsewhere, the trend towards late sales looks set to continue as 18% of 18-24-year-olds and 16% of 25-34-year-olds said they buy tickets later because they were confident tickets would still be available.
“People feeling confident they’re going to be able to attend regardless is an odd dynamic for the live music industry,” says Carey. “The world has changed in terms of convenience; people expect things to be available last minute and don’t plan as far ahead. But I also think that dynamic of, ‘tickets will still be available’, had never been true before, and now it has become true sometimes.
“It’s quite a risky dynamic for us and is something we’ve got to manage quite carefully – particularly given that selling tickets out early helps with cashflow and getting the next shows on. If people are waiting, it has a dramatic impact on the business overall.”
“Younger fans are more likely to not show because of the expense of the whole night”
No-shows have also persisted post pandemic, according to the study, with only 62% of people definitely using tickets. A key point for Carey is that 6% say they did not attend because of the expense of the whole night.
“That is hugely problematic for us and partly drives people towards having one giant night out, rather than four or five nights out,” he says. “It also raises questions about the middle market and how much support they’re getting. Is there a risk that the middle market becomes prohibitively expensive, not because of the ticket price, but because of the cost of everything around it?
“And is there an opportunity there? Can we bundle food and drinks with tickets to get people in the room spending at our venues and help soften the blow of the cost of that whole night? Or getting the money upfront so they get two beers on arrival? Or 20% off a burger once you’re in the venue? That’s something we possibly could be doing.”
He adds: “Younger fans are more likely to not show because of the expense of the whole night. If we jump back five years, you would expect 18-24, 25-34 to be your core audience. But at the moment they’re the ones with the core challenges and that’s something we should be very aware of.”
Turning his attention the next edition of the report, Carey, whose FastForward conference returns to London with an expanded two-day programme from 19-20 September, has a number of objectives in mind.
“I would hope to see that the Covid concerns continue to soften and the attitude to ticket buying improving slightly, and that enough people have got back to their first event since Covid by that time,” he says. “You have to experience it to remember just how good it is and I hope, after this summer, we will have many more people who have experienced it again and have renewed excitement for it. And that will boost us and bolster us.”
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UK gov-backed insurance scheme paid out only once
The UK government-backed insurance scheme for live events paid out just one claim of £180,500, while generating almost £6 million in premiums, according to the Financial Times.
Launched in September 2021, the £800m Live Events Reinsurance Scheme was designed to cover costs incurred if an event had to be cancelled, postponed, relocated or abandoned due to a government-imposed lockdown in response to Covid-19.
It did not, however, payout if a festival needed to reduce capacity or cancel due to restrictions being reintroduced. Nor did it cover an event cancelled due to an artist or production staff catching Covid.
The year-long programme collected £5.9m premiums to cover 169 events and paid out to just one – Trick Scotland, an electronic music festival that was cancelled because the venue was needed as a vaccination centre. These details were published by the Treasury in response to a freedom of information request by the FT.
The live industry previously expressed concerns about the “extremely limited scope” of the scheme, with one promoter even dismissing it as “a joke”.
Umbrella body LIVE (Live music Industry Venues and Entertainment) today (24 April) told IQ it has failed to find a member that has used the scheme.
“Despite government’s best efforts, the reinsurance scheme was never right for our industry,” says Jon Collins, CEO of LIVE. “It was expensive, arrived too late and, crucially for a scheme to give confidence during Covid, did not cover for cancellation due to an artist having Covid.
“The reinsurance scheme was never right for our industry”
“Festival organisers moved mountains to put on safe, vibrant and successful events last year and are planning for a similarly strong summer of live music in 2023. With ongoing supply chain, energy and cost challenges and pressure on our audience’s disposable income, LIVE would ask that the government reallocate the huge underspend on this scheme to support artists, festivals and the public through targeted funding and a return to 5% VAT.”
IQ has reached out to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) for comment on how the £6 million in premiums will be spent.
The Live Events Reinsurance Scheme, a partnership between the government and the Lloyd’s of London insurance market, was available to purchase alongside standard commercial events insurance for an additional premium.
To be eligible, event organisers had to purchase the relevant cover from participating insurers within the scheme, including Arch, Beazley, Dale, Hiscox and Munich Re.
Premium was set at 5% of the total value of insured costs (plus Insurance Premium Tax) and claims were subject to an excess of 5% of the value of the insured costs or £1,000 (whichever is higher) per policy.
If events had to cancel, organisers will pay a pre-agreed excess and the government and insurers have agreed on a risk share per claim. This would start with the government paying 95% and insurers 5%, progressing to them covering 97% and 3%, respectively, and finally government covering 100% of costs. The split depends on the losses incurred by the insurer from the scheme to date.
At the time, culture secretary Oliver Dowden said the scheme would give organisers “the confidence they need to plan for a brighter future”.
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Festival focus: Melvin Benn
Melvin Benn is often regarded as one of the founding fathers of the UK festival industry. Now, as managing director of Live Nation-owned Festival Republic, he is responsible for festivals including Latitude, Wireless, Download, and Ireland’s Electric Picnic. During Covid, he was central to securing the return of live music, through a concerted campaign of lobbying and planning, and by funding test events. In an extended excerpt from IQ‘s recently published European Festival Report, he opens up on the travails of the last three years and explains why festivals remain integral to cultural life…
What did it take for you and the team to get through the pandemic?
“In truth, Covid was one of the most stressful and traumatic periods of my life. Like many people, I had people close to me personally die because of Covid. And the numbers of people getting infected was so high. But what was particularly challenging for all of our industry is that the creative industries are made up of people that are doers. There wouldn’t be a Leeds festival if I hadn’t got off my arse to create it; there wouldn’t be a Latitude and so on. We’re all made up of people that just want to do things and create things and create excitement for the public to enjoy. So the frustration of not being able to do so was immense. So in June 2020, I came up with something called the Full Capacity Plan because it became apparent that transmission was airborne. This plan was based on people wearing masks, and people gathering together that had been tested and proven to be clear, so the rise of Covid would be not substantially greater than the rise in general society.
“I trotted off to every government department that you could imagine, with the industry behind me, and made a lot of effort to try and get us back working. Eventually, when it fitted government plans to get events back on the road, particularly because of the desire to hold Wimbledon and the European Football Championship, they started listening. Initially though, they didn’t accept the music industry as being a test environment – they wanted to put us in the same environment as football fans in a stadium. I felt that left us vulnerable – I could imagine the government’s scientists saying ‘this is great, we can open the football, but we should have done some research around music and we didn’t so music can’t open’. So I spent an intense three weeks hammering on government, for us to be allowed to do that, which resulted in the Sefton Park trial in Liverpool and the Download trial.
“One of the people that was most significant helping me at that time was Sir Nicholas Hytner. He’d been appointed to the government intelligence squad of people that would advise on getting it all back together. And he understood the need for it, and saw the government didn’t want to do one because they didn’t want to pay for it. It was more complicated than that, but it was only my insistence and willingness to pay for the events myself, through Festival Republic and Live Nation that really allowed it to go ahead. The frustration around that was immense.
“I felt a great responsibility in order to help the industry”
“There were lots of people involved in many aspects trying to get us on the back, such as the LIVE group. I felt a great responsibility in order to help the industry. What I found interesting was how much the visibility of the music industry – myself and others constantly being in the press, on the radio, TV, and so on, pushing to get us open – how much that gave encouragement to my team and the general industry. The amount of people that contacted me to say, ‘this is amazing, Melvin’. And even now, I bump into people that I haven’t seen since Covid, and they say ‘listening to you on the radio is one of the things that kept me going – it kept us believing that we would reopen’. There are a number of leaders in this industry and I think they all allowed the wider industry to feel an element of hope that we would get back.
“March 2020 through to May ’21 when we had the first test were probably the worst 16 months of my adult life because of the frustration of being someone that wants to do things been prevented from doing them. Especially when the plan that I’d created in 2020 was the plan that the government rolled out for the whole of the test programme for football and sport around.
“When I did the test events in Sefton Park and at Download in early June, I had a constant belief that I would have been able to do Glastonbury too. But the government didn’t have the appetite for that. And I’m not criticising them for that. What they were dealing with was much bigger than anything that we were dealing with. But what we were dealing with was pretty big in our lives.”
“Audiences are interested in ever-improving standards. And that can only be good for our industry”
So what did it mean to you when your events came back properly for the first time?
“It can’t be described anything other than absolute joy. You know, everybody associated with getting gates open feels joy every time we open a date, every time we open the doors of a venue – it’s because we live to create and invent. So there’s joy all the time, but the feeling when you realised that you could do it after the pandemic was immeasurable. But
“We had huge Covid protocols for the staff. You have to build a significant element of resilience for very large events in order to feel confident that it would happen. At Glastonbury last year, for instance, we had a whole work environment where people could continue working if they caught Covid and felt well enough to be able to continue. And it was pretty busy.”
What trends are you seeing?
“Audiences are interested in ever-improving standards. And that can only be good for our industry. The public forum of TikTok, Twitter, Instagram, and other social media can be hard to deal with it, because it’s quite a challenge because everyone can see someone complaining about an overflowing bin, for example. But what it also does, is it helps inform my team about what festival-goers are thinking. My social media teams start talking to the person who’s posted the picture of the bin, asking them where it is, and we can get it rectified in real time. So that direct interactivity between the festival producers and festival-goers, is quite new. The more that you interact with them, the more they’ll come back. They’ll say ‘I saw a problem. I reported a problem, they fixed it.’ I’m okay with that. That level of interaction also informs issues such as sustainability and diversity, which is very important.”
“In 1989 there were only two festivals in this country: Reading and Glastonbury. It’s how much people’s lives have changed. Festivals are a cultural gathering”
What challenges does the industry face?
“The obvious thing is the supply chain and the labour shortage. I would say in the main we overcame those issues because the industry is made up of people that do things. To give you an example, we produce the Electric Picnic in Ireland. It’s the biggest event in Ireland. It takes place in September, and in late May the people we had contracted to provide power told us they couldn’t do it. In any year that hadn’t been preceded by two years of difficulty of Covid that would have been a catastrophe, but after two years of Covid we were just like ‘OK, thanks for telling us’. That we were able to overcome it was with the help of people like Sunbelt. It’s a massive company that owns trackway and all that stuff but they never had a power division. But they said, ‘OK, we’ll create one.'”
What’s the importance of festivals to cultural life?
“Festivals have been around for hundreds of years. We’re bringing, light and enjoyment to people’s lives. People are able to gather among like-minded people at festivals. And that’s a great feeling – it’s a cultural uplift. They make you feel relaxed when society is constantly putting immense pressure on communities and individuals every day. The ability for doctors or nurses, or accountants or office workers to be able to come out and let themselves go gives them a release from the daily pressures that they live under.
“There were lots of people including my staff who would come to me in tears with the emotion of what they’d helped to get back on the road. You just have to look at forums or social media and you’ll see people talking about where they’re going to camp – and it can be almost a year before the next festival – some haven’t even bought their ticket yet. That’s how important it is.
“If you think that in 1989 there were only two festivals in this country: Reading and Glastonbury. It’s how much people’s lives have changed. Festivals are a cultural gathering.”
Benn is one of the confirmed speakers for the Festival Forum session at ILMC on Wednesday 1 March from 2pm. Read the European Festival Report in full below.
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German biz cannot survive without aid, says alliance
Germany’s live industry says it will not be able to cope with new challenges such as skyrocketing energy prices if the government does not provide further financial aid.
Jens Michow, president of the Federal Association of the Concert and Event Industry (BDKV), was invited to a government hearing, held on Wednesday (12 October), to discuss the consequences of the energy crisis on the cultural sector.
He told the committee for culture and media that the crisis is presenting the industry with another existential threat and that it has not been able to properly restart after the Covid-19 pandemic.
Among other things, Michow called for the existing Neustart Kultur II (Restart Culture 2) fund to be continued at least until the end of 2023 and for the organisers to be relieved of the burden of absorbing increases in energy costs at the venues.
In addition, he urged the government to create a fund for cultural events that can be used if events are no longer economical due to excessively increased energy costs, and also to strengthen the energy self-sufficiency of venues.
“We demand that all remaining funds from 2022 remain unrestricted in the economic sector”
Michow also told the committee that it was a major problem for the industry that from 2023 there would no longer be any cover for event cancellations caused by the pandemic.
“[The €2.5 billion government-backed insurance pot] is expected to have remaining funds of €1.5–1.8 billion by the end of the year. We demand that all remaining funds from 2022 remain unrestricted in the economic sector for which they were originally made available,” he said.
Last month, IQ heard from a number of European arenas who also said that skyrocketing energy costs are emerging as the sector’s biggest challenge since the Covid-19 pandemic.
AEG-owned Barclays Arena (formerly the Barclaycard Arena) in Hamburg, Germany, was among the venues that reported a “huge” increase in energy costs.
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UK report reveals Covid’s impact on ticketing
The Society of Ticket Agents and Retailers (STAR) has published a report outlining the impact of Covid-19 on the UK’s ticketing industry.
Independent ticketing expert Will Quekett was commissioned to interview 39 stakeholders from across the ticketing and events industry between January to March 2022, including venues, event organisers and ticket agents, as well as the banking and finance sector.
According to the study, ticketing businesses reported an average drop in turnover of up to 85% in 2020 and 58% in 2021, while the sale of ticket protection products rocketed as customers sought to protect their risk. Ticket Protection companies reported a 300% increase in conversion at the peak of the pandemic, which has since stabilised at 200% of the pre-pandemic conversion rate.
“As the pandemic hit, overnight the ticketing industry went into crisis mode as it sought to support venues, event organisers and millions of ticket buyers,” says STAR CEO Jonathan Brown. “It was a truly remarkable effort that the whole industry should be proud of. However, there are always lessons to be learned as to how we can do things better and we hope that this report has been helpful in revealing the starting points for cross-industry discussions about improvements that can be made in the future.”
The report commended ticketing staff for their commitment through the pandemic, but found noted that employers have faced difficulties recruiting new staff when building back. Disputes through STAR – the self-regulatory body for live events ticketing in the UK – also rose from 2019 levels by 39% in 2020 and 73% in 2021.
“It is clear that there is room for improvement and clarity about how the ticketing and events industry operates”
The report includes recommendations for consideration by stakeholders across the live events industries, including greater consistency of ticketing policies, including the refunding of booking and transaction fees for cancelled events; and the development of improved customer service for ticket buyers through the introduction of technologies such as online self-service and chatbots to deal with FAQs.
It also calls for STAR to consider extending its Code of Practice to include standards of service and information for ticket protection, and to take on a more proactive role in relation to common industry practice.
“It was heartening to hear the praise for hard-working ticketing staff across the country,” says Quekett, the report’s author. “However, it is clear that there is room for improvement and clarity about how the ticketing and events industry operates to ensure that the public can continue to buy tickets with confidence.”
Interviewees were encouraged to be as open and honest as possible about their experiences, and were invited to give their views on what lessons could be learned for the future.
“STAR has always been at the forefront of cross-industry initiatives to improve consumer confidence in the ticketing industry,” adds STAR chair Andrew Sharp. “This report highlights how the customer-first approach adopted by our members helped them avoid many of the consumer issues and controversies that other sectors faced during the pandemic. STAR will use this report to lead the conversation within the live events industry to ensure that this work continues.”
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