Company CEO has sent a “best practices” email to artists’ teams
Live Nation, the world’s largest entertainment company, is allowing artists to require proof of vaccination or negative test before staff, crew and fans can enter each venue. Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino sent a “best practices” email to artists’ teams, according to Variety.
“We are working to ensure we are reopening in the best way possible for staff, artists, crew, fans, and communities at large,” the letter partially reads. “Our teams have worked together to put new processes in place so that artists doing shows with Live Nation in the U.S. can require all attendees and staff to be fully vaccinated or show a negative test result for entry, where permitted by law. We believe this is a great model, and we have already implemented this successfully at many major shows including Lollapalooza. We know people are eager to return to live events and we hope these measures encourage even more people to get vaccinated. That is the number one thing anyone can do to take care of those around them and we are encouraging as many shows as possible to adopt this model.”
In the letter, Rapino also shares that all Live Nation staff will be required to receive a COVID vaccination as of October 4th.
“In support of this model and to continue leading by example, we will be requiring that all employees in the U.S. be vaccinated to enter one of our events, venues or offices – with limited exceptions as may be required by law. This requirement will go into effect October 4, when our offices are set to reopen their doors for flex work, and to allow on-site staff a few weeks to get vaccinated if they haven’t already. HR will share more details on this soon. As a reminder we are providing an extra paid day off for every dose so you can schedule appointments easily. We’ve seen great vaccination enthusiasm among our staff so far, and we want to ensure we’re taking every step possible to keep you all safe,” Rapino writes.
“Our business and our industry is about uniting people and vaccines are one of the greatest tools for making sure that everyone can continue to enjoy live music together. We’ve gone through a lot this past year and it’s remarkable to see how far we’ve come. If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to reach out to your HR partner. And thank you for continuing to play a role in our continued success.”
Despite an uptick of cases of the delta variant, communities continue to reopen with Live Nation seeing a pent-up demand for in person live events. Strong ticket sales are evident in the US and the UK as concerts and festivals restart, highlighted over the past weekends by Lollapalooza and Rolling Loud in the US and Latitude in the UK hosting a combined three quarters of a million fans. With vaccine rollouts increasing throughout Canada and Europe, Live Nation expects additional markets to open more broadly in the coming months.
The strongest of the industry’s recovery is led by outdoor events with more than six million fans expecting to attend Live Nation produced festivals during the second half of the year, which gives the company a gain of about two-thirds attendance from 2019. Most of the festivals sold out in record time while average ticket prices have been 10% higher than 2019.
The company is already expecting double digit growth from touring and ticket sales into 2023 and 2024.
