Are we there yet? Almost. Are we there yet? Soon. Are we…? That could be any one of us sitting in the backseat of a car driving towards a reopened world. Who’s driving, you may ask? That depends upon which state governor is driving the car. The restrictions for each state are varied, with some states allowing for public spaces to be fully opened and others limiting attendance to 10 percent capacity. On April 2, New York State will be allowing 33 percent capacity for indoor and outdoor arts and entertainment venues. While Broadway remains dark, comedy clubs, Lincoln Center and Radio City Music Hall will reopen. Lincoln Center is creating 10 outdoor performance and rehearsal stages, and arenas such as the Barclay’s Center and Madison Square Garden have already opened successfully for basketball games.
An app has been developed by New York State, which will send a QR (quick response) code once an individual has uploaded all their Covid data. This bar code can then be scanned at a venue’s entrance to confirm the health status of the attendee. Yes, I know, it’s a Brave New World and, while this is all good news, let’s not forget that big festivals and artists such as Coachella and Taylor Swift have put off their shows and tours until 2022 due to the pandemic. Josh Groban had originally rescheduled his remaining Radio City Shows for April 2021, but has now pushed them back to April of 2022. Other festivals such as Glastonbury, Stagecoach and Ultra have also been postponed for another year. Many artists are still planning to tour in 2021 with dates commencing in June or July and going through September, but before we get too giddy on vaccine juice, let’s remember that new variations of the Covid theme keep surfacing and a lot can happen in two months’ time.
Let’s Be Real
If I sound pessimistic about this year’s return to normalcy, it’s due to the difficulty of getting everyone on board with inoculations, social distancing and masks. Right now, spring break is taking place in Florida with mostly mask-free, socially “undistanced” revelers who, after a year of quarantine and bad weather, have escaped their apartments and homes in other states to unwind in the Florida sunshine. It’s not necessarily a super spreader event, but there’s always the possibility it could become one, with a major concern being partygoers carrying the virus back to their home state when the festivities end.
Although county officials have tried to encourage proper Covid behavior, Florida’s governor is not allowing restaurant closures by local governments. It’s a perfect storm of ignoring Corona propriety due to the partiers’ need to blow off steam and for the local tourist-based economy to financially make up for a lost year. The question is, how are these businesses and counties ensuring the health of their patrons? More to the point, do these places have the insurance to cover them if someone should sue for contracting the virus while being entertained in their establishment? Even if a bar or restaurant wanted an insurance to cover themselves against communicable disease, who would underwrite such a policy?
Risky Business
It’s a moot point, but I bring it up because event insurance, while different than that of restaurant and bar insurance, is a reality for any large promoter or tour. Event cancellation is a costly situation for both promoters and bands and can be devastating to those responsible parties, which is why event insurance is required. The insurance protects against cancellations due to circumstances beyond one’s control such as inclement weather, labor strikes, fire, floods and power outages, to name a few. Typically, there is an “all-cause” coverage written into these policies, which means that the insurance covers all conditions that are not excluded from the given policy. For those who purchased their policy prior to the outbreak of Covid-19, they would be insured if the policy included communicable disease coverage. Unfortunately, as of last March, most insurance companies stopped issuing cancellation coverage for communicable disease with their cancellation policies.
Of course, this impacts large tours and promoters. Now, as well as not being able to fill a hall due to limited attendance, it is virtually impossible to purchase a cancellation policy from an insurance company that covers cancellation due to the Covid-19 virus. In the past, insurers have removed such outbreak related exclusion clauses once they were certain it was no longer a threat. Until the current hazard is eradicated, it will be a very risky venture for a promoter or an act to start touring again. To be clear, this has nothing to do with signing a waiver releasing the promoter or band from responsibility should a fan get sick while attending the show. This is not about masks, social distancing, temperature-taking or sanitizing, this is solely about money and risk assessment. As restrictions start to relax, small clubs and venues will begin opening to a limited-capacity audience which, of course, is a great beginning to getting our industry moving again. Big venues could possibly commence doing one-offs.
Unfortunately, tours and large festivals will have to wait until 2022 to reopen due to the risk of promoting and insuring a show in the time of Covid-19. It’s a betting game for both promoters and insurance companies. Promoters wager that they can sell enough tickets to make a profit, and the insurance companies gamble against negative outcomes that might keep a promoter from making that revenue. These wagers are considered to be calculated risks for both the promoter and the insurance provider. Risk is calculated as “likelihood multiplied by severity,” i.e., the more likelihood that damage will occur and the more acute the damage, the higher the risk. The possibility that the virus could cause the cancellation of a tour is still very likely, and the financial loss from such a cancellation could be devastating to a promoter and insurance provider as well.
Therefore, the risk is too high for the promoter to assume and too high for the insurance company to back. Even in the best of times, promoting and insuring concerts is a risky business, and it’s only made worse in the time of a pandemic. So, to answer the “Are we there yet?” question coming from the bored and irritable audio tech who has been riding in the backseat during our year-long drive…“Not quite!”
