As a result of the major impact of COVID on music event cancelations on live music venues, particularly grassroots venues, the government have announced the issuing of an insurance scheme known as the ‘Live Events Reinsurance Scheme’ to be delivered to venues via their insurer in the case of COVID related cancellations.
The scheme will run from September 2021 until the next year in September 2022, in partnership with Lloyd’s bank. Valued at over £750 million by the Government and will not include a cost cap per event. 95% of the fee will be covered by the government and 5% by the relevant insurers.
According to the UK Government “this scheme will support live events across the UK that are open to the general public – such as music festivals and business events. It will cover costs incurred in the event of cancellation due to the event being legally unable to happen due to Government Covid restrictions”.
However, as Paul Reed CEO of the Association of Independent Festivals, has stated “the scheme doesn’t, however, cover a festival needing to reduce capacity or cancel due to social distancing restrictions being reintroduced”.
UK Music, show the UK live music sector as of 2018/2019 was worth £1.3 billion in GVA and £86 million in exports. COVID devastated the industry, with restrictions seeing the revenues of the live music industry to almost zero. The insurance scheme appears to be a small win for the Grassroots venues that were hit hard by the pandemic. It is evident time will tell the degree of success the insurance will have in protecting venues and the almost 200,000 workers as of 2019 practicing in the industry.
Want to find out more about this scheme? Read below…
Article by Olivia Barnes