After more than two years since the pandemic began, it’s clear that COVID is becoming endemic and it’s time to return to in-person concerts and help bring back job opportunities to the entertainment industry.
As more and more people continue to get vaccinated, mass gatherings of people in closed and open areas will begin to occur more frequently.
This of course includes musical concerts; both large-scale multiple-day festivals and smaller concerts at local venues.
Pollstar, an entertainment trade publication, estimated that the concert industry lost $30 billion in 2020 alone.
The return to in-person events gives a lifeline not only to artists, but also to others whose income depends heavily on ticket sales and other concert-related profits.
Some of the people that rely heavily on events include security, food vendors, booking agents and event planners.
Many of the companies that employed these positions were unable to continue working yet at the same time did not qualify for the government assistance that other small businesses were benefiting from. This led to a lot of them shutting down either permanently or temporarily until in-person shows and tours returned.
John Lares is a booking agent who founded Cielo Agency in 2016 and has since accumulated a clientele that includes over 20 musicians from various genres.
“We were completely shut down (during the pandemic),” Lares said. “Our business is based on production, tours and concerts so we really weren’t making any money.”
“I pivoted to another industry for the time being, software automation, which is now helping me post-pandemic in expediting the process of booking and saving time in that process,” Lares said.
When asked about his thoughts on the current music scene, Lares said that he feels it is “almost back to normal. In a situation where no one tests positive for covid, venues are at their legal capacities and people aren’t wearing masks indoors anymore. So we’re almost at that back to normal phase.”
For many fans, the opportunity to finally see live music and once again feel the atmosphere of a concert is long overdue.
“I basically went to the first concert I could,” said Victor Alvarado, a student at LBCC. “I was never really able to wrap my head around paying for a virtual concert ticket so it was nice to be able to be a part of that concert environment again.”
Victor went on to mention how “anyone who doesn’t feel comfortable being in a crowd full of unmasked people is more than welcome to wear one themselves.”
Going to a concert does not necessarily mean you have to put yourself completely at risk, the majority of festival organizers took strict precautions to bring back in-person events.
Most events in LA County still require proof of vaccination or a negative Covid test within 24-48 hours before the concert is taking place.
In addition to this, venues are also taking other measures such as requiring masks, limiting attendance to allow for social distancing and implementing touchless payment systems at their shows.
Although it is possible that some of these additional measures may increase ticket prices, most of the increases could be caused by inflation.
Those who believe it is not time to bring back live entertainment must recognize the efforts that the industry has put into bringing back concerts and festivals and also take into consideration how many people would benefit from it, artists and employees alike.