Organizers do not expect indoor concerts until winter
The head of the event agency CTS Eventim, Klaus-Peter Schulenberg, expects that indoor concerts will only be possible in Germany in winter. “I do not see events in halls before the fourth quarter, although I would not commit myself to the beginning of October,” said Schulenberg to the news magazine “Spiegel”. Open-air formats in summer are likely to take place “at most very occasionally”.
Schulenberg told the magazine that the industry was in a difficult position – around half of the private arcades were endangered. A faster vaccination campaign, reliable tests and modern technology are needed, like in the UK, where there should be big events again from June. You can take what you want from British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, said Schulenberg. “But he did the vaccination management very well. You can’t say that about the EU.”
The organizer network Eventim Live, which belongs to the concert organizer with its administrative headquarters in Bremen, announced last week that seven large open-air festivals in Germany and Switzerland will be canceled this year due to the corona pandemic. These include “Rock am Ring”, “Rock im Park”, “Hurricane Festival” and “Southside”.
The Austrian concert promoter Barracuda Music, a subsidiary of Eventim, canceled the “Nova Rock” festival in Nickelsdorf, originally planned for the beginning of June, on Monday. The decision was made independently because the federal government had not received any information as to whether major events could be held in June, according to the organizer.
In an interview with the daily newspaper “Der Standard”, Barracuda Music boss Ewald Tatar hoped that at least the “Frequency” festival could take place in St. Pölten in August. But he needs information from the government by mid-May. Tatar doesn’t believe in indoor concerts in early autumn. His hope is that larger concerts can be played indoors again in late autumn. Next year everything should go back to normal, according to the prognosis of the organizer.