Chiff and Fipple Forums

Does anyone know if music festivals are likely to be held this coming year and under what restrictions? I'd especially like to hear from anyone who would usually be performing or involved in planning or staging festivals. From anywhere in the world.

Or is it all completely up in the air?

Pretty sure it will depend on the rate of spread of the Covid virus.

Some might turn up later in the year if all goes well with the various vaccines.

I don't think this will be over any time soon, even if vaccination is rolled out this won't just end and go back to how things were. The virus won't just go away.

Late summer there was some easing of restrictions here, concerts were tentatively starting again but that ended very quickly.

To be honest I think we'll just have to play it by ear and see how things develop.

We've had a number of festival bookings, and ones rolled over from 2020 to 2021.

However, the organisers know no more than me or thee. Some seem to be getting the preliminary booking stuff going, others are probably just waiting. We have one festival rolled over that's in November ... I'd hate to think that would be under threat.

As you say, it's all up in the air, though most festivals seem to be planning in hope.

I had purchased tickets to three different events which were cancelled in 2020.

Two gave the option to roll over to the 2021 event.

One gave the option to roll over to the 2022 event! They've written off 2021 already.

I rolled them all over. We shall see.

Time flies. Just taking a guess we won't see festivals before July 2021. Vaccines will not have had general distribution, with the confirmed major reduction of infections, where the health threat to all ages of people becomes remote.

I'd bet that all the COVID19 health safety guidelines will still be in place and needed to be enforced until at least late fall 2021. Maybe by July/August 2021 smaller events may be possible if they adjust, like indoor festivals, sessions in pubs, etc., but I have no hope for audience self-discipline in open seating situations and environments where people roam and are drinking. It may become possible if the infection count radically drops in a region, that social distancing is not required at events if the wearing of masks still is (or some variation on that theme). Indoors, the use of physical barriers like plexiglass barriers may be of great help. A gradual transition. Guard your health!

How can it be done, before the general population is at ~75%+ vaccination rate?

If you wish to dive into the weeds, a good discussion of the impact of vaccines on both Covid-19 and SARS Covid-2 can be found here: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanc ... 0/fulltext
This is the November 7,2020 edition of Lancet, a fairly reliable source for medical info.

Bob

It's not a big event by any stretch, but I'm hoping that our wedding can go off in September without a hitch (well, erm, maybe with one hitch). From what we've gathered talking to the venue, they're planning on being able to have events by summer of next year, obviously with plenty of precautions. We were originally scheduled for April but that was looking poor, especially since we have all my family traveling from the States (the wedding is in Ireland). The venue has been very on top of the planning, so I trust them to be the best informed on the latest predictions.

In the classical world most orchestras and opera companies have cancelled their entire seasons, which run through the spring. Some are experimenting with virtual events, some are just quiet, but none are planning concerts until June/July of next year at the earliest. That's also a good indicator of what the future may hold. Many orchestras have outdoor venues for the summer, and the hope is that conditions will be good for outdoor concerts by that point.

So (for example), Willie Week in early July seems quite feasible, although given the levels of crowdedness I've experienced at festivals past I wouldn't expect it to be at all the same as usual. But as others have said, we really have no idea at this point. Even though we now have some vaccines available, it'll take months to distribute them to enough people to make a significant impact in the transmission of the virus, and playing in the types of open sessions in crowded pubs that are a hallmark of most trad festivals is both one of the riskiest activities out there and one of the lowest priorities when it comes to relaxing restrictions.

Pesky brackets. an seanduine's link re-assembled, I think, https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanc ... 0/fulltext It says 21 September though.

an seanduine wrote:... a fairly reliable source for medical info.

Summary: it seems that, in the words of the OP, "it's all up in the air".

Some smallish outdoor concerts and sessions would be nice.

Summary: it seems that, in the words of the OP, "it's all up in the air".

Today, in Ireland, cafes and restaurants could re-open. Non essential shops re-opened earlier this week. People are out shopping, getting their hair cut and going out. Ireland has currently the lowest incidence of Covid-19 in Europe but all predictions warn the current easing of restrictions and the inevitable socialising over the chistmas will lead to a new spike in infections, and perhaps another lockdown, in January.

We have been here before, during early summer the county I live in didn't see a case in five weeks. Then restrictions eased, people travelled and went out and the virus was back. I attended some concerts during the summer, properly disctanced and mask wearing and all that. It was great while it lasted but it didn't last very long. Theatres and music venues closed pretty quickly again.

Vaccination will become available to most vulnarable in the new year, mass roll out won't take place before early spring. The virus may eventually slow down but predictions are we won't see that starting to happen before autumn.

FWIW, I got sick exactly a week after attending the last festival before lockdown in early March, only attending a concert and staying away from crowded pubs, thoroughly handsanitising all the time.

Here in California after months of steady decrease we've spiked alarmingly, actually higher now than at the former peak months ago.

So we're going into lockdown again.

On the other hand when I visited West Virginia back in July it was like going to a parallel world. Most counties hadn't had a single case and everything was business as usual. It was viewed, like most other human ills, as a "big city" problem.

The Dills Celtic Festival at Dillsburg Pennsylvania is apparently taking place this weekend. I'm not planning to go.

Their website says:

Ticket sales may be capped and attendance may be limited due to the pandemic. The festival will follow all CDC and Pennsylvania Heath Department pandemic guidelines that are in place at the time of the events.

Despite the nearness of the event, it doesn't go on with any details of what these are. Some of masks and distancing, presumably.

You mentioning Pennsylvania got me to look up the Dublin Ohio Irish festival

https://dublinirishfestival.org/

It's a massive thing.

But I see that they're not putting on the festival per se in 2021, rather having various small events at various venues around the city.

I think the difficult thing is that no matter how much events try to be safe, people are going to flock to any events there are (because "OMG IT'S SOMETHING TO DO!!!"), and unless they have a cutoff for how many people they allow-- ouch; no one's going to be happy about that-- there are going to be big crowds anyway...

Katharine wrote: ↑Fri Apr 16, 2021 7:02 am ...people are going to flock to any events there are, and unless they have a cutoff for how many people they allow there are going to be big crowds...

I would have thought so too, but oddly enough ONE festival that was held last year, in October, was very poorly attended. It sort of snowballed, because when X number of participants in a particular sub-event cancelled their trips the organisers had to cancel that sub-event, and the more sub-events that got cancelled the more participants in other sub-events dropped out. I think it ended up being a few members of the General Public walking around with nothing to do, see, or hear.