The Stendhal Festival in Limavady
A pilot concert in Liverpool last weekend saw 6,000 closely-packed music fans enjoy the event without masks or social distancing.
The mini-festival in Liverpool’s Sefton Park was one of the government’s official trial events to research how large gatherings can safely take place again.
The events form part of the government’s Events Research Programme (ERP), which will explore the risk of transmission and the effectiveness of measures such as ventilation and testing.
All ticket holders had to take a supervised coronavirus lateral flow test at one of four testing centres in the city the day before, and were only allowed in if the test was negative.
John Cartwright, part of the organising team for the Stendhal Festival near Limavady, said his fingers were crossed.
“Live music is a massive driver for us in Northern Ireland,” he added.
“Northern Ireland artists have not been able to earn their corn for a year.
“If this data supports getting back on stage with conditions, it is vital that it is implemented and ourselves and other events can run again.”
Mr Cartwright said the Stendhal Festival was planning for summer gigs by working on various scenarios, but that it was “essentially doing it blindfolded at present without specific guidelines”.
“Last year we had to refund a lot of our tickets as the event did not go ahead, but a lot of our patrons chose to roll over their tickets to this year, which helped keep us in business,” he said.
“If everyone had looked for refunds, we would have been in a lot worse position.
“You only have one chance a year to make your money and if you don’t it is very tough.
“If we weren’t allowed to run it this year, it would be a massive concern.”
Joe Dougan, a member of Belsonic festival’s organising team, said they were currently in limbo and hoping for some clarity in terms of indicative dates.
“Some of the concerts have been rescheduled until 2022, such as Lionel Richie and Lewis Capaldi, however many more are planned for later this summer.”
He said they were awaiting the findings of the ERP.
“With the events in Liverpool at the weekend, the government should have all the data needed to inform future policy and to flag up any potential issues,” he added.
“My concern is that if we hold back to stage our own pilot events in Northern Ireland, it could draw out the return to live music events.
“I don’t know what the necessity of that would be if the UK government has detailed data available from events in a UK city of a similar size to Belfast.”
An Executive Office spokesperson said: “Consideration is being given to how we can move towards larger gatherings on our pathway out of restrictions.
“This includes close observation of the outcomes of pilot events in other jurisdictions and consideration of the potential for a pilot event here.”
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