The #WeMakeEvents campaign, which is raising the alarm for the live events and entertainment sector, have announced that their campaign is now in the Red Alert phase, and have planned activities across the UK on the evening of Tuesday 11 August.
With the support of 17 trade bodies as well as production companies and manufacturers in the events and entertainment industries, the campaign is advocating for the sector which now faces a critical condition – it was the first to shut down as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, and will be the last to reopen.
In outdoor events alone, the cancellation of the entire Summer season affected over 600,000 jobs, and a survey found last week that 10% of businesses are serving redundancy notices in July, with a further 15% in August. By the end of the year 70% of industry businesses will have made redundancies.
Live events may not be able to return until March 2021 due to unviable social distancing rules and the long-term planning required for many arena tours, festivals, and stadium events.
Current government support packages for employees and the self-employed are slowly being tapered and will terminate completely in three months. This will leave up to one million industry professionals with no financial security and no work prospects for several more months at least. The complete lack of work in the sector combined with the withdrawal of government support will force industry professionals, including the 72% of freelancers, to seek work in other sectors.
James Gordon, CEO of Audiotonix said:
“The WeMakeEvents campaign has moved into the Red Alert phase, and it’s imperative that everyone from the events industry raises their voice and gets involved. This is a campaign for the companies, the employees and the many freelancers working in all aspects of the events industry supply chain. We all need government support to survive the current restricted situation, to allow us to re-emerge as the industry we were, intact and ready to entertain, when restrictions allow. Please help us all and get behind #WeMakeEvents to make our voices heard by the government.”
Get involved in the campaign and see the planned activities on 11 August through the link below.