Barcelona venues to run pilot covid-free test to save indoor nightlife

Barcelona venues will be trying out 100% covid-free tests to prove the safety of opening indoor nightlife. This system will not require social distancing neither mask-wearing and it could be the perfect solution for music festivals.

Tourism is one of the most important industries for Spain. In fact, tourism alone represents up to 12% of the Spanish GDP. More specifically, music-related tourism, having cities like Ibiza and Barcelona, depend a lot on that tourism that this past year has been inexistent. Due to the large amount of promoters, companies and agencies living out of this industry, Spain has been one of the pioneers to make trial tests and look for feasible ways to put the nightlife industry back in action. This past December, the popular event Primavera Sound already conducted a successful covid-free trial concert in Barcelona, but now, promoters have gone one step further.

Venues in Barcelona and some parts of the Costa Brava (the north coast of the Catalan region) will be running pilot tests on a strict health and safety system that wants to prove that indoor events are safe. To do so, they joined forces with the biosafety specialists SeiXsein Europe. This mentioned system will not require social distancing or mask-wearing and involves the attendant taking prior testing, contact track and tracing and a unique non-transferable QR code through the Liberty Pass App. The Liberty Pass app, is an application that verifies and demonstrates that the attendant has carried out a rapid antigen test within the past 72 hours and therefore is allowed to access to an event or venue safely.

Image credit: Liberty Pass

Moreover, the venues will be also installing devices to eradicate 100% of the COVID-19 virus traces from the air and surfaces of indoor spaces. These COVID ‘cleaning’ devices will only be approved by the ENAC (Spanish National Accreditation Entity) and are already being used in  Asia and in the Intensive Care Units of the hospitals.

With regards to this system, the lawyer and businessman Joaquim Boadas, General Secretary of the International Nightlife Association (INA) said the following:

“Nightlife and restaurant venues can be perfectly adapted to the current crisis and are capable of functioning without putting clients’ and workers’ risk at stake. Many venues have been closed for a year now and many are in a critical state and at risk of disappearing permanently, an industry that is so important for tourism around the world and in dire need of reactivating the global economy. For this reason, we ask for governments to sit down with our industry and work on the reopening of the industry and the recovery of tourism and the economy by conducting pilot testing in venues and allowing for the industry to prove it can coexist with the pandemic”.

On the other hand, Carmen Álvarez, CEO of SieXsein Europe stated:

“At SieXsein we have been working since the start of the pandemic to find the formula that is best to reactivate and reopen the industries that have been most hit by the pandemic. I have been very fond of the nightlife and restaurant industry and consider that it has been left completely abandoned during this crisis and it’s a personal mission for me to reach the new normal as soon as possible and reactivate the restaurant and nightlife economy and tourism worldwide. Reaching this agreement with the nightlife industry will allow for the best solutions in biotechnology to be applied all around the world and recuperate the economy and general well being of people.”

Photo by Florian Wehde on Unsplash