As we enter Alert Level 1 in South Africa, the relaxation of regulations around capacity at events has allowed for a 50% venue capacity capped at 250 pax indoors and 500 outdoors. While not ideal for the reopening of the industry, this adjustment has at least allowed for smaller events to start operating at a more financially viable level.
As events specialists, our priority is, as always, focused on the safety of our performers, guests and practitioners. In 2020 Covid-19 poses a new and unforeseen risk to our industry. In June, the SA Events Council developed and published a comprehensive set of Event Reopening Guidelines outlining the steps that we must take to enable the safe re-opening of events and we are working hard to ensure that confidence and trust in our ability to keep our events safe grow quickly. The last thing we want as we begin this process is for there to be events that do not adhere to the guidelines and which pose a risk to attendees and artists and resulting in a back-step in the regulations.
While many Venues, Corporates and Caterers have their own sets of safety practices, we urge all events organisers to communicate and uphold the Event Reopening Guidelines as a foundation standard on every event mounted. If necessary additional venue/corporate-specific protocols can easily be overlaid to satisfy compliance for all stakeholders, but at no point should the Event Safety Guidelines be compromised. It is up to each and every Meetings Planner, Event Organiser, Promoter or Production House to self-regulate using these basic safety protocols in the same way as we have always done for non-COVID-19 related event safety practices.
Our event safety experts have devised what we believe to be the safest way to reopen the events industry. Let’s set the benchmark and make sure that the South African events industry continues to deliver the world-class service and safety levels that we are undoubtedly capable of, across the board.
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