European festival markets demand clarity on 2021 festival season

Right now, the music world is in a state of limbo wondering what is going to happen to this years festival season during summer. In Europe, festivals such as Tomorrowland, Parookaville, Primavera Sound and more rely on decisions and actions from the government, and many are now demanding clarity on their decisions. Switzerland and Denmark are the latest European markets that are calling for action for a strategy that can ensure summer festivals will take place this year.

Switzerland’s promoters association SMPA have co-signed a statement with 26 of the country’s biggest festivals including OpenAir St. Gallen and SummerDays, which includes the following statement:

“2021 is not 2020. There are better treatment options, testing options are constantly evolving, and vaccinations are ongoing. In combination with the expected lower case numbers in the summer months, this creates a different starting position for the summer of 2021. The task now is to find a strategy for summer 2021.”

As we reported back in August of last year, the Swiss government were set to allow events under 1,000 capacity again last October after a complete ban on summer events in an effort to curb the Covid-19 spread rate. The country now looks towards the government to provide a clear and strategic plan to bring back live events.

In Denmark, a vaccine passport is shining some light onto a dark situation. Vaccine passports have been talked about around Europe for a short while now, but it is said that they may only be available for travel use when they start to hopefully rollout in the next three to four months. Acting minister of finance, Morten Bødskov stated that it is unsure whether vaccine passports will also apply to live events, and Esben Marcher, head of Dansk Live chimed in on the situation:

“It is positive that a digital corona passport is now being established. It can be crucial in ensuring that we can quickly reopen venues and hold festivals when the summer comes. Time is, of course, a significant challenge right now, and in organiser optics, three to four months is a very long time. The infection is currently fairly under control and the vaccine plan is being rolled out. Therefore, it should now be time to reconsider the plan for reopening. It will allow the country’s many organisers to plan for the future.”

Residents of Switzerland and Denmark, like other countries such as the UK and Poland are carefully assessing situations and are planning for summer extremely early in advance to come up with some adequate solutions, but are demanding that the government provide help.

Photo by Simon Boxus on Unsplash