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SINEAD O’Connor, U2, Tommy Tiernan, promoters and venues are among 600 signatures in an open letter from the live entertainment industry “desperately requiring serious Government support to survive”.
The Event Production Industry Covid-19 Working Group is calling for financial grants for the thousands of actors, musicians, backstage crew, theatres, concert halls and others who have not been able to work since March.
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They said they will most likely be the last industry to reopen, despite being responsible for over 35,000 jobs and bringing in €3.5billion.
Here they are calling for “immediate” help as they worry about no work ahead of a bleak winter.
‘OUR EVENTS INDUSTRY IS WIPED OUT, WE NEED REAL HELP’
THE unprecedented and ongoing Covid-19 global pandemic has been as great a disaster for Ireland’s entertainment and hospitality sectors as the 2007/2008 banking crisis was to its construction and financial services industries.
Across hundreds of theatres, venues, clubs, festivals and small or large-scale events, the domestic live events and entertainment industry employs in excess of 35,000 full and part-time workers.
The vast majority of these highly skilled people haven’t had any employment since March 12, 2020. Never in the long history of staging live performances and events on this island has there been such a sudden and total cessation of all work and activity.
We were the first industry to shut, and we will most likely be the last one to fully reopen.
The non-funded Events Sector accounts for 90 per cent of the five million tickets sold in Ireland each year, and directly contributes over €3.5billion to the national economy. It is estimated that for every euro spent on a ticket, an additional €6 is spent in the wider tourist economy (including more than three million hotel bed nights per annum).
We are unique in that we are the only sector completely closed under Government mandate. As a result, through absolutely no fault of their own, live entertainment workers currently have little or no employment opportunities.
Up until now, we have been totally ignored and received virtually no Government aid.
As an impossibly bleak winter approaches, we and our dependents desperately require serious Government support to survive. The workers at all levels of this vital sector have no prospects of earning a living in the foreseeable future, so the supports need to be appropriate and unprecedented in order to address the dire financial situation facing almost every single person and business.
If Government support doesn’t come then the curtains will close, joy will be lost, the music will fade, the parades will stop.
The non-funded Live Events Sector faces decimation and at least a decade of recovery if not supported immediately with the following asks:
- Immediate reinstatement of the EWSS and PUP payment at €350 per week for the highly skilled staff and businesses of the sector until the sector (which is fully closed by Government under public health advice) is allowed to return to work.
- Grant funding proportionate to what has been allocated to the Arts Council in 2020. The Live Events Sector accounts for 90 per cent of all tickets sold in Ireland, and as such is a far greater employer and contributor to the national economy. We have received little or no grant funding before, but in these exceptional circumstances it is imperative that a scaffolding fund be made available to support the viable businesses of the sector until we can return to work.
- While this Task Force was announced by Minister Catherine Martin on September 10, it is essential that the formation of the members gives due consideration to the Commercial Live Events Sector.
The Commercial Live Events Sector manages the largest events in the country and are the experts, the best in class and should receive parity of voice with the State-funded sector on the task force.
We are highly skilled professionals, we are essential businesses and services, we are musicians and artists, carpenters and creators, we are stagehands, technicians and experts, we are sounds, lights and visuals, we are tears, laughter and gasps of excitement.
We are the Christmas panto, concerts, festivals, we are food fairs, we are parades, we are conferences, we are exhibitions, we are theatres, we are dance, we are national celebrations and State visits. We are the best nights of your lives.
We are contributors, we have always given back. In this unprecedented crisis, reluctantly for the first time, we must ask for Government support for our industry and we need it immediately.
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