#WeMakeEvents moves into Red Alert to save UK events
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Planned for 11 August, the action will include social media and video drives as well as legal outdoor events, with other specific activities occurring on the day.
The initiative is part of the #WeMakeEvents campaign that aims to raise awareness of the sector’s struggles and to secure further support from the government.
“The live events industry supply chain that contributes to every single event in the UK is set to completely collapse,” comments Peter Heath, MD of PLASA. “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.”
According to campaign research conducted last week, redundancies across the sector have already started. Of the companies surveyed, 10% said they plan to issue notices by the end of July whilst 15% intend to do so in August.
But 70% of those polled admitted they would make redundancies by end of the year, with a fifth expecting to lose 70% of staff.
Earlier this month, the UK government announced a £1.57bn rescue package for the arts but is yet to unveil how the funding will be spread out across the many sub-sectors of the industry.
Meanwhile, with social-distancing measures likely to remain in place for the long term and the pending wind-up of the Job Retention and the Self-Employment Income Support schemes in October, the sector has continued to pledge with the government for sector-specific support that will ensure the industry’s survival.
James Gordon, CEO of pro audio solutions manufacturer Audiotonix, explains: “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 on-going, 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.”
