I recently asked the question about how people felt about playing and attending live music events in this covid era, after reading about the covid spike online
“The number of coronavirus infections across the UK rose by an estimated 1m compared with the previous week, with figures in Scotland at a record high, data from the Office for National Statistics has revealed.“
I’m also seeing a lot of local events pulled due to artists having covid and was surprised that some indoor events was still going ahead when covid remains a real issue. Yes, its true that there are less actual deaths, BUT there are still a lot of people unable to work for periods of time from being really unwell. With the news about Russia, covid seems understandably be taking a back seat and of course without testing its very difficult to accurately determine the extent of the problem.
One of the indoor uke festivals I used to attend is flagged as being sold out and I immediately remembered how at the best of times there was a lack of space in most playing rooms due to the nature of how the theatre was constructed. This problem is further problematic when the audience demographic is vulnerble to covid, in close contact and in an indoor environment with a lot of singing. One of the posters online commented the following about another similar event that reconfirmed my concerns.
“The Isle Of Wight Uke residential was apparently a Petri dish.Apart from artists coming back and having to cancel work I have one Uke group member who came back with it to accompany another hospitalising condition.“
Of course its 100% personal choice what people decide to do in this covid era and I’ve seen total polarisation of views. I know of one artist who defers to David Icke as an authority on covid rather than WHO advice, which I find (I’m being polite here) very strange… Another friend I know played a gig his band had played many times before pre covid and within 48 hours four of them went down with covid. My hope is that in time some normality will return to live events and festivals, but for now personally I’m in favour of a certain amount of caution.
